Page 23 - BOSS Today Issue 22

Boss Magazine Spoke to Ryan Torrible
Business Development Manager of NWT FM wholesale.

We spoke back in September but I’m sure there has With more and more channels for the dealer to buy
been lots of changes to discuss as well as a rebranding through are you concerned this will affect sales in
of the Company name? 2014?
Well firstly it’s a ‘soft rebrand’ rather than a full I would think the traditional wholesaler route to market
Company renaming, which was brought about by the would be more affected than we will, as we only
expanding range we have developed into. specialise in a small, but growing sector. In some ways
18 Years ago we only sold Tetley Tea in the North West, the growing competition is good, it makes dealers look
hence the name! Now we sell 1000+ lines covering away from their normal route and dig around looking
most of the FM sector, nationally. When we for the best deal or range, and in our particular sector
commissioned a marketing team to look into our I’m sure we have a biggest range in the country. Our
Foodservice sector one of the suggestions was to make service levels are also very good, if we advertise stock
North West Tea look less regionalised and relay the full we generally have it in container volumes for customers
range and direction of the business, hence the NWT FM to call on. We have so many dealers who are saying
wholesale! they just cannot work with the current wholesalers and
2013 did bring a lot of changes and a lot of challenges, asking if we can help. So no, I’m not overly concerned,
we built a new warehousing facility to cope with the more optimistic.
new lines and future range development, we took on
20% more customers over the 4 main sectors we supply What’s new for NWT in 2014?
into, we increased turnover by 24% and as discussed Well after all the changes in 2013 we will be
had the rebrand, so a very busy year indeed. trying to fit it all together. With the expanding range,
new warehouse etc., it’s important we keep our service
You mentioned other sectors but how did the Office levels and customer service to the usual high
supply sector figure for NWT in 2013? standards. We are developing a new website to make
Very well indeed, I think the expanding range really ordering online easier and to showcase our products
helps this sector. The Foodservice, Vending and other better; this should be done in the Q3. Our monthly
sectors we supply into are very stable businesses and Trade Saver is proving extremely popular and we hope
buy the same lines week in week out, but Office Supply to introduce a Website version with the new site. Online
dealers are very innovative and will diversify into what brochures are now up and running and we are
their particular customer base requires, so are more customising a lot of these for individual customers. This is
open to new lines. In fact we are lead in a lot of ways very popular for the stockless dealers in all sectors and
from enquires from dealers like “Do you do this?” or we are getting 2-3 people a month currently building
“Can you source this line?” and as always we try to say they’re business around our specific offering.
of course we can, now where do I find that! General Sales Enquiries:
On average across our business, we take on 50-ish new 0151 703 0044
Dealers a year, whether stockists or non stockist. But the Field Sales:
big growth is working with the customer base we pete.churcher@northwestteas.co.uk
currently have and widening them out. Average orders Email:
for the sector are up 123% over 3 years which means sales@northwestteas.co.uk
we are getting something right.

FM Solutions

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