Bestway Wholesale Group has reported a “strong performance” for the trading year to June 2020 with revenues up 1.4% to £2.55bn in 2020 and pre-tax profits up a steep 81.8% from £20.8m for the same period.
This comes despite market conditions in the wholesale sector remaining challenging in the financial year to end June 2020 with the catering sector being impacted heavily in the final quarter of the period by Covid.
Commenting on the financial performance, Bestway Group boss Dawood Pervez (pictured) emphasised that during this year the Bestway team had remained focussed on the integration of Bestway Retail into the business and delivering the associated scale benefits.
He said: “It’s all about the customer and meeting their needs. The year to end June 2020 saw new challenges with pressure from the grocery sector continuing with major supermarkets such as Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsburys entering the wholesale market.
“As a sector, we also had to absorb the continued impact of the National Living Wage as well as the additional costs and associated uncertainty surrounding the pandemic and Brexit.
“Our commitment to delivering improved service and convenience to customers proved to be the right approach. The continued focus and investment in the supply chain has helped us offer better service levels alongside a growing emphasis on our online and digital strategies, which have been a catalyst in meeting the needs and changing behaviours of both our customers and the end consumer.
“Throughout the onset of Covid in 2020, we moved with agility and spent significant time and resource in ensuring all sites were robust from a health and safety perspective. This was a key priority to ensure protection for both our team here at Bestway, and our customers – whether in depot or for delivered services.
“We continued to improve and manage availability of products during this period which resulted positively on sales and during the year we continued to help our customers increase their margins and profitability. We have also continued to champion the interests of independent retailers – as has been our heritage for 45 years now.”
In early 2021, Bestway Wholesale acquired Costcutter Supermarkets Group, adding around 1,500 stores to its retail proposition in the process. Bestway Wholesale is now integrating Costcutter alongside Bestway Retail.
