When Adam O’Brien, 38, joined FBC in November 22, he brought with him the experience of 17 years in food service and Out of Home. But for the last year or so, he’s had the idiosyncratic world of vending to contend with. He’s been coming to terms with the marketplace, its products, suppliers, operators and its general modus operandi.
‘As much as vending’s been a learning curve for me, I think I found my feet quite quickly’, he says. ‘My main role in my first 18 months at FBC had been focussed on looking after own label, QSR and coffee shops – we’re in a lot of coffee shops – but vending was something entirely different.’
It was when he was trying to sell biscuits to a vending operator that he was told that The Man to impress was ARN’s John Crichton. He’d been knocking on the door of vending’s only dedicated wholesaler for a while, without success, but having touched base with the ARN CEO, things finally began to happen: John passed Adam’s contact details to Gordon Johnston.
‘When Gordon got involved, things began to move along quite quickly’, he recalls. ‘Last September, I had my first meeting with ARN up in North Shields and alongside Gordon were Matt and Allan and after that, we took off.’
Soon, Adam was able to report that ARN had agreed to list nine FBC products. As anyone who’s ever had a similar meeting ‘up north’ will appreciate, that’s no mean feat.
With that success in the bag, Adam headed for Vendex North. ‘We didn’t exhibit on our own that first time’, he says. ‘We’d just gone live with ARN, so I spent the day hanging around their stand.’ It was a good decision: the ARN booth was, as usual, heaving with operators eager to do business by taking advantage of the wholesaler’s famous ‘today only’ deals.
Vendex Midlands, although it took place just 4 months later, was an entirely different kettle of fish and chips. FBC’s Jammie Dodgers, Maryland Cookies and (everybody’s tuck-shop favourite) Fish and Chips had more than justified their inclusion in the nation’s spirals. The company had its own stand this time, and business was brisk. ‘ Vendex North and Vendex Midlands were like chalk and cheese for FBC’, Adam says. ‘In no time at all really, we’d built a really sound base of vending operator customers and we’d sold a lot of product.’
Meanwhile, Gordon Johnston’s support continued. ‘Fair play to him. He pointed me in the right direction, recommending lots of different people that we should try to engage with, such as Brodericks. He also highlighted to me the importance of groups such as the AVS, NIVO and Wise Group.’
Right now, these are products that are really blasting FBC’s route into vending: ‘Fish and Chips is our main SKU in terms of what we’ve sold, closely followed by Maryland Cookies’, Adam says, adding: ‘but I’m really excited about what Broderick’s are achieving with Nerds…’
More of that next time.
Meanwhile, here’s an intriguing personal trait of Adam’s that may well be of interest to an element of the vending community: he’s quite the expert when it comes to the gee-gees, to the point that he’s acknowledged as a bona-fide tipster. He’s renowned for his knowledge of jump racing in particular, so if you’re a punter looking for some pro input next time Cheltenham comes around, maybe you should invite him round to your office for a coffee? Rest assured, he’ll provide the biscuits…
NEXT TIME: Adam gives us the low-down on Nerds and (hopefully) we’ll also be sharing the experiences of Johnny Broderick.
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