David Lunt is the managing director of NBC
PH: What has been your most significant achievement over the past 12 months?
DL: Continuing to focus upon the basics – supporting our members and our supplier partners. We are noting increasing consolidation of companies, supply chains and the channels that our sector services. Independent businesses tend to respond more quickly to change and can weather the storms or take advantage of growing trends. What we must not forget is that independent businesses are a vital element of the UK economy, providing a wide range of services for consumers at either the point of sale or the point of consumption. This is where consumers get their choice of brands and products, and getting access is business-critical for our members. Facilitating this access to major brands and products is a must for any buying group that supports independent businesses.
What is your unique selling point?
NDN is our flexible warehousing and logistics service that benefits member and suppliers. It accesses brands from more than 50 suppliers and facilitates volume discounts and smaller minimum-order quantities for our members – an essential service as suppliers continue to consolidate their supply chains. Our suppliers see significant benefits from using and supporting NDN – fundamentally it is a route-to-market solution. We have 60 engaged members that use the service, and we have third-party customers that our suppliers wish us to help them with access to their brands.
How have you expanded and attracted new members over the past 12 months?
As the group has grown and developed, we have learned how important it is that our membership have the same views as we do – working in collaboration and with complete transparency so that everyone benefits. While we have had numerous enquiries from businesses, we have also taken the time to ensure that the membership is right for both parties.
We introduced associate membership status in 2023, which provides an excellent way in which both parties get to know each other, and after a successful trial period – both ways – we can then move to full membership through shareholding. This was reinforced recently with a trip to see a potential new member who clearly saw the benefits of this approach compared to other buying groups they had approached.
Number of members: 60
Latest members: Marion Trading/Candy Hero
Group Buying Power: £750m+
What are your plans to help members over the next 12 months?
NBC provides focused support for its members. Fundamentally, this is about access to major brands – our supplier partners invest in accessing consumers, and working with our group and its members ensure they are accessible at the point of purchase or consumption. If we and our members have access, so do consumers. For this to work well, we work in a strong spirit of collaboration between our group, our members and our supplier partners. This is the core service we provide.
We provide a wide variety of services for our members, one of which is access to a web-to-print brochure service. This provides a flexible business tool to develop specific marketing materials for members to communicate with their own customers.
What are the biggest challenges for your members over the next 12 months?
Economic conditions will continue to challenge the sector. We must continue to provide communication streams of the key pieces of information that allow our members to maximise the opportunities that our suppliers’ brands provide. Facilitating access to major brands remains our core purpose.
For our members and potential members, fundamentally, it is about choice – we are the alternative buying group for those businesses that share our values of independence, trust, transparency and collaboration between our suppliers, our member shareholders and our group. Our members and suppliers are in safe hands.
