Everyone knows that the average wholesale company is not the fast and furious business model it once was. Similarly, anyone knows that to survive in any industry, moving with the times is crucial and standing still, especially in the fresh food arena, is commercial suicide. So why, at a time of economic difficulty - when historically wholesale markets do best - are fruit and vegetable wholesale traders running on empty in Cardiff?
The mantra “keep your head down” in times of hardship reverberates around the Wholesale Fruit Centre. It is like a battleground out there, especially in the winter months. The simple truth is that Cardiff’s Wholesale Fruit Centre is a mess. Much like other wholesale markets outside of the main cities, its circa 1970s structure is working against its very aims and principles, with no cover or canopy to protect the fragile, sensitive products, let alone provide a pleasant environment for the employees of the businesses within the site, which are declining in numbers by the year and failing to attract young entrepreneurs.
Products suffer from frostbite on the courtyard, and rubbish and rotten fruit litters what you could loosely describe as the customers’ walkway. This is not the place to whet your appetite by any stretch of the imagination. And inside the units it is not a lot better. Although mostly tidy and well-kept, the units hold old and rusty fridges, and with the exception of the larger or new companies, equipment that has seen better days. “Half of this market is like a ghost town,” says Hugh Bird of TJ Bird & Sons, looking out at the dark, abandoned units facing him.
But the market is controlled by a private board of companies, with no red tape to wade through like Birmingham or Manchester. So what’s the problem?
The board of directors, as it’s known on Cardiff market, is made up of a group of companies that includes only three wholesale businesses, with the remainder of the power sitting with mostly property developers. Upon FPJ’s arrival, traders were very keen to share the latest gossip that the board had requested planning permission for a development of new houses on the Wholesale Fruit Centre site. Most seem set on a move and are waiting for the off, despite the fact that the housing market is as dead in Cardiff as it is in most areas of the UK.
David Hunter of Total Produce, one of the board directors, defends the management system and believes, as many on the market do, that a private consortium making the decisions is much better than some disconnected council department. “All of the companies on this market had an opportunity to put a representative on the board and be heard but none of them did, so it remains the three that own shares,” he says. “The property developers on the board felt that it would improve the value of the site if it had planning permission for development in place. But I don’t think anything is going to happen in the near future; it doesn’t stand up economically.”
Apparently, the plan is all part of a bigger picture that Cardiff City Council has to build on brownfield sites. I put it to Hunter that the rest of the wholesalers were all waiting for a move and that there was a danger that these businesses would stop investing.
“As one of the major companies on the market and in the wholesale industry, we haven’t any intention of causing decline; we all need to earn a living,” he answers. “No discussions have taken place and I really don’t see another purpose-built wholesale market in Cardiff being created now. I think it’s very unlikely.”
So will the future bring standalone wholesalers in Cardiff? “I don’t see anyone setting up on their own,” says Hunter. “The long-term future of the wholesale market will lie in maybe an industrial estate off the M4 and it’ll probably comprise four to five companies.”
TJ Bird & Sons is on the board and the company is one of the main shareholders on the market, but even Bird was unclear on the timescale for change. “We submitted the planning permission in the last couple of months for 250 houses and any move would depend on when or if we sell,” he says. “It could be five years or it could be 10. Who knows? It will take at least two years to get planning permission and then we’d have to find a developer. I see us being here in five years’ time, but no one really knows. The industry is diminishing and youngsters don’t want to work here. My son Matthew has come into the business and he’s 30, but there aren’t many young people around.”
With uncomfortable working conditions, unsociable hours and old-fashioned principles, the life of a traditional wholesaler is hardly an attractive one. Most wholesaler traders act as if it’s just the new generation that are “scared of a bit of hard work”, but Mack’s Alun Lovell puts it differently. “You have to make the job worth their while,” he says, when asked how much a new salesperson would be paid. “We like to start them as a porter and build up their roles to being a salesperson and further in the company. If you find someone good, you have to look after them to keep them and encourage them up through the ranks. I have been on this market for 38 years and young people have never wanted to work here, but at the moment we have a couple of youngsters that have stayed for a couple of years.”
It’s a common problem, but the ‘old boy’ culture is fierce. “There’s no future generations of our families to take the business forward,” says David Broughton, co-owner with his brother of Peter Broughton Ltd. “I have daughters, so there was no option -and they’re into their sciences anyway.”
It’s almost taken as read that the wholesale market in Cardiff is no place for women -so that’s potentially 50 per cent of customers and future employees down the drain. “We could do with a female salesperson on the market,” says catering supplier Fresh For You’s Ken Young. “We don’t even have one woman working front of house.”
And where other wholesale markets across the UK have diversified and welcomed different backgrounds to the business, some say Cardiff is a little behind the times.
“Honestly, people can be racist,” alleges one customer, collaring my colleague and I as we try to leave the market. “The way some of the wholesalers talk to their customers is terrible; my Chinese customers love the idea of coming down here, but don’t like the way they get treated. Cardiff as a city can be a very racist place to be in and it makes no sense because these people are opening businesses that contribute to the economy and most of them were born here, so they’re as Welsh as they are. New faces aren’t welcome here.”
