Reflecting On Success

Statistics show sales in the food and grocery sector have out-performed all others.

Food sales over the summer period were up 5.3% on last year according to recent figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

Speciality food producer, Feeding Your Imagination (FYI) celebrates its third successful year in business this month.

Over 200 independent retailers now sell the company’s range of therapeutic chocolate bars, gourmet seaweed sauces and experimental specialities.

“We’ve been approached by various supermarkets, but business from independent stores is strong, ” said owner Paul Da-Costa-Greaves.

“Turning down such lucrative offers demonstrates the buoyancy of the sector,” he explained.

Indeed, the industry’s strength and persistence was evident at the Speciality & Fine Food Fair in September.

The event, which has now been serving food and drink specialists for a decade, attracted over 7000 visitors.

“It was fantastic to see so much enthusiasm in the industry despite it being such a tough year, ” said Paul MacDonald, event director.

“If I had to highlight the one significant area that has pushed us through this period it has to be the fact that we’ve remained 100 per cent focused,” said Mr Da-Costa-Greaves.

“We haven’t cut budgets, we’ve just kept promoting ourselves in the market,” he added.

John Selby, director of Kent & Fraser, a company specialising in gluten-free baked goods, used the fair as an opportunity to gain feedback from byers.

“We were completely overwhelmed with the number and quality of visitors. It was so busy we even needed to draft in another person to help!” he said.

For the first time, the Small Business Forum hosted one-to-one sessions: ‘Small Business Heroes’ gave visitors the chance to gain free, personalised advice from successful traders.

Other popular attractions included the Fine Food Forum and the Speciality Chocolate Fair.

The event took place from 5 – 7 September at Olympia in London.