Member Article

Durham firm lands two Middle Eastern contracts in the food industry

Durham-based food industry consultancy is continuing to break into overseas market, scooping two new export wins in the Middle East.

Founded in 2013, the firm offers offers consultancy to food service industries and fast moving consumer goods businesses across the world, with expertise in franchising, cracking new markets, acquisition and training in change management, procurement and sales.

Support from the Department for International Trade North East (DIT) recently helped the business to win a £50k contract in Saudi Arabia with Innovative Foods as well as a £25k in Kuwait with La Francaise Catering Co.

ERDF funding, supplied via DIT, has also been approved for travel and an exhibition stand at the “Work 2.0 Exhibition” trade show in Dubai next month.

UK Director, Catherine Wood, explained how DIT support via the Passport to Export programme and ERDF grant funding has helped A&C grow quickly and establish strong customer bases in South East Asia, Middle East, Europe the USA and Canada.

“DIT support has been invaluable from the very beginning,” she said. “It is accessible and provides an immediate benefit that helped pay for flights and hotels in the Middle East and trade shows in the US, which allowed us to focus on target markets, meet key contacts in the industry and gave us that kick-start to become players in international markets.

“Now we are being supported to rent our own space at Work 2.0 in October, which is a huge trade show and so important for us to meet and catch-up with contacts all in one place at one time.”

A&C Associates is overseen by managing director, Andy Skowronski. With a CV boasting senior positions at international firms such as PepsiCo, Krispy Kreme, Americana and Yum Brands - providing strategic brand development for Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC, among others – he is revelling in his role as a global gun for hire across the industry.

He said: “Having spent years working in Poland, Singapore, USA and Dubai in various roles, I was looking forward to spending some time back home in England, but the business has taken off to such an extent I’m back on the road again and enjoying every minute.

“All three main strands of our business – consulting, training and franchising - are doing incredibly well and keeping everyone at A&C busy.”

The business supports two full-time and two part-time jobs in the UK, five roles in the Phillipines and two further consultant roles.

“Through Andy’s hard work and fantastic reputation, A&C has fast established its team as the go-to guys when it comes to food service consultancy,” added Catherine. “Whether that’s procurement, storage, logistics, commissaries, franchising…literally anything, anywhere, we can help.

“Our training course has been delivered in Japanese, Polish, Spanish and a number of other languages and our change management programme “Road to Transformation” is delivering real and immediate results for some of the largest firms operating in the foodservice, engineering and biotech industry.

“We always knew there was a market for our services in these industries, but the speed with which we have established ourselves in the global marketplace has been helped enormously by the DIT’s fantastic support.”

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