Data and insight consultancy TWC held their inaugural ‘trade briefing’ last week, attended by over fifty of its clients, partners and associates, including senior executives from Booker, Parfetts, Unitas, The Wholesale Group, Caterforce, Creed, Country Range Group, Rowan International and James Hall & Co (Spar).
Presentations were delivered by Tom Fender (Development Director), Tanya Pepin (MD & Founder), Richard Barr (Head of Commercial), Sarah Coleman (Product Director) and Jayne Webb (Insight Director).
The company reiterated its focus exclusively on the wholesale channel. Several presenters took the opportunity to remind delegates that TWC Group’s strategic vision is to drive growth in wholesale through data and insight.
Tom Fender, Development Director, pointed out: “No other agency has this single channel focus on wholesale and associated routes to market. For us, wholesale is not a small department within a larger organisation. We live and breathe wholesale, recognising it is a £34bn per annum turnover industry. That said, we believe there are more opportunities for growth in wholesale and associated routes-to-market than exist in the retail multiples. We are repeatedly told this by suppliers”.
Fender highlighted how the wholesale channel had made great strides in data usage in recent years, with the Covid pandemic being attributed as a particular turning point for the industry…but he warned against complacency: the retail multiples have been using data for decades and competition in other forms (foodservice aggregators, Amazon, discounters) are turning to data to fuel their sales growth.
Fender also shared the latest results from TWC’s household finances tracker – a new bimonthly consumer tracker which is now available to TWC clients, which highlighted a softening in consumer sentiment – no surprise after the recent increases in household bills (which 90% of UK consumers had seen).
Tanya Pepin gave delegates a history of TWC, which underlined the group’s commitment to wholesale and addressed many industry issues – suppliers are raising minimum order quantities (MOQs) and building internal data lakes….and questioned whether this was a good thing for wholesalers?
She highlighted that suppliers need to prove a ROI on channel investments and that comes from data. If wholesalers and suppliers are willing to engage together and take a collaborative approach to sharing data and insights, the channel could gain more investment.
Pepin went on to address the topical issue of AI in the channel and reminded delegates that AI will only work on decent-quality base data. She then explained how TWC is using AI to create single product codes as part of the company’s commitment to data quality, which will benefit all clients.
Richard Barr, Commercial Director, then took to the stage to share what he had learned in his ‘first 100 days’ at TWC, having joined the business eight months ago from Unilever, where he was foodservice sales director.
He pointed out that TWC had been exceptionally good at developing its core SmartView reporting platform, but recognised that the business had not been particularly effective in telling people about these improvements!
Barr then took delegates through some of the innovative enhancements about to be launched by TWC Group in June 2025 to ensure SmartView remains the most highly rated reporting software in the wholesale market.
Finally, Sarah Coleman (Product Director) and Jayne Webb (Insight Director) took delegates through an array of new insights for both the independent convenience and foodservice channels.
