News

Putting the Best into Bestway

Friday 10th March 2017

The great and the good of Bestway Wholesale were rewarded last night at a glittering ceremony at the Marriott Grosvenor Square in London.

Over 400 guests including Bestway senior executives, depot staff and supplier partners were united in their admiration for the twelve winners at the Bestway Performance Awards– nine awards for Bestway staff and three awards recognising the role suppliers played in Bestway Wholesale's business in 2016.

The Bestway Performance Awards recognise and reward the achievements of Bestway and Batleys staff across a host of sectors including symbol & club, catering and export sales as well as rewarding staff and departments from head office for their efforts in 2016.

Scooping the top awards of Depot of the Year and Branch Manager of the Year were Sajid Mahmood from Bestway Manchester and Muhammed Asad of Bestway Barking with Guy Gissing and Vinnie Liddar of Barr Soft Drinks taking away the Overall Supplier of the Year accolade.

Among the prizes given out were two new awards for this years Customer Satisfaction Branch of the Year which was won by Batleys Southampton and collected by depot general manager Anton James, and a special Unsung Hero award which was presented to Mohammed Aftab for his category work within the catering and world food side of the business.

In his address to guests Zameer Choudrey CBE, Bestway Group's chief executive, commented, "For our customers and suppliers, our mission is to be the Best Way to grow their food and drink businesses, and tonight we are here to pay tribute to the people who put the Best into Bestway and deliver this on a daily basis.

You will see many of our Bestway wholesale heroes on stage but there are countless others who work diligently day in day out to ensure that the relationships we have forged over the past 40 years remain as strong as possible."

Mr Choudrey also made reference to the recent merger between Tesco and Booker, citing research that stated only 12% of retailers thought that the agreement was good news for the independent sector and only 8% said that Tesco had the interests of independents at the heart of its new business model.

However he was bullish on Bestway Wholesale's recent performance saying. "At Bestway, we will continue to focus on our own strategy and demonstrate our long-term commitment to customers as we always have done. We will always have the best interests of our customers at heart and will continue to offer them a credible alternative in the wholesale sector. Likewise we will strive to provide suppliers with a viable and profitable route to market."

He then commented that the strategy put in place by the newly revamped Executive Team was performing well with Best-one sales up 20% against a symbol decline of 3% across the market.; Catering sales grew 7% year on year; Web and digital brought new customers into Bestway Wholesale with online sales touching £5m per week. Customer satisfaction levels were at an all time high and the company's increased focus on the shopper was rewarded with Best-one being voted the UK's best symbol group in a poll by Which. All of which led Bestway Wholesale attaining the same level of profit in the last six months of 2016 as it did in the whole 2015-2106 financial year (July15-June 16)

Roll of Honour

Group Head Office Employee of the Year
Peter Brame, Category Controller, Petcare

Group Head Office Department of the Yeay
Commercial Finance, collected by Alistair Holland, Head of Commercial Finance

Export Branch of Year
Bestway Tottenham, collected by General Manager, Guhfran Ashraf

Catering Branch of the Year
Batleys Dundee, collected by General Manager, Mike Bradley

Club/Symbol Branch of the Year
Bestway Bolton, collected by General Manager, Trupti Patel

Customer Satisfaction Branch of the Year
Batleys Southampton, collected by General Manager, Anton James

Unsung Hero of the Year
Aftab Mohammed, Bestway Batleys Glasgow

Branch Manager of the Year
Muhammed Asad, General Manager, Bestway Barking

Branch of the Year
Bestway Manchester, collected by Sajid Mahmood and Naveed Anwar

Most Improved Supplier of the Year
KP Snacks, collected by Crispin Newborough

Most Innovative Supplier of the Year
Red Bull, collected by James Galley

Supplier of the Year
Barr Soft Drinks, collected by Guy Gissing and Vinnie Liddar

BPA 2016

For all Bestway media enquiries please contact:
Paul Gray
Group PR and Communications Manager
T: 020 8453 8337
M: 07810 714 766
E: paul.gray@bestway.co.uk