When the Caterforce marketing team visited our Carlisle depot …
On Thursday 3 August, the marketing team from Caterforce paid a visit to our head office in Carlisle.
Caterforce is a buying and marketing group of which we are a proud member, and we’ve worked harmoniously with our colleagues based in Macclesfield for many years.
As part of getting to know each other to enhance and build a closer working relationship, the marketing team came along for an extensive tour of our offices, warehouse, bakery, butchery and foodstore.
They learnt about our 175 year-old history and were amazed how the business had flourished and grown in that time. We talked about our exciting plans for the future and how they can support us in that growth.
They met many of our colleagues from all parts of our business in order to gain a greater understanding of how our business works, its ethics and culture. We held discussions on how we currently work together and how we can plan and execute our marketing activities in a cohesive and streamlined manner.
The butchery is always the highlight of everyone’s visit!
David Jenkins, our sales director, gave the group a guided tour of our butchery department. Kieran had a hands-on-go at making sausages – but we think he needs more practise to maintain our exacting high standards!
The group, of course, visited our foodstore which is situated across the road from our offices. We sell many of our own brand products in the foodstore and the team were interested to see their products on the shelves alongside other high quality items. We talked about how we can promote the Chefs Selections brand across both wholesale and retail.
They were not only impressed with their surroundings, but went home with their hands full of wonderful locally sourced products – many of which are made in-house.
Pictured above from left to right are: Rebecca Woollam (Own Brand Marketing Manager), Chris Chorlton (Senior Artworker), Lucy Boland (Group Marketing Director) and Kieran Hartley (Information Systems Manager).
How do we work together?
Design
Caterforce currently designs and produces all our printed marketing materials, including our monthly promotional leaflets and annual product guides. Working in tandem with Karen Graham, our marketing manager, Chris Chorlton from Caterforce produces high quality materials to aid our sales teams.
Chris also helped us with our recent rebrand and he was excited to see our new logo in action on our vans, printed leaflets and workwear.
In a major new development, our new logo and branding can now be seen on the renamed ‘Andrew Jenkins stand sponsored by Pioneer Foodservice‘ at Brunton Park the home of Carlisle United.
Digital marketing campaigns
They also work closely with many of our suppliers, planning country-wide digital campaigns which we carry out at a local level. From big names such as Unilever, Kellogg’s and Britvic, these campaigns are a great success story and not only help sales nationwide and locally but help with brand awareness for these suppliers.
PR
Lucy Boland, Caterforce’s marketing director, had engaged a PR company to work with local marketing managers to help grow our brand awareness within the industry wide press and online media platforms. Working with Karen, the PR company has successfully produced several printed articles in recent weeks about our investment in new fleet and win at the North West Family Business Awards.
Technology helping our online presence
Kieran Hartley, Information Systems Manager at Caterforce, has been working flat out to ensure our project information management is streamlined, up-to-date and available to all Caterforce members. This helps us all manage our product information alongside imagery so we can all maintain our e-commerce sites efficiently at a local level.
Chefs Selections success
Rebecca Woollam is the Own Brand Marketing Manager for Chefs Selections. This is our own brand label and we’re currently experiencing consistent increases in sales year-on-year. To date this year, we’ve seen a 27.35% increase in Chefs Selections sales compared to last year. A great success for our business and a fabulous accolade to the quality of products within the range!
The Flavour photography studio
The Caterforce marketing team also produces some top-quality product images for us. Karen works closely with the ‘Flavour’ studio to make sure our products are shown off to their best ability. We’ve used many of their fabulous imagery across our newly liveried vans. The team were van spotting in order to recognise their photos!
Understanding our business, who we are, how we work, where we are and why, helps the Macclesfield marketing team to understand our needs and suggest new ways forward in engaging with customers and suppliers who are our important stakeholders.
Lucy says: “It was great to meet everyone in person and David’s tour of the butchery was fantastic – Kieran is considering a change of career! It was hugely beneficial for us to be able to talk to your sales support, HR, IT, and ops people and has helped us to get a better understanding of your business.”