Food redistributor hungry for expansion

A RAPIDLY expanding Yorkshire business which is helping to combat food waste plans to create hundreds of new jobs as demand for its services rockets.

South Yorkshire-headquartered Company Shop takes surplus stock from the food supply chain and redistributes it to a network of staff (factory) shops. The waste is a solution for retailers and suppliers in the food industry to generate a return on produce that would usually go to landfill or anaerobic digestion.

Based in a 14,000 sq ft site in Tankersley, Barnsley, Company Shop works with all the major supermarkets, and a large number of manufacturers in the UK including Heinz, Muller, Mondelez and Tetley. It typically slashes prices by a third when it sells on the surplus stock.

Run by managing director Mark Game, the business, which has a turnover of £33m, now plans to accelerate its growth. Game said given the business’s current growth, it is looking to build more space at its headquarters and envisages employing 100 more staff within the next two years.

Launched in 1985, Company Shop now employs more than 500 people – 250 of which are based in its £8m Yorkshire HQ. It operates 34 factory shops across the UK but within the next five years, plans to open another ten.

With more than 50,000 members, Company Shop says it is the UK’s largest redistributor of surplus food, helping the food industry stop 30,000 tonnes of food becoming waste each year. It helps retailers and suppliers recover the costs of production, saving the industry more than 108m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year.

“Food waste is becoming more and more of a social issue and environmental issue,” Game, who worked in business planning for RSM Tenon before working at Company Shop, said. “We believe we need a voice in the debate.

“We are partnering with more and more manufacturers and now, as we grow, we looking to work closer with manufacturers and look at Europe as a market, too.

“We are growing. We are looking to open two large stores a year and will be looking at the food industry and the hot spots across the country.”

The business works with around 450 different manufacturers across the country.

Company Shop has been chosen to join the London Stock Exchange’s Elite programme, which identifies ambitious businesses to develop and grow, and is also busy rolling out community shops across the country. Using the Company Shop redistribution model, it helps people who are on the cusp of food poverty return to mainstream retail. As well as food at discounted prices, Community Shop offers support and advice to its members, such as training in budgeting, CV-writing skills and cookery.

Community Shop said this is the first ever network of social supermarkets in the UK. A pilot store in Goldthorpe, South Yorkshire opened late last year, with a second pilot store set to open in London over the next few months.

Game said the business will now roll out six shops a year and aims to get to 20 shops.