Set up in 1973 by Rati Dhanani - who is still managing director and owner of the company, Wealmoor owes its roots to Kenya. Dhanani was a pioneer within the Kenyan horticultural export industry in the 1960s, but, having become disillusioned with the way his produce was being marketed on arrival in the UK, decided to take matters into his own hands.
In Kenya, Dhanani had grown beans, courgettes, peppers and pineapples. But once in the UK, he continued to show his vision for an opening, bringing in some of the first mangoes to the UK market in 1976 and causing consternation amongst his competitors when chartering the first full aeroplane of mangoes, from Mexico to Europe, in 1978. “People thought I was crazy,” he says. “They could not believe there was a market for a full plane load of mangoes. But we sold the lot in three days.”
Crazy he may have been, but it is hard to argue with the situation the company now finds itself in. Specialising in exotic vegetables, legumes and exotic fruit and organics, Wealmoor is involved at all stages of the supply chain - growing, importing, marketing, packing and distributing the product.
Commercial director Avnish Malde says: “The success achieved during the early days of the business in the UK was borne of the fact that there was a ready market to explore and tap into. Rati was not afraid to follow his convictions and that is something that stays with the company today. No-one can accuse us of not being prepared to put our money where our mouth is.”
The regional wholesale markets still held sway of course in the mid 1970s, but Wealmoor also sold its produce through the supermarkets’ preferred prepackers of the day. Volume expanded rapidly and the decision was taken to erect a fully-owned facility that could handle supermarket orders in-house. “It was revolutionary at the time,” says Malde. “Wealmoor built a fully temperature controlled centralised packing facility, with nine state-of-the-art temperature-controlled high cold stores. It was a clear statement of intent that we were going into the supermarkets.”
That statement was met in no uncertain terms. Geest, the company’s largest customer, a well know prepacker and supplier to the retailers at the time, withdrew a £3m contract from its new ‘competitor’ overnight, forcing Wealmoor to re-evaluate its approach and, if anything, reinforcing the fact that now was the time to up the ante. Waitrose, for which Wealmoor is the category legume supplier and a leading exotic supplier to this day, was its first retail customer, but from day one there was a recognition that the multiple retailers were not the only outlet for the array of produce in the portfolio.
Malde says: “Multiple retailers might represent 80 per cent of the retail fruit and vegetable market, but what is overlooked is that out-of-home consumption and therefore the foodservice sector is responsible for 45 per cent of the fresh produce consumed overall. There is an increasing amount of opportunity outside of the retail sector; it really should not be underestimated. This realisation has played a big part in shaping what we are trying to do as a company.”
Wealmoor has moved from being a £10 million turnover organisation at the beginning of the 1990s to a £52m company now, and foodservice, which accounts for around 35 per cent of the firm’s business, has a huge role to play. “We have always seen the foodservice arena as somewhere we can use as a test bed for the retail market. This and the wholesale sectors are not dumping grounds for product not required by retailers, in fact to the contrary. We do not supply the products that our retail customers don’t want, but a lot of the retail innovation in the last few years in the exotic category has stemmed from work we have first carried out with our catering customer base. We are fortunate to have a complementary mix of customers - both retail and foodservice - that understand what we are doing and the potential for the products we supply them with.”
This year has seen the opening of an additional dedicated site in Taplow for Wealmoor’s foodservice and specialist wholesale division. This gives the business the ability to have greater dedication and focus to the respective retail and specialist wholesale/food service businesses. “It also gives the business additional capacity to grow both businesses with the necessary momentum whilst continuing to give complete focus to every customer,” says Malde.
The dedication and passion of the Wealmoor team for their products and their willingness to work extremely closely with customers has also stood the company in good stead, he adds. “The mango category is just one example of our work. Some of the work we have done to develop mango merchandising has changed the face of the market.” The company has also carried out industry-leading work on Near Infra Red technology to determine the maturity and internal condition of mangoes. This has been ground breaking and with the first installation of its kind made three years ago, the foresight displayed in going down this path is clear testament to the industry leading innovation the business has built its reputation on. The switch from 30x40 trays to 60x40 trays with inners has arguably had the largest effect on the category, as retailers scurry to change their specs to replicate the success that the larger sized trays have enjoyed.
