Food professionals given a taste of Tyneside at inaugural trade show

More than 500 caterers, chefs, and food professionals attended a north east-based foodservice company’s inaugural trade show.

Tyneside Foodservice, which has its depot in Blaydon, Tyne & Wear, hosted the event, which provided an opportunity for its customers to meet suppliers and discuss the latest industry trends and patterns.

The trade show, held at Gateshead International Stadium, also gave attendees the opportunity to hear about Tyneside’s growth and expansion in recent years.

The family-owned company, which was founded in 1979 as a frozen foodservice operation, added ambient and chilled products to its lines 11 years ago. This side of the business has seen more than 30 per cent growth in three years.

And Tyneside’s sales director Peter Henderson says popular feedback after the event centred on learning about the business’ extensive product range.

“Many of our customers were pleasantly surprised to find out that we can offer more than just frozen,” he said.

“We have more than 3,500 products across frozen, chilled, ambient and non-food. One of our objectives was to educate attendees about Tyneside and how it is well equipped to assist with their growth and deliver high-quality products beyond our traditional frozen lines.

“We certainly achieved that based on feedback and subsequent requests for samples.

“It was also a brilliant chance for our customers to speak to the 83 suppliers in attendance about trends and current and potential consumer demands.”

Tyneside, which has close to 1,000 customers in the north east, is now planning to make the trade show an annual event.

Peter said: “Many of our customers are independent businesses, and it’s a huge commitment to leave the business to attend all or part of the day.

“We had fantastic support with customers attending from the upper border of Northumberland down to the outskirts of North Yorkshire. Our goal for 2017 is to ensure as many of our customers attend the trade show as possible.

“We will be liaising with them to find out how we can support this happening.”

Tyneside is a member of Fairway Foodservice, a buying group made up of 18 independent wholesalers from across the UK, Ireland, Jersey, Spanish Costas and Balearic Islands.

For further information visit: http://www.tynesidefoodservice.com/.