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COMMUNITY SHOP MARKS NINTH STORE AFTER OPENING ITS DOORS IN LEICESTER

Award-winning social supermarket, Community Shop, has opened its ninth store, with hundreds of people coming together to celebrate the opening of the all-new social supermarket in Leicester.

The store will offer a lifeline to families facing the ongoing rise in the cost of living by offering surplus food and household products from major brands and retailers all at deeply discounted prices.

Revenue raised from the in-store sales is re-invested back into the local area through its Community Hub, where members can access personal development support, with sessions including everything from cookery clubs and home budgeting, to interview skills and business courses.

Community Shop Leicester, which will support around 750 members, also features a Community Kitchen that serves delicious low-cost meals, with kids eating free every day, as well as a multi-purpose community space for local people and organisations to hire and use.

The store was opened thanks to the support of several partners including Leicester City Council, Leicester-based food manufacturer, Samworth Brothers and online supermarket, Ocado. The Leicester store is the third Community Shop that Ocado has funded in the last 12 months.

Community Shop membership is free and open to people who live locally, receive welfare support, and are motivated to make a positive change to their lives.

Annually, Community Shop supports over 10,000 members, who make an average saving of £212 per month on food that would otherwise have gone to waste.

Natalie Brown, Head of Community Shop, said: “We’re so excited to open our latest Community Shop and welcome our new members inside for the first time.

“These are incredibly challenging times financially for many families, with many worrying how they’ll manage to afford expensive energy bills and rising food prices, and we’re so pleased that we’re able to offer a helping hand to people in Leicester.”

Community Shop offers more than just deeply discounted food, providing wrap-around support through life-changing personal development programmes that deliver real change for individuals and communities. These help to rebuild lives, develop long-term aspiration change and empowerment in communities and break long-term dependency on food aid.

Jonathan Wiseman, General Counsel and Chief People Officer at Ocado Retail said: “We’re proud to be supporting the opening of another Community Shop – the third store Ocado has funded over the past 12-months – this time in the city of Leicester. We look forward to supporting future openings and continuing to contribute surplus food and donations that play a key part in Community Shop’s mission to solve food poverty.”

Community Shop is part of the UK’s leading surplus redistribution organisation, Company Shop Group, which runs 15 redistribution superstores including Company Shop Leicester on Leicester Business Park.

To find out more about Community Shop, and learn how to apply for free membership, head to: www.companyshopgroup.co.uk/communityshop/.

MANAGING DIRECTOR OF FORTIS THERAPY AND TRAINING CONFIRMED TO SPEAK AT THIS YEARS HEALTH AND SAFETY CONFERENCE

Alexis Powell-Howard, the Managing Director of Fortis Therapy and Training, is confirmed to speak at this years Health and Safety conference in the Mental Health and Wellbeing section.

‘There is nothing more certain than change’ – Alexis Powell-Howard will explore the impact that the pandemic has had upon our own and our employees’ mental health and wellbeing and will include how to acknowledge the possible impact, support team members in the workplace and share useful strategies to acknowledge what can sometimes be the ‘elephant in the room’.

Alexis Powell-Howard (MA) is the Managing Director at Fortis Therapy & Training, a multi award-winning therapeutic and emotional wellbeing service working to deliver the gold standard in quality of service and experience.

Alexis is a TEDx (Why hide the repair?) and professional speaker, winner of Best Business of the Year 2021 and has been listed in the Top 100 of female entrepreneurs in the UK in 2020. An experienced leader and manager, a BACP accredited and experienced psychotherapist, systemic practitioner, supervisor, trainer, mediator, and leadership coach, passionate about therapeutic approaches and how effective they can be to help individuals, businesses, schools, and organisations to move through difficult times.

Alexis is a regular on BBC Radio Lincolnshire and Humberside, contributing expert and host of live webinars, seminars, conferences and hosts the Keeping the Peace Podcast for Oscar Kilo, The National Police Wellbeing Service.

There is still time to book your tickets for the day – Book here

FOUNDATION EARTH CONFIRMED TO SPEAK AT THIS YEARS TECHNICAL CONFERENCE

Emma Bryant, the Head of Strategic Partnerships and Funding for Foundation Earth, is confirmed to speak at this year’s Technical Conference, in our creating a sustainable future section.

Emma is passionate about achieving sustainability goals through collaborative, purpose-driven partnerships across the private and public sectors. As Head of Strategic Partnerships and Funding for Foundation Earth, she is building alliances across the agri-food ecosystem to help deliver more resilient and sustainable food systems.