The giant Formosa papaya has been another success story. Pioneered by Brazilian producer Caliman, which also introduced the golden papaya to the market, Formosa is a 1.5-2kg piece of fruit, it was already a steady seller in the wholesale markets, but since introduction into the retail sphere 18 months ago Wealmoor has seen volumes peak at 21 tonnes a week for just two customers. “We suggested initially that we could try it in supermarkets in the UK’s ethnic hotspots, but the results have illustrated that the mindset that papaya will only sell to people who know papaya was wrong. I think the consumer’s ability to recognise good fruit and good value is often under-estimated. This example shows that they will pay more for big fruit and are happy to come back for more,” says Malde.
“There has been no cannibalisation of the small papaya market at all. Papaya has always lived in the shadow of the mango, as the leader of the ‘other exotic’ category. But as mangoes move into the mainstream, papayas are best placed to take over their mantle as the number one exotic line - and perhaps follow them into the mainstream in time. There has never been the exposure for papaya, which was down in part to a lack of consistency of both quality and supply.” Both of those issues are now in-hand though, and Malde predicts significant long-term growth for the fruit. The scale of sales of Formosa has been achieved without excessive price-cutting.
“The invariable downward pressure on prices is dangerous and ridiculous. There is so much required to move this industry forward and ensure that consumers can continue to comfortably spend their money on our products with no fear that it won’t be good enough to eat,” he says. In the age of on-line auctions and below-cost tenders, it has been refreshing to see some of the customers take a more considered approach to their dealings, looking for long-term gains, built on genuine cost savings, which are sustainable for all. After all, as an industry with the government putting a lot more pressure on healthy eating, we have no better opportunity then to generate increased sales without devaluing the marketplace,” he says.
Wealmoor, which is still a large-scale grower in its own right, aims to develop a fully capable global sourcing network which is based on strong partnerships with growers who are capable of delivering unique supply solutions through continually challenging best practice in pursuit of excellence and efficiency, Malde says. “We have our own farms in The Gambia and Senegal in West Africa, and we are also investing in extending our farming interests in Kenya in East Africa as well as joint ventures in various other countries enabling us to develop relationships with growers around the world from a different perspective to most importers. We work with world-class growers, who are totally integrated with our business and the needs of our customer base. We communicate with all growers constantly - they need to know what our customers require and where they, and we, see the business going. Caliman is just one example of that. It has a tremendous geographic spread in Brazil - we have to find this diversity in order to ensure a continuous calendar of supply. Caliman, like many of our suppliers, is very much involved with the science of production - not just delivering product to the UK as we order it,” he says.
“It is not just knowing what your customers want, we have focused on improving our ability to influence that at a very early stage to create a vertically integrated supply chain.”
Malde is wary of the plethora of standards that are imposed on producers around the world. “It is not that any of the standards are worthless individually,” he says. “But once you have achieved BRC, EurepGAP, Nature’s Choice Gold etc. you are essentially back to square one. It is a pity there isn’t a standard that officially recognises product expertise I don’t think suppliers get any recognition for their expertise any more. That’s where the standard of the people makes a difference.
“I can see the sense in the retailers’ desire for larger scale operations and the associated economies of scale, but there has to be scope still for the smaller growers that have the ability to differentiate their product by putting their skills and knowledge base to its best use. That’s why we are proud that within our business we have people who passionately believe in the products they work with.
“We are I suppose a pretty ferociously independent company and our people are everything. It made the transition from small, family company to medium sized business to large business, an incredibly painful process at times, because people are an integral part of that change and managing their expectations is fundamental to the ongoing success of the company.”
Wealmoor won the inaugural Re:fresh Importer of the Year this year and Malde was quick to pinpoint the internal teamwork and dedication of individuals to their particular objectives as key. “The award was testament to the work that our customers, suppliers and our team have all done in the last few years,” he says. The company continues to invest in the “softer virtues” of the business through events such as last summer’s Family Fun Day, which attracted well over 300 people, graduate programmes to develop the future managers of the business, informative internal newsletters keeping staff up to date on various aspects of the business as well as working with suppliers on developing community projects in various countries and much more. “Winning last year’s Re:fresh Award was a great honour and really was a tribute to having a genuine desire to grow this sector of the industry through innovation and passion,” Malde says. “It is important for us to not lose sight of the broader aspects and values of the business, especially when there is so much pressure on so many fronts to meet ever increasing customer demands.”
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