Another battle for wholesalers, of course, is the one against the supermarkets, which you could argue was won by the latter a good while ago, but the wholesalers still talk of the multiples like they are rehashing war wounds. Losing count of the times I introduced the idea of diversifying past the effects of the supermarkets during the interviews, I started to ask how they could make the future of wholesale sustainable rather than licking their wounds?
This is where the market segregates into two types of traders: those who try, despite the conditions around them, to succeed and find their own way; and those who essentially admit that they’re waiting for retirement through a nice offer from a larger company. It’s the difference between the wholesaler that excitedly takes you through all the weird and wonderful produce that his customers have been hankering after, as well as some new varieties of the usual fare, and the salesperson that answers with a shrug, “nothing much”, when you ask what’s new. If you don’t have passion for your business and the products you sell, how can you expect your staff or your customers to come back for more?
And then some could say that there are those who enjoy the stability that comes with an allegiance with a large chain of companies. Although a counter argument to that is the story of Vitacress Sales Cardiff -two years ago claiming to do well in FPJ’s last article on Cardiff wholesale market, and now nowhere to be seen.
When questioned about the challenges in the wholesale industry, the answer is mostly the same and always goes back to the supermarkets taking customers - still a major concern for traders. “That’s the future; we’re all going to end up working for Tesco,” says SJ Bevan’s Steven Bevan. “If you ask me, we need to educate the kids straight from school to eat healthily, but they’re just bombarded with adverts for Tesco Metro. The government seems to help supermarkets with planning permission and not the local or high street shops. Tesco is taking over.”
A local independent greengrocer walks in at this point, dressed ready for a trip to the Antarctic and no doubt attracted by the whiff of Tesco-hatred going on in the corner. However, Paul Oakley -with approximately 500 regular customers to serve in Ely - seems to be doing well. He’s been in the business for 26 years and took over the shop himself last year. “You have to sell them everything you can,” he says. “It is steady but it is hard work. I really benefit from being close to the Post Office, but now the government is closing them down. We are surrounded by Tesco; within a mile we’ve got a Tesco Metro and Tesco Extra. You go down the road and you have got a Lidl, and then a Farmfoods.”
It’s a given that supermarkets have taken the gauntlet, but surely wholesalers can learn from the successful model? People do want to work there, as well as buy everything from fresh produce to clothes. Any comments such as these seem to fall on deaf ears though.
Granted, the market’s site can never be what it was and in the same breath never see the hustle and bustle that most wholesalers covet because now the wholesale trade is mostly a game of distribution and delivery. A lot of the business going through the wholesale market in Cardiff is not literal; it’s done over the phone and sometimes straight from source.
H&N Catering has started a league of its own, with its one-stop shop offer to caterers, including a private group of nursing homes and not just restaurant chefs, and has now taken the plunge into the wine industry by supplying non-alcoholic wine Emina Zero. A Spanish product, the wine was an opportunity offered due to the company’s importing links and now H&N Catering is in talks with Harrods to supply the London store directly. One of the innovators on Cardiff market, along with relatively new company Mattfresh and Fresh For You, H&N Catering is run by Neil Boyles. There seems to be a fresh camaraderie between these companies, as well as a genuine passion for the produce. Boyles maintains that he works closely with the other catering suppliers, especially Fresh For You.
Young was like a child in a sweet shop, showing FPJ around his fresh produce equivalent of a Santa’s Grotto. He’s found a niche serving Caribbean foodstuffs, but generally he’ll get anything his customer needs. The apples of his eye are Naga chilli peppers -known to be the hottest in the world - various versions of plantain and cooking bananas, and the chocho, a hard, light-green pear that is apparently very good in a Thai curry.
Over at Mattfresh, co-owner Matthew Burrup was equally enthused by his latest delivery of horseradish from Austria. All the rage in the restaurants, fresh horseradish was commanding 450p a stick that day and this line had stemmed from listening to what a random walk-in customer wanted.
A couple of traders were interested in my opinion on the market in comparison to my visit for the last article two years ago and I had to be honest - it was exactly the same: same people, same opinions, same grumbles and the same attitudes. It was as if life had stood still in many respects. The market is following the predictable wholesale pattern -the rumours of a move of premises will circulate for years to come, while in the meantime traders will let their businesses decline, because why invest when you’re going to relocate? Then when the last traders standing have run their businesses and any point of difference into the ground, it will be moved to a standalone facility - out of sight and out of mind - and mass consolidation will ensue.
“I hope that eventually we will move to a purpose-built facility, with better working conditions and a modern atmosphere that will be clean, warm and well-lit,” says Burrup. “We wouldn’t be adverse to an offer from a large foodservice company; this is a well run business and we’re only going to get more customers and become more profitable. But the conditions would have to be right -we would keep our independence to a certain degree.”
Although being back at the Wholesale Fruit Centre is a little like stepping back in time, it was worth it for those people, like Burrup, who take the time to show you what’s new and still really believe in the wholesale industry. The wholesale industry still has a place in Cardiff as much as it does in London, Bradford and Birmingham and it remains the place where innovation and trends first hit the marketplace as a whole. The catering industry, including the public sector - although it suffered from its various wobbles - is clearly where Cardiff is getting its lion’s share of business and the key is surely to make sure customers have a modern, comfortable and encouraging environment -in both facilities and attitudes - to buy high-quality and varied fresh produce from. Let’s see where the next two years take Cardiff’s Wholesale Fruit Centre.
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