FPJ last visited Bradford in 2001 and, in the seven years since, there have been a few changes and new faces on the market, but the essence of the trade - with its array of exotic lines and traditional produce drawing in a mix of customers - has remained unspoilt.
The council-owned site is fully occupied, with some 35 companies sharing the 66 units and turning over around £50 million a year between them. The majority of tenants cater for a wide range of buyers, from independent retailers and street markets to the blossoming catering trade.
But a number of new prospects could be about to open up for the tenants at St James’s, now that the market has seen a string of improvements and plans to reinvigorate Bradford have become a backdrop to the trade.
The city is a few years into what promises to be a significant regeneration project, which could open up new avenues and challenges for the market.
Back in 2003, Bradford Centre Regeneration was set up to rejuvenate the centre, working closely with Yorkshire Forward and the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council with the aim of repositioning Bradford both regionally and nationally, uncovering hidden assets and developing a future city landscape.
The key to the regeneration has been the development of a number of masterplans, created by world-renowned architect Will Alsop. So far, a number of initiatives have been put in place, including plans for a £360m Westfield shopping centre.
Colin Wolstenholme, markets general manager at the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, has a vision that will see the market come into its own as a hub in the area. He moved to Bradford from Leeds council five years ago, after 24 years in the neighbouring city.
“The council has undertaken a review of its assets and we are looking strategically at what we have for the first time, to see how we can best use them in the next 15 years or so,” says Wolstenholme. “The city centre has been fairly stagnant in terms of development - we are waiting for that kick-start that regeneration will bring. The council has developed planning policies. There are plenty of ideas and a number of masterplans for the city - we are waiting for them to be enacted.
“The wholesale market is fairly stable and a lot of the companies want to expand. There is a strong catering and distribution element here that will continue to develop, and trade in spices and non-fresh produce items such as rice, dairy and soft drinks is here to stay, but the core will always be fruit and vegetables.
“I believe that, in the long term, the market will be more regional in terms of its catchment area,” he continues. “In the next 10 or 20 years, why not have one Yorkshire wholesale market, rather than the one we have here and two smaller sites in Leeds and Sheffield?
“As the city centre develops, the market will grow with it. The strategic move would be to look at a larger plot of land with better road networks on the M606, because where it is now, the market is only half a mile from the city centre and it will become more valuable land.
“Another option would be to use a plot of council-owned land next to the market, for either parking or expansion.”
Wolstenholme has been looking at ways to improve the market and make it more profitable since he started in the job. “The first area I had to look at was costs because the service costs were increasingly rapidly, mostly due to waste management and the fact that the market did no recycling whatsoever,” he says. “The idea was to look at operating costs and bring in schemes to reduce those expenses.
“Three years ago, waste costs were £80,000 and this has now dropped to £15,000. The extra money is now fed back into the service pot, which helps keep running costs down for the traders.
“If we can reduce service costs, it means we can look at rents,” he explains. “But first we have to make the businesses as streamlined as possible by increasing efficiency. If they get behind us, they will enjoy the benefits, but if they don’t, they will have to face a series of fines.
“It has been a long process and there are still traders who try it on, but that is the game we play.”
The tenants’ association is working with the council to bring about a series of much-needed improvements. The carrot-and-stick approach is being used by the council to push the market forward.
A number of charges have been introduced to generate some £80,000 a year for the council, to contribute to a fund that has been ring-fenced for the market. A £60 entry card system was introduced in 2004, intended to prevent illegal dumping of waste on the site and monitor the number of customers coming into the market. A £100 annual charge for companies delivering to the market was brought in at the same time, for much the same reasons.
“The benefits to the council are that there is now a pot of money that can be re-invested into the market and that we have a database of who the customers are,” says Wolstenholme. “This will be useful for market research to help us promote the market in the future. For example, we now know that we attract 25-30 restaurants from Leeds, but there are hundreds more we could attract because Leeds and Sheffield markets are relatively small and the next biggest one is Manchester, which is further away.
“We are going to use the information we have collected to come up with specific marketing campaigns.”
