Wholesale firm Benfield Philips was brought into the Total Produce fold on July 1 last year. The six months of negotiations that preceded the acquisition are described by Total Produce operations director Graham Broomhall as “the best-kept secret in the business”, perhaps best illustrated by his own decision not to set foot in the Benfield Philips premises until the day the deal was done.
Within a month, the company’s stand had been transformed into the wholesale distribution side of the business. A huge new fridge was built and the whole facility was improved up to British Retail Consortium standards and accredited as such, thanks to a £60,000 investment.
The ex-Benfield Philips pitch adds to the huge amount of space available to Total Produce in a market that outdates many in the UK, but is arguably as sturdy and fit-for-purpose as any. “This market was built between 1957 and 1960,” says Bill Jauncey, managing director of the Southampton branch. “If we purpose-built a facility now, it couldn’t be much better. With about 35,00sqft, we are not short of space, that’s for sure.”
There are seven coldstores and one banana room available to the wholesale business in a warren-like facility that you could imagine getting lost in.
The expanding distribution side of the business has turned Total Produce Southampton into an operation that is open for all but around 36 hours every week. The shutters are up on the distributive part of the business from 5pm until midnight or later, while the wholesale pitch opens at 2am and works through to midday.
A fleet of 15 vans and trucks delivers to a wide radius in all directions, including daily deliveries south across the water to the Isle of Wight and the Channel Islands, which account for around £6 million of business each year. The customer network stretches as far north as north London and Oxford, east to Eastbourne and west along the South Coast. “If you look, half of the potential catchment area happens to be the sea,” says Broomhall. “But location-wise, Southampton is very fortunate.”
The importance of the physical infrastructure of the business cannot be ignored, of course, but as much as anywhere, Total Produce Southampton can point to its employees as its driving force.
Benfield Philips was initially the result of an amalgamation between a broker and a trader on the market a few years back. One partner, Guy Benfield, decided this was the right time for him to leave the trade. The other, Mike Chase, has made the transition to Total Produce, and he tells FPJ the move has been smooth.
Chase, who has worked in the market since 1971 and was with Benfield Philips from 1977 onwards, says: “The two companies have integrated very, very well together. The staff have been no problem at all and I have known most of them for more than 25 years. And any customer drop-off that you might naturally expect has failed to materialise. If anything, we have increased the productivity of the two businesses.
“We were competitive with Total Produce just as we were with the other companies in the market. We were trading very nicely ourselves, but Guy felt it was the right time for him to get out of the business. The best of both companies has been selected and that has definitely lifted product quality.”
Chase was responsible for a strong vegetable business at Benfield Philips and has combined with the Total Produce veg salesmen to form a powerful team that fits the bill of being stronger than the sum of its parts, according to Broomhall.
“We have kept all the suppliers we wanted to keep from both sides; the suppliers that fit best with what we are trying to achieve,” Chase says. “And throughout, the customer base has been supportive of what we are doing.
“For me personally,” he adds, “although I am basically doing the same job as I was before, this is a new lease of life and gives me another direction. I would not say things were stale exactly, but when you have been in one place for such a long time, things can get a bit samey. It is obviously different coming in to work for a large company rather than being in charge of a smaller independent - when you are small, every decision you take is thinking about yourself; here, I have had to fit into the regime.”
Chase says that the acquisition has strengthened Total Produce Southampton, but insists the jury remains out on the overall strength of the market. “In an ideal world, maybe it would be nice to see a few more firms and a bit more competition. There has been talk of a move for a long time - the market is fine in itself, but it is in the wrong location [as far as the local council is concerned],” he says.
It may be surrounded by residential buildings, but the market is well situated for its customers and for the distribution trade that becomes more important to its residents with every year.
Chase adds that Derek Holbert, who he works alongside in the vegetable department, has been “very important in putting all this together”. Holbert agrees with the sentiments that the coming together has “gone very well” and adds, “business-wise, I really don’t think it could have gone any better”. Another of the team who can justifiably claim to have been on the market “man and boy”, Holbert says the additional strength of the company helps to raise the quality bar even further. “We have to satisfy our customers and more often than not, they make their decisions on quality rather than price,” he says. “For the sake of 10-20p, it is not worth jeopardising the standard of your offer.
“This is a strong market and we do not step on each other’s toes too much. Of course, we are all out there looking for business - if it isn’t coming through the doors every morning, then you have to be prepared to go and get it.”
The credit crunch is biting chunks out of businesses up and down the land, but Holbert believes “in some ways, it could benefit us - hopefully cash-strapped consumers will feel the need to shop around for value for money, rather than blindly filling up their trolley at the supermarket,” he says. “The local shop is normally as cheap or cheaper than the multiples, but people will have to change their shopping habits to find that out.”
The independent retail trade has taken a real hammering in the vicinity - the centre of Southampton, for example, has been without a greengrocer for more than 30 years - although there is still a significant number in the region. The catering trade has therefore become a bedrock for the market, and there is a thriving base of secondary wholesale customers.
