Case Study – Direct Food Supply (DFS)

Company background
DFS is a rapidly growing food distribution and wholesaling company located in the North East of England. It was founded by Mr Abbas, who started the business from a small storage room with only 3 employees back in 1985.

From the mid 80s to the late 90s, DFS experienced tremendous growth in business volume (sales). In order to meet the increasing demand for its services, Mr Abbas began an ambitious expansion plan in 1999. In order to fund this expansion, Mr Abbas decided to join forces with three other major investors - Mr Jones, Mr Mehdi and Mr Dimitry. As part of the plan, the company’s operations were relocated to a bigger, dedicated site in an industrial estate near Gateshead.

DFS subsequently employed more staff, extended its existing production capacity to include facilities such as industrial chill rooms (30 pallet* space), freezers (200 pallet space with racking system) and a massive dry good storage area (480 pallet space with racking system). Expansion work was completed towards the end of 2000, and the “new” DFS became by far the largest food supply and distribution company in the North East of England.

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*pallet - a small, low, portable platform on which goods are placed for storage or moving

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Since 1999, the four significant owners have all remained as major shareholders. Each holds the same proportion of ownership at 25%. Of the four of them, two (Mr Abbas and Mr Jones) are involved in the day-to-day running of the company in their official capacities as co-Managing Directors. Annual turnover was £5m in 2004.

Till today, DFS remains primarily involved in supplying raw materials and packaging to an extensive range of fast food outlets mostly within the North East region.

The North East Fast Food Outlets Supply and Distribution Market
Traditionally, the