COMPANY HISTORY
Before Staverton-based Creed Foodservice grew into one of the UK’s leading independent family-owned foodservice wholesalers, the original family business was founded in 1972 with the first Linbar supermarket.
The move into ‘foodservice’ came as the Creed family saw an opportunity to supply caterers in and around the Cotswolds, thus Creed Catering Supplies was founded. In 1989 the retail supermarkets were sold and the first dedicated foodservice warehouse in Cheltenham was purchased. ‘Creed Foodservice’ was then launched to focus on supplying caterers with a product range across grocery, chilled, frozen and non-food categories.
As part of Creed’s strategic plan to offer caterers and operators a ‘one stop shop’, we purchased local fresh produce and speciality food wholesaler Mise en Place in 2008. At the beginning of 2019, the fresh produce and on-site EEC approved butchery facilities rebranded to Creed Fresh Produce and Creed Family Butchers respectively. This was to align with the Creed family values and be more in keeping with our current identity.
In 2009 we invested in a purpose built distribution centre in Derbyshire to maintain our industry leading customer service in line with growth. This superb facility enables us to deliver flexible foodservice solutions throughout Gloucestershire and the UK to a growing customer base of independent and national accounts across hospitality, destination leisure, education and care sectors in the out of home market.
Since 2013, our business has invested in systems and people development to further reinforce our brand message to ‘Believe In More’. Growth has come through our drive to deliver an enhanced customer experience with service excellence, a relevant, innovative and quality product range, and insight into its key market sectors. Our business continues to grow with a projected turnover of £100 million in 2020. Other accolades include the 2018 Circle2Success Award for Excellence in Business for Employee Engagement, as well as receiving Best Companies ‘One Star’ status in 2018.
In 2017, we strengthened our existing infrastructure with the opening of a new distribution centre in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. Following our acquisition of the High Wycombe depot, we achieved a ‘Zero Waste To Landfill’ status across all three sites.
We continue to invest in not only our working facilities such as vehicles and IT solutions but also our employees. In April 2018 we introduced the ‘Creed Active’ initiative to support our employees. With a number of ‘Creed Active Champions’ we actively encourage employees to be active not just with their fitness, but diet, mental health and general wellbeing. Activities to date include organised walks, mindfulness sessions and branded water bottles.
