Wellpak UK

The Challenge

I joined Wellpak at the start of 2010, a few months after a great Strategy Director (Rob Kelly) had come on board. The business was very good at what it did (buying, sorting, packaging, and selling fruit and veg) but simply didn't have the reporting or confidence to take sales to the next level.

What I Did

I sorted the financials (new finance system) and started to measure everything. This allowed very accurate management accounts, and in turn financial projections that became very accurate and lead to high confidence levels with the ownership. This in turn lead to the business investing £3m in a new packing facility in Evesham and engaging with International Products Limited ("IPL") on a new packing facility in Worcestershire. Over the next 2 years, we formed a new company structure, started dealing in far more product types (mangoes, root veg etc) and more than doubled sales in the 3 years to the end of 2012 to £46.7m

What I Achieved
I helped to support Wellpak's significant growth simply through giving the ownership and its stakeholders the confidence to grow. By getting the right teams and reporting in place, we were able to persuade better suppliers to come on board. We were able to borrow money from the bank as both working capital and as a mortgage for the new packing facility. We were able to persuade IPL that we were a viable partner for them. We were able to persuade credit insurers of our story, and to get credit insurance raised and redirected from some of its purchasers to other sources. And, most of all, we were able to "go to market" with the company, where we successfully marketed the business for sale for upwards of £10m with all of the presentational and data room material to support that sale.