A new state-of-the-art Parfetts wholesale cash & carry depot was unveiled in Birmingham that signals the group’s growth plans.
The 92,000sq ft Birmingham site will create 100 new jobs in the area, and is Parfetts’ eighth in the UK, adding to depots in Aintree, Anfield, Halifax, Middlesbrough, Sheffield, Sommercoates and Stockport. The Birmingham depot was officially opened by West Midlands Mayor Andy Street on 22 March.
The site cost £5m to construct and carries 7,000 SKUs, compared to other depots in the group that carry up 11,000. Speaking at the opening day, joint managing director Andy Whitworth explained how much work has gone into the Birmingham site. “We’re offering a best in class cash and carrier experience. We’ve got digital signage, we’ve got activations in from suppliers and we’ve got an onsite catering facility that’s unbelievable. We’ve not built a dark cash and carry, we’ve built a footfall cash and carry with a really good team including the general manager John Griffin. He’s helping us provide that friendly offering when customers are in and providing that best in class customer experience.”
Guy Swindell, joint managing director of Parfetts, added: “Our team has worked hard to launch the new Birmingham depot in a short period of time. It was great to have their hard work recognised by the Mayor. We can’t wait to bring the benefits of our employee-owned model to independent retailers across the region.”
Swindell said that this was part of Parfetts’ national expansion. The group currently has 1,100 stores across Go Local, Go Local Extra and The Local, with ambitions to reach 2,000 sites within five years.
“We’ve been hitting circa 200 stores a year, so I would hope we’d reach that [2,000] target in under five years given the investment into the team. In this particular area [Midlands], we will be really pushing aggressively on recruitment. We’ll be picking the right stores though because it’s not just the numbers game to us. We’ve already got a pipeline of targets that we’re looking,” said Swindell.
Part of the Parfetts’ expansion will focus on The Local fascia which was launched 18 months ago. There are currently around 30 The Local stores but Swindell and Whitworth have ambitions to grow, which they shared with Convenience Store. “It was about creating at first, getting it off the ground because it was a new brand.
“I feel we’ve done that. So that was mission one. The next thing was make it real and not just have two or three of them and then never see it again. Now we’ve got a substantial amount and some in each region to showcase. Realistically it’s not going to be Go Local numbers but I’d hope to be getting into triple-digit figures in the next year or two.”
Whitworth explained the appeal of The Local offering. “I think The Local is unique in that a lot of the good things that came from it, we built them based on retailer feedback. We had forums to discuss the marketing and trading with retailers and all that feedback went into developing that format. It’s built from the customer upwards.”
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