FOOD & DRINK A DECADE OF GROWTH


Ten years ago, Sue Bradwell joined Midshire Signature Services to prepare it for sale. Instead, she and her husband, Phil Bradwell, bought it. Since then, the family-owned business has doubled in size, with turnover reaching £12.5m and 350 staff serving 65 sites across the UK. Here, Tomorrow’s FM asks her how they’ve done it.


Midshire is proudly independent, providing catering, cleaning and facilities support with a simple philosophy - do the basics brilliantly. They're small enough to know your site manager's name, and big enough to feed thousands of people every day. We wanted to understand Sue’s motivations and discuss the challenges of leading an independent business through a decade of dramatic change.


Q:When you joined Midshire, what was the state of the business?


The business was founded in 2002 by two directors who were best friends as well as business partners. They built a solid business, with turnover steady at £6m and around 220 staff. But, like many companies that had grown organically, the infrastructure was quite traditional with lots of spreadsheets and limited technology.


Q:What were your immediate priorities?


Q:How has the business evolved Q:How is Midshire managing those financial pressures?


The foundations were good, but we needed to modernise. When we joined the business in 2016, we knew we had to invest in technology and bring in some new perspectives while respecting what had been built. The business had real potential, it just needed the right systems and fresh energy to unlock the next phase of growth.


since then?


We've more than doubled our turnover to over £12.5m and increased staff numbers by approximately 60%, from 220 to 350 fully employed staff. But the real transformation has been in our service mix. When I started, 80% of our business was workplace catering, with just 10% each in education and extra care housing. Now it's 50% education, 45% workplace, and 5% extra care housing. We won our first education contract early on and, once we had that foothold, it became easier to build our work with schools and educational trusts.


Q:Which technology investments


impact? Modernising our procurement system has been


have delivered the greatest


transformative. The efficiencies we have made have been huge and we now have complete visibility over our stock, invoicing, and sales. Thanks to this technology, we now have complete traceability of every recipe and dish. We can tell you exactly which farm our ingredients come from, full allergen information, everything. That level of detail simply wasn't possible before. Our growth has also improved our buying power significantly.


The education sector appears to present both opportunities and


significant challenges. Absolutely. I am really proud of the work we do with schools, and the growth we have seen in this area. Food plays a vital part in education, through the opportunity to try new foods, connect with friends, and build healthy habits. Sadly though, it is an area that has become increasingly challenging. School budgets have been squeezed beyond belief and the £2.61 allowance for free school meals just isn’t sufficient and has not kept up with increased staff costs and food inflation.


Innovation and efficiency, but always with a bespoke approach. Every opportunity starts with a blank sheet of paper. We build solutions around what works for each client. We've introduced specific grazing menus in schools so children can maximise their food intake throughout the week, working around the free school meal allowance. Whether it's a full-service setup or something hybrid, we tailor-make it.


Q:The pandemic arrived shortly


purchase. How did this impact on your plans? The timing was brutal and our contracts didn't legislate for school closures. We had to furlough staff but, thankfully, our residential homes stayed open as key working sites, so a percentage of our business continued operating. We had to completely change our way of working, moving to online systems and feeding our extra care residents in their homes. Our turnover dropped by approximately £3m during that period, and we lost about eight workplace sites that never reopened.


after you completed the Q:What has been the impact of regulatory changes?


Natasha's Law has been a big one. Pre-packaged food for direct sale now has to be fully labelled with all allergens highlighted. It's another compliance requirement in an already heavily regulated sector, but it's absolutely necessary for safety.


36 | TOMORROW’S FM twitter.com/TomorrowsFM


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