More than 70 foodservice wholesalers have signed up to a new online platform enabling them to sell directly to consumers.
The localfooddrops.co.uk site was launched last week by Foodservice Online, a company specialising in curating websites for the foodservice industry, in conjunction with its technology partner iWeb.
It aims to provide consumers with an easy-to-use alternative to the traditional multiples.
Consumers are provided with a list of businesses selling food within the vicinity of their postcode.
It comes as foodservice wholesalers have been pivoting their offer, with a focus on selling direct to consumers, following the closure of their traditional customers’ businesses from the hospitality sector.
Foodservice Online is one of the FWD’s service provider members.
“Many of our members are offering to-the-door or click & collect services to the public, many of them built from scratch in the past two weeks,” said FWD CEO James Bielby. “They’ve been creative and innovative in what have been extremely difficult circumstances for foodservice distributors. We’ve very grateful to them for bringing wholesale together like this and delighted to add our database of members’ delivery offers to the service.”
The latest research from the FWD has found 50 wholesalers to the foodservice industry have already ceased trading following the shut-down of the hospitality industry, with 200 more at risk of collapse possibly within weeks.
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