BRAKES ON
BRAKE BROS Foodservice (often referred to as Brakes) is the UK's leading supplier of frozen food to the catering industry. Brake Bros holds about 26 per cent share of the market, estimated to be worth over £1.4 billion.
At present, the company has about 1,000 product lines on its price list as well as customer's own nominated products. Years of investment has developed an extensive distribution network based on four hub depots supplying on a daily basis, smaller satellite depots, as well as serving customers in their own vicinities.
Continued depot investment will enable 4,000 frozen product lines to be handled through each hub depot.
According to the latest available figures, the company's pre-tax profits were £27.3 million for 1997 - an increase of 13.3 per cent over the previous year.
The group comprises several other divisions, in addition to its distribution activity:
n Twin Chefs Foods, 700
Brake Bros has its own manufacturing division called Twin Chef Foods. For 1997, it prepared or packed more than £62.3 million of products of which £32.3 million was sold through the core foodservice business, its largest customer. However, the division is growing in external business with sales of £30 million, an increase of 36.4 per cent on the previous year.
Initially the company opened a cooked food factory in Lenham, Kent, in 1969 to produce frozen prepared meals that were not readily available from outside manufacturers.
There are now facilities at Lenham, Flint, Aylesbury, Torquay and Launceston. It also operates three specialist units (RDUs) which supplies food to health authorities.
Sales of Brake Bros' own label products have increased steadily in line with the general expansion of the business and represents over 80 per cent of total turnover.
n Larderfresh, 701
This is Brake Bros' specialist chilled food supplier. It offers a comprehensive range of chilled products and fine foods, as well as specialising in fresh fish.
n Country Choice, 702
This is the leading specialist supplier of frozen bakery products.
n Puritan Maid, 703
This offers a one stop temperature service for ambient, chilled and frozen foods.
n Brake France, 704
This offers a wide range of frozen and chilled products to caterers in France.
In 1958, the three Brake brothers William, Frank and Peter who were brought up and trained in the catering industry, started a business supplying poultry to caterers. In 1963, they began to distribute a range of frozen foods. This side of the business took off, so much so that the poultry processing operation was discontinued in 1974.
At the time of flotation in 1986, Brake Bros operated from 16 distribution depots including two central hubs. Since that time, the distribution network has been consistently expanded and Brakes now has over 40 depots in operation and four central hubs under the Brake Bros Foodservice, Larderfresh and Country Choice names in the UK, six as Puritan Maid and 12 in France.
The company invests heavily in product development and launches over 200 products each year. Some of the latest, under the Brake Bros own label, include part-cooked fresh Tagliatelle Verdi, Penne and Spaghetti, 705.
Brake Bros