Foundation Earth’s mission is to create the knowledge, systems and enabling conditions for companies to accurately understand and adapt their value chains to achieve environmental goals.

Our aim is to create a harmonised, science-based methodology that uses primary data to evaluate a food product’s true impact on the environment; supporting consumers to make more conscious purchasing decisions and providing accurate insights for companies to make targeted improvements along the value chain.

Emma began her career in the private sector before moving to the not-for-profit sector working for various organisations including UNICEF and the European Commission’s Knowledge and Innovation Community, Climate-KIC; designing and delivering major partnerships with government, industry and civil society bodies.

Emma is Head of Strategic Partnerships and Funding for Foundation Earth and is building alliances across the food sector to help deliver more resilient and sustainable food systems. She has extensive experience both in the public and private sectors, working for organisations including UNICEF and the European Commission’s Knowledge and Innovation Community, Climate-KIC designing and delivering major partnerships with government, industry and civil society bodies.

Foundation Earth is an independent, non-profit organisation established to issue front-of-pack environmental scores on food products, enabling consumers to make more sustainable buying choices. We have brought together expert scientists and leading figures from food production and retailing across the UK and EU who all share a vision of a future food industry that doesn’t destroy Planet Earth.

Our aim is to create a harmonised, science-based methodology that uses primary data to evaluate a food product’s true impact on the environment; supporting consumers to make more conscious purchasing decisions and providing accurate insights for companies to make targeted improvements along the value chain.

Tickets are available to buy – Buy Today

DEFENDING RETAILER CLAIMS!

Another super example of how Salitix can make the difference for a busy supplier. Recently @Shane Barton was able to defend an £8K funding claim from one of the big 4 that was initially validated by our client. But why would a supplier validate a claim that was not valid and why would a 3rd party auditor be better able to reach the correct conclusion? It’s very simple – on the face of it the funding claim appeared valid – it correctly identified an actual promotion that had run, providing the correct promotional contract and EPOS data that identified sales of the product in question during the promotional period. When these were cross referenced to the forecast for the promotion, they were very similar and there was a funding accrual outstanding. Valid claim.

However, the supplier has the benefit of Salitix as its 2nd pass on all audit claims, this means that a) the suppliers commercial team has no direct engagement with the Retailers auditor on any audit issue, this is all handled by Salitix and b) Salitix then re-review the claim to sense check the validation.

In this case the auditor did two things to check the funding claimed for:
Were the products sold actually sold at the promotional price?
What exactly was included in the EPOS – Retailer estates are large and often promotions will be for specific parts of the estate and unless the EPOS is filtered according to the contract, could include sales not relevant to the promotional agreement.

From this analysis, the auditor identified that not all of the sales were made at the promotional price, meaning that they should not be subject to any funding and excluded from any calculation; that the particular promotional agreement excluded sales in Scotland and Wales, whereas the EPOS data provided by the Retailer auditor included it.

The result, an 8K claim was settled for a little more than a 100 quid.

Who wants to give Retailer audit teams their hard earned 2021 margins a year after the dust has settled? Nobody. It pays to reconcile your trading to 100% accuracy, not the 98-99% your systems and checks will obtain. To do this you need a forensic auditor with many years of commercial experience to review each and every promotional spend against what was agreed – something that only a forensic auditor has the time, or skill to do.

Get in touch to find out how we can help your business recover those pesky £8k’s your customer might otherwise take…

 

HOW TO RISE TO THE CHALLENGES & SALES OPPORTUNITIES OF 2022

The first quarter of 2022 has proved challenging with so much change again, including supply disruptions impacting on meeting the increased demand for frozen foods.

We share the 8 trends that are defining 2022 and impact overall revenue for the next year.

1. Insights are imperative

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) offer fast-learning of data to improve many aspects including customer and product insights. From predicting the best products to sell to digging up new opportunities to cross-sell, upsell and link sales. AI and ML will make your sales team much more efficient and have access to the data they need.

 

2. Attracting and retaining talent

Many young people in the workforce, particularly in their 20’s and 30’s, are now putting a bigger focus on how much a potential employer utilises technology, or is willing to embrace innovation as part of their day-to-day working life.

So it’s important to offer effective sales enablement tools that make data-mining less time consuming and are willing to embrace new technology over the next 12 months and beyond. ­

 

3. Creating synergy within your team

With teams demanding more hybrid working, sales managers have the challenge of managing more remote teams.

Many sales reps are eager to get back on the road, it is crucial that to succeed, your team needs to be unified.

