30 Nov Keeping the supply chain running with Creed Foodservice

Gray & Adams customer, Creed Foodservice is a national foodservice provider founded in 1972 by the Creed family, servicing a range of sectors including the care, education, and hospitality sectors throughout the UK. Creed is part of the supply chain that ensures the needs of school children and residents in care homes are met, which has been an incredibly important service, especially throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

With a strong reputation, Creed values its people and its customers which is one of the reasons the business chose to partner with Gray & Adams.

Laura Thatcher, Marketing Manager tells us,

“As a business built on family values, we really value customer service and a friendly, collaborative approach and our people play a vital role in making this happen. As this is something we portray to our customers, it’s important to us that we work with similar companies that share our ethos throughout the supply chain and Gray & Adams fits the bill for us. Our operations department has been working with Gray & Adams for a number of years and they have provided various solutions that support our unique capabilities to service specialised market sectors.”

CUSTOMER PROBLEM:

In 2017, Creed opened a depot in High Wycombe to further expand its operational capabilities which enabled the business to move produce overnight between its established depot in Ilkeston to assist in servicing their customers. During this time, the operations team at Creed, approached Gray & Adams for an innovative solution to make this process more efficient.

WORKING COLLABORATIVELY:

Due to the strong relationship between the two businesses and the Gray & Adams reputation for innovation, Creed looked to the team at Gray & Adams to assist on working collaboratively to provide a solution for moving up to 4,000 product items per night between their depots.

SOLUTION:

When approached, the Gray & Adams team suggested a double deck trailer for all Creed’s internal operations and deliveries. Having traditionally bought 18 and 12 tonne rigids as well as single deck trailers, these vehicles shall continue to service the customer depot, providing Creed Foodservice with a varied fleet of trailers and vehicles that will maximise their operational capabilities and allow their service to be fit for purpose whilst servicing a multitude of sectors.

IMPACT:

The impact of the strategic use of the double deck trailer between depots has been incredibly positive. This addition to the fleet has allowed Creed to efficiently move high volumes of product between depots, overnight, in order to ensure they continue to service their own customers throughout the country, with the highest levels of service. The double deck trailer reduces the need for multiple journeys between two depots, not only reducing operational costs but reducing the carbon footprint of the business.

CUSTOMER TESTIMONIAL:

Richard Frost, Head of Operations, tells us,“Creed has a fantastic working relationship with Gray & Adams. The team worked with us closely to provide a solution from early in the process of acquiring the new depot, therefore it felt that we were working in partnership during this time rather than a traditional customer – supplier relationship.”

Richard then explains,

“Their reputation for innovation precedes them, and they are always quick to incorporate new technology. At Creed we are always delighted to seek out innovations within the market and trial them within our own business. An example to this has been hydro-electric technology from Carrier that has been built within the units – I believe Creed were one of the first companies to incorporate these into the specifications we required from Gray & Adams.”

He adds of the relationship,

“Gray & Adams, like Creed really value their people and that comes through when talking to team as they are so passionate about what they do, and they really care about customers. For example, due to one of our main customers being the education sector, which closed during the Covid-19 pandemic, naturally our business was affected to some degree. Gray & Adams were very supportive during this time which we really appreciated – that level of care is one of the reasons we will continue to work with them.”