TWC Group holds its first Trade Briefing – commits again to focus exclusively on the wholesale channel, upgrades its technology, releases new insights, and pivots to become a full-service data and research agency.
TWC held their inaugural ‘trade briefing’ last Wednesday 30th April 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 unwavering and obsessive 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”.
Tom highlighted how the wholesale channel has 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.
Tom also shared 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?
One thing is for sure, 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 on sharing data and insights, the channel could gain more investment.
Tanya 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. Tanya 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 8 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!
Richard 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 a dazzling array of new insights.
Sarah shared some topline performance figures for both the independent convenience and foodservice channels.
SmartView Convenience, TWC Group’s market read for independent convenience stores, in partnership with In Touch Group, was a key source of intelligence for the Trade Briefing presentation. Sarah was able to share average basket size, transaction count (per store per day) and spend per item across the whole sector (£30bn pa sector) as well as identifying the top 30 NPD brands which together had driven almost 100m unit sales growth in the last year – 45% of total channel volume growth came from these 30 brands. 28% of all volume sales came from NPD last year.
In the hospitality sector, spend and transactions have increased vs the previous year – but performance varied by the various sub channels. Sarah was able to show data from HDI (Hospitality Data Insights) to highlight differences in both transactions and average spend by sub channel.
TWC group also announced a new strategic partnership with consumer credit / debit card spend data firm, HDI.
We all know that the economy is under pressure at the moment, so Jayne Webb gave a far more positive view on future channel sales by focusing on the aggregation of small incremental gains.
If Indie c stores/fascia stores could achieve one more transaction per day, and just 10% of those transactions contained one more item, this would lead to £1bn additional sales in the channel.
Likewise, if one-third of the UK population visited a hospitality outlet one more time than current levels, then this also would lead to £1bn of additional foodservice sales.
Not wanting to leave delegates hanging, Jayne then went on to demonstrate why this is possible:
- One-third of supermarket sales are £10 or less transactions (i.e. £10 or less)
- 78% of the UK population live within walking distance /5 mins drive from a c store.
- On one day alone (16th April) 35% of the UK population ate out/bought food/drinks/snacks/meals out of home.
- 80% of UK consumers say that with a bit of encouragement from friends, family, and colleagues, they could be encouraged to go out and socialise more than they are currently doing.
- 45% agree that meeting up with friends, family, colleagues at a hospitality venue is better than meeting up at someone’s home.
- 80% agree that the experience they get when going out to a hospitality venue is generally good.
The release of consumer research facts was not a coincidence.
Almost all TWC speakers told delegates that TWC is pivoting to become a one-stop data and research insight agency. There is a huge amount of data in the industry, so we know WHAT is happening. What we do not always know is WHY things are happening – and that is why TWC will evolve to embrace channel research to complement wholesale data. New research products are going to be released soon with a specific focus on our channel, giving both wholesalers and suppliers access to the data they need to thrive, rather than relying on generic or mults-focussed research.
ENDS
CONTACT DETAILS:
Tom Fender
TWC Group
Tom@twcgroup.net
07802 336 333
About TWC Group
TWC proudly provides a unique blend of data / digital services, consulting and research services for the UK wholesale channel – we work exclusively in this sector.