A centralised system and sales enablement tool allows your team to work flawlessly together, improving efficiency for the team, with full sight across all accounts and opportunities.

 

4. Personalisation is everything

Comprehensive business reports for every call is a powerful way to do this, and to quickly react to any slip in sales and pick up the phone.

Taking a personalised approach to each customer doesn’t need to take a lot.

Instead of personalisation being time-consuming with the right sales technology, it becomes effortless to go that extra mile and show your customers you value them.

 

5. Customer retention is imperative

With more of a shift towards sales teams focusing on cultivating relationships with existing customers along with a bigger drive towards better customer relationships.

Having the right CRM in place maximises conversations, making sure your customers feel appreciated and no customer is forgotten about.

 

6. The art of value-selling

By now, people have seen or heard most of the tricks of the trade when it comes to being sold something and will be able to see right through any sales gimmicks.

“Bonding over football or fishing is no longer enough.”

With the idea of selling the value or benefit first, rather than the product features.

By taking a value-based approach to selling, your reps will be able to get creative in their pitches.

 

7. Digital spaces

More interactions will happen in digital spaces, with the benefit of sales insights to cross-selling, upselling and link sales opportunities.

This provides easy access to everything you need for a call, being fully informed about what you’re (virtually) walking into., sales can be boosted thanks to these instant insights.

 

8. The power of social selling

Social selling enables salespeople to find, contact, and interact with prospects through social media.

When teamed with a value-first approach, you can focus on building genuine connections with prospects and customers.

This helps to grow trust in you and your company, and as trust plays such a huge part in the decision process, it’s important to get it right.

 

Download for further insights @

Supercharge your sales and book a free demo today with sales-i @

 

 

 

 

AQUA DEBUTS AQUA PRO CHILLER RANGE

Temperature control specialist, Aqua, have launched a new range of completely packaged chillers. The Aqua Pro units have been specifically designed for process applications and display an impressive array of standard features.

The chillers cover cooling capacities from 1kW to MW+, working with process fluid temperatures from -25°C to +20°C. As well as a process specific design, incorporating an innovative coaxial evaporator, the Aqua Pro demonstrates a real commitment to reducing energy costs and carbon impact.

The Aqua Pro utilises a 0.7mm thick copper coaxial evaporator, with 8mm water pathways. The larger than normal pathways eliminate any risk of blockage and subsequent evaporator damage. Water contamination by debris is all too common within the process industry, so this design feature is a clear benefit. The condenser within the Aqua Pro is 0.4mm thick copper construction, double the industry standard of 0.2mm.

“The Aqua Pro range is here to make a difference to the industry,” explains Aqua Sales Director, Owen Hymers. “We wanted to design a chiller that can stand up to the demands & challenges that the process market faces daily. Yet we also wanted to tackle, head on, the issues around energy consumption and the environment that are impacting us all.”

“Low GWP R454B refrigerant comes as standard, as does completely integrated free cooling. R454B has a GWP rating over 75% lower than R410A, one of the most deployed refrigerants within our industry. R454B achieves a balance between optimal efficiency and performance levels whilst addressing pressing environmental concerns.”

“The Aqua Pro achieves free cooling at higher ambient temperatures than any of its contemporaries. We have helped customers dramatically cut their energy costs by using free cooling – in some cases by 80%. It’s a real game changer, not just for customers but also the environment.”

Aqua hold stock of the Aqua Pro range at their Hampshire based Head Office & Warehouse facility, enabling them to offer next day, UK wide delivery. Units come with a 3-year parts & labour warranty.

All electrical & mechanical parts are available through Aqua, or UK wide stockists, giving customers flexibility of supply and making parts easy to source if needed, rather than being manufacturer specific. The Aqua Pro is highly configurable and able to cope with the most complex requirements. For example, options include special finishing for marine based applications and low noise fans and soundproofing for noise sensitive environments.

For more information visit Aqua Pro

Member Benefits

Exclusive Partnership deals on key products and services:

  • BFFF energy deals and rates
  • Vypr member deals and introduction
  • Defib Plus deals
  • Company Shop – membership
  • Mentor – MHE training health check

Exclusive access to networking opportunities and events:

  • Meet the Buyer events (retail & foodservice)
  • Annual Business Conference with networking dinner
  • Specialist H&S and Technical Conferences
  • Special interest groups (packaging, frozen food temperatures)
  • Annual Lunch
  • Awards Night
Upcoming Events More Events
Sponsorship Packages

We offer a range of sponsorship opportunities to BFFF members across our events throughout the year, with flexible packages that can be tailored to suit your business objectives.

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