Brokerage is the spice of life G Costa & Co Ltd Quarry Wood Industrial Estate Aylesford Maidstone Kent ME20 7NA Tel: 01622 717777 Fax: 01622 713331 E-mail: info@gcosta.co.uk Website: www.gcosta.co.uk KEY PERSONNEL Managing director Tim Barlow Sales director Geoff Palmer Buying director Anthony Miner Finance director Nick Williams Production director Iain McCormick Non executive chairman Adrian Bourne Non executive director Robin Southgate KEY CATEGORIES - Dry grocery - Ethnic foods - Bakery products - Snack products - Food service - Private label Market Coverage - Convenience stores - Delicatessen trade - Discount stores - Chemist trade - Food service - Grocery trade - Departmental stores - Wholesale/price clubs - Speciality food distributors Talk of the "new" trend towards global brands and Tim Barlow, md of leading speciality food broker G Costa & Co Ltd raises his eyes heavenwards. The company has, after all, been dealing not just with global brands, but icons of grocery for at least 100 years. "Look at Tabasco, which won the International Broker of the Year award for us this year. If ever there was an icon brand, then Tabasco is it. Go into any hotel, anywhere in the world and you'll find it on the table ­ even in the middle of a dessert in central Africa." And, like G Costa brand stablemate Krisprolls, which had £600,000 invested in its advertising campaign last year, it's still growing ­ which doesn't surprise Barlow. "There's no reason why a well established brand should not continue to grow," he says. The company recently opened new offices in Thailand, putting it on the doorstep of one of the world's honeypots for speciality foods. Asia, the fragrant continent, is home to a number of potential global brands ­ "and we have been asked to handle several of them," says Barlow, who is currently launching Blue Dragon Thai in Japan. Working principally across Asia, America and Europe, Barlow sees both the barriers and incentives to world trade. Uncle Sam, a potential source for major brand expansion, poses particular problems, he says. "The difficulty with the US is in the use of GMOs. If they really want to enter the UK market, manufacturers have to do separate runs and labelling ­ they have to be pretty specialised." That's not to say that trade is any easier closer to home which is where a broker's specialist knowledge comes in handy. "Because we operate all over Europe we see how many European companies work and it's very different from here ­ particularly in the smaller European states," says Barlow. Trading conventions and the extent of private label set the UK apart from even its nearest neighbours, but by working in close partnership with a global network of suppliers, G Costa has been able to successfully source quality speciality food products for retail and catering industries for the better part of a century. Using development and manufacturing facilities at Keddie Saucemasters and Zest Foods it also offers supermarket own label capability and recently established a new businesses at Keddie Saucemasters to supply the food industry with original ingredients and imported constituents, such as coconut milk. A diplomat as well as a broker, Barlow believes the success of G Costa in building good brand partnerships has largely been down to respecting the brand holder's point view. "We never forget it's their brand," he says. {{Z SUPPLEMENTS: BROKERAGE }}