The extra income generated from the range of charges has so far part-funded a number of improvements and upgrades. The roads around the market were resurfaced at a cost of £80,000 three months ago, the public toilets got a £40,000 revamp and the CCTV was upgraded 18 months ago. A 60ft welcome sign is to be put up outside the market on the busy Wakefield Road, in order to draw attention to the site. The improvement of the parking facilities is next on the cards.
A pay-as-you-throw scheme will be launched in October to ensure that tenants are only charged for the waste they dispose of and to encourage them to minimise waste and step up recycling. The tenants recycle 55 per cent of their total waste, but it is hoped that come the start of the initiative, this will be pushed up to 90 per cent. They already recycle all cardboard and plastic waste, while 10 tonnes of organic waste - from unsold produce - is separated and taken to Yorkshire Water Treatment Works each week.
The work that the council does to support the market does not end there. The traders could be set to take advantage of the boom in online sales, if the council succeeds in setting them up with their own links into the main website for the market. “The aim over the next few years is to look seriously at online purchasing, both remotely and on site,” says Wolstenholme. “We want to give customers the opportunity to buy or place an order before they get here, or it could be good to have a base of computers on the market where they could find out what the best deals are - but that is some way off.
“Traders will be able to create their own intranet site connected to the market site. The trouble is most traders are not up on IT so we have to do a lot of this for them. The idea is that we are going to target some of the bigger firms and hope the others follow, but it is untested water. If it is going to work, it will require some companies to take the initiative.
“We are one of the few local authorities that allow the markets to keep their surplus,” Wolstenholme adds. “We have developed a 10-year plan to re-invest back into St James’s. We know exactly what our costs are and the tenants’ association is very professional, and it wants to know what we are doing line by line.”
Bradford is teeming with independent retailers and restaurants who use the market to source their fresh produce offer, but the competition between traders is tough and many are considering their options and looking to branch out into new sectors and services.
The majority of the businesses on the market are well established and pushing forward all the time. Strong loyalties have built up between the traders and their customers, which can only stand them in good stead. Mel Williams, the superintendent at the market, is confident that the new generation of managers in many of the family-run firms will bring their own new ideas to the market.
The tenants are seeking out new customers by offering deliveries to a wide catchment area, with some moving into regions that could potentially be serviced by other markets and as far afield as Scotland and Ireland. Others have diversified into dairy or dried goods to provide a more rounded offer.
Zafar Butt, who heads up AR Butt, is set to complete his second two-year stint as president of the tenants’ association in November. The market is competitive, he says, but he is confident that the best of the firms will continue to grow. “The local market is saturated and we are having to look further afield for customers,” Butt explains. “Shops are always opening and closing, but there is still a big chunk of healthy retailers. Some of the independent retailers are expecting us to subsidise them, but we can’t. Instead, we have extended our catchment area to attract new customers.
“Too many short-term companies have come and gone on the market and it makes you wonder, how on earth are they surviving? They start up with very little cash and they do not tend to have a lot of stock. Those cowboys, as I call them, give us a real headache because they offer product below cost knowing that they won’t be able to pay their own senders.
“We have to make sure we hold our market share by being competitive on price, and we have been able to hold our own,” he insists.
Burbank Produce Ltd is one of the most forward-thinking firms on the market and reached the final of the Capespan Wholesaler of the Year Award at Re:fresh 2008, in recognition of its strategies. The firm was set up in 2001 and opened a depot in Parisian wholesale market Rungis the following year, in order to source the very best French products from producers in the area.
Simon Kershaw, who has been on the market for 28 years and manages the business with his two brothers, says the different ethnic communities in Bradford have helped support and sustain the market. “There is still a lot of traditional shopping here and there is a lot of emphasis on community,” he says. “To increase business, we have had to go out and find it. But there are still a lot of customers coming to the market and some are coming from further afield to get some of the more speciality products.
“We have stuck to traditional lines rather than Asian products because we do not have the links with suppliers that some of the other companies do. The aim for us is to make sure we have everything available every day - there are not many in Yorkshire who carry the range we do.
“We have moved forward and grown every year since we started out.”
The tenants at St James’s are in a strong position for the future, with the council on their side and Bradford set to shake up its image. The energy and resilience that has got the traders this far should stand them in good stead in this new phase.
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