Alongside Chase and Holbert, there are more than 300 years’ experience in Southampton market to call upon among the nine-man sales team. “You could see [the age of the team] as a problem, but it has been put right by the acquisition, which has brought some younger people into the fold. Added to that, none of the older salesman here have any intention of retiring any time soon, so Total Produce will see plenty more years of service out of us,” says Jauncey.
Broomhall agrees. “It is clear that succession planning in many wholesale markets leaves a lot to be desired,” he explains. “It is not unusual to be highly dependent on a relatively limited, select group of people. We are, of course, particularly sensitive to this issue, but on the other side of the coin, in times like these - when it would be easy to be caught up in the depression - it is invaluable to have people with you who have seen it all before, been there and done that.”
There are three wholesale fruit and veg businesses and one flower firm left on the market site, compared with 17 companies on the day that Jauncey first set out on his 42-year, one-firm career, which has taken in the names of Burgess Webb & Squire (Geest), Francis Nicholls, Redbridge and now Total Produce. Typically for the wholesale sector, which let’s face it largely still refers to FPJ as the pre-1990 Fruit Trades Journal, invoices regularly turn up for Burgess Webb & Squire - a full 13 years after the name disappeared from the firm’s headed paper.
“I could have chopped and changed [companies],” says Jauncey. “But as long as you wake up and want to go to work, you’ll be ok - and I’ve always been able to do that.
“We can’t stand here moaning about things,” he continues. “Despite the fact that there are fewer companies, there is more volume going through the market than 30 years ago, when we had perhaps 15 commodities to sell at this time of year. If you had 10 boxes of green peppers, you had to search around for a Greek restaurant to buy them, and we didn’t have exotics, not even avocados.
“The range has grown enormously, and when you factor in size and colour, the choice available to each individual customer has increased exponentially.”
Broomhall says: “I put Southampton right at the top end of the quality spectrum and it also carries as wide a range as any of our operations. It is clearly a market that simply cannot sell poor-quality product.”
Jauncey agrees. “One thing about Southampton is that you cannot sell rubbish. When you’re selling to places like the Channel Islands, everything has to be top class,” he says. “Competition is still strong. We are all trying to be the one-stop shop, and if your customer comes to you with specific requirements, and you have the right range, quality and price, as well as the right service levels, that is the way to stop them going to the competition.”
Ex-Poupart boss in Southampton and now Total Produce fruit salesman John Smith has spent 46 years in the market and describes the veg trade as the day-to-day business, while his own department is more sporadic, with customers buying their citrus, for instance, two or three times a week. “Fruit will probably suffer a bit more in the current financial climate than vegetables,” he says.
Vic Milczarek, another 40-year veteran, says the reason for that is that spot buying is cut to a minimum. “People come in with a list and buy what is on that - they are not really looking for anything extra at the moment,” he says. The 2.5 per cent drop in VAT makes no difference at all to the fruit trade, Smith adds, but the two concur that fruit is not expensive in the first place. “People are less likely to want to spend 50p on an orange though,” says Smith, “but that won’t mean they will start buying rubbish. There was a quite a bit more gear turning up rejected by the supermarkets until recently and this market just is not in a position to take that up any more. It does us no favours if product is expected to be really cheap - and makes the place look untidy.”
Southampton could claim to have been hit as hard as anywhere by the demise of the independent retail trade, but the catering business has ensured that volumes are largely unchanged. “The big difference is the volume of people that come through,” says Milczarek. “If people haven’t been in by 5am, you are unlikely to see them - there used to be a second wave of customers, which meant you could turn down a few early bids and wait for things to pick up at the end of the day, but now generally, if you are offered a fair price, you have got to take it.”
When Jauncey entered the trade, there were 20 salesmen on the Burgess Webb & Squire stand and lorries going to and from the port almost continuously. “When the first Jaffa boat came in, we had 52,000 boxes on it,” he remembers. “Southampton was a key port for imports then, but now it is a cruise port and most product that does come through has been loaded for bespoke destinations. In some respects, you would say that what has happened at Southampton mirrors what happened at Liverpool, which used to be the Canary Islands tomato port.”
The changing business environment and the town centre location of the market has led for some time to the inevitable question marks over a relocation. Residential flats flank the market stands, and the two do not always make happy bedfellows. Jauncey believes that the move will happen one day, but is unwilling to put a timescale on it. “The important thing is that we are all in one place,” he says. “This land is obviously of some value, but now there is a recession on, no one is rushing to build anyway.”
Both Milczarek and Smith say the site is ideally situated and both also doubt the potential that all traders would be willing to accept a move to the same place in years to come.
“It will decide itself,” says Broomhall. “The plan for the area is obviously that it will end up as residential - and we are in the way. There have been negotiations and alternative sites have been looked at, but we are happy here. The Square, as it is known, has its own atmosphere and a good feeling about it. Obviously, if our customer is in Guernsey and never comes to the market, he might not care about that too much, but it is core to our principles that we maintain a competitive environment in which to work.
“Our wholesale market companies have only one thing in common - they sell fresh produce. Other than that, they have different customers, suppliers, procurement policies and price scales. But because 95 per cent of what we sell is not on consignment, the salesmen all have to make a margin; that does not change and it is key to each branch’s success.”
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