The Federation of Wholesale Distributors (FWD) has announced the line-up for its annual conferenceat St George’s Park on October 14, with the sold-out event the FWD’s first face-to-face gathering since 2019.
The conference will cover topics from the industry’s response to current coronavirus challenges, to providing suppliers with insight into wholesalers business plans for 2022 and beyond.
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Speakers include:
- Marketing and admin director at Costco, Sue Knowles
- Managing director at Sugro, Neil Turton
- Head of Trading at Sugro, Yulia Petit
- Managing director at Unitas, John Kinney
- Chief executive officer at Brakes Group, Hugo Mahoney
They will be joined by a panel of some of the biggest names in wholesale:
- Managing director at Bestway, Dawood Pervez
- Chief executive officer at Bidfood, Andrew Selley
- Managing director at Country Range, Coral Rose
- Chairman at Unitas, Mark Aylwin
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Wholesalers from all over the UK will introduce their businesses and offer advice to suppliers on how to make the most of industry partnerships. These include Hills Prospect, Woods Foodservice, Dunsters Farm and Thomas Ridley.
The conference will also look at some of the industry’s major opportunities, focussing on the shift to digital sales, which has become a necessity since the pandemic.
The FWD will also look at emerging trends based on research by Mirakl into wholesales adoption and experience of e-commerce and backed by customer and consumer insight from Lumina Intelligence’s Blonnie Whist.
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Success stories from Blakemore’s James Russell, Red Bull’s Lotte Tregear, who represents the E-Wholesale Collective, and SalesOut’s Marcus Vallance will be featured at the conference.
TWC’s Tanya Pepin and Bestway’s Kenton Burchell will collaborate to explore the demand for healthy food options in wholesale. This comes in preparation for HFSS (high fat, salt, and sugar) restrictions. They will also explore how suppliers and wholesalers might view this as an opportunity rather than a burden.
Elit Rowland will discuss how the Women in Wholesale initiative, through its events and reports, is promoting diversity and inclusion in the industry.
