One of the UK’s largest foodservice providers has transformed its business model overnight to support the growing demand for supplies during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Known for supplying the out of home sector including hospitals, care homes, restaurants, hotels, coffee shops and even schools and prisons, Bidfood last week launched a home delivery and click + collect service at a number of their sites to allow the general public the option to order food, drink and non-food items from their website, Bidfood.co.uk.
Speaking about the launch, Andrew Selley, CEO at Bidfood said: “At Bidfood, we take the safety of the products we supply and our people incredibly seriously. In responding to the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus around the world and in the UK, its impact on international supply chains as well as recent consumer stockpiling, Bidfood is proud to have an extensive range and supplier base to draw upon.
“Whilst putting in place comprehensive plans for our customers, we’ve also looked at how best we can support the general public and their requirement for food. As we see many outlets sadly shutting their doors for the foreseeable, the pressure on the retailers is only seeming to grow and so we have launched a service that will be a mixture of click and collect and home delivery to try and support the demand as best we can.”
The service, launched to consumers, allows them to purchase a wide range of frozen, chilled and ambient goods from Bidfood’s core range.
Selley continued: “This big change to our business model has demonstrated some incredible work from our teams to get this up and running in a very short space of time. We will be reviewing how this new service is performing over the coming weeks, but we’re pleased to see already how well this news has been received since launch.”
Bidfood’s Penrith depot, located in Gilwilly Industrial Estate, is offering a click + collect service which is available to use now. They aren’t currently offering a home delivery service.
It was also announced at the weekend that Bidfood and Brakes would be joining forces to support a new government initiative to ensure that vital food supplies reach the country’s most vulnerable people during the coronavirus crisis.
Starting this week, the initiative will see the two companies working together to deliver potentially hundreds of thousands of weekly care packages across the country to people at high risk from the virus who are not able to get easy access to food at this challenging time.
