Special Report
Purchasing Forum Breakfast:
What is Local?

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Local produce is an ideal for many operators within the hospitality and leisure industry. Driven by consumer demand and changing eating habits, expectations and awareness of the food we eat has transformed the buying demands of organisations. But what does it entail? Many complexities exist about what local means; discussion at the inaugural purchasing forum pointed to the fact that whilst it was the right philosophy, delivery through smaller suppliers did not always meet compliance needs. So what of larger players? How have they adapted to meet these changing demands?

3663 has invested in a major evolution towards supplying local produce. As explained by Andy Kemp, Group Director of Sales, at a purchasing forum held on the 11th of February, it has not always been a smooth road, raising many questions related to product supply, customer demands and distribution. He spoke about how the company's approach to ensuring that local food is part of its delivery and distribution strategy.

Andy provided an insightful and thought-provoking account of the opportunities and challenges involved with adopting a local approach, including the investment undertaken by the business to work with local suppliers and develop the right distribution networks. He argued that sustainability as a whole is on most organisational agendas. However, the challenge for the business has been to distinguish between those who are just ticking boxes, and those who genuinely want to make a difference.

The company has recently adopted the use of the term fine food in
preference to local food, reflecting some of the complexities associated
with providing local produce. Looking back on the business experience Andy believes that there are a number of key questions for the future:

What is local?

• Is it regional?
• Is it food miles?
• Is it product based?

What is the right accreditation?

• A variety of industry bodes exist regarding farm assured, animal welfare and there are not many common links.
• There needs to be one common goal and one common measure.

What is the right distribution network?

• To achieve carbon neutral status, 3663 will use 3 main hubs rather than one (which would be achievable ) – and this adds cost.

Where is the next public interest element to local food?

• Possibly pub chains and local gastro pubs – there is a huge target market.
• However, within this context London is a distinct market

The forum's discussion...

Andy fielded a number of questions from delegates including:

What is the difference between sustainable and ethical?

Is there another way? So distributors do what they are good at, which means that to a degree you could use a local distribution network?

Everyone would aspire to have lots of local suppliers, but the difficulty is meeting national standards. What does local mean? What does 3663 mean to be local?

The fine food market has lots of products. How does the picking errors etc work?

Local isn’t a growing market, but it is a must do to maintain service levels. Will this be the same as we recover economically? Is it a defensive move?

Is 3663 feeling the effect similar to supermarkets, where suppliers are looking for the business to offer storage etc – things that they cannot afford, just to get people through the door?

Emerging growing companies having difficulty raising finance and maintaining credit ratings can find that working with suppliers is very fickle. How do credit controllers endeavour to understand our business?

Click here for responses to these questions and the full report