Your 25-year journey in the fresh produce wholesale industry has had highs and lows. What keeps you motivated to keep coming back stronger each time?
It’s the people and the purpose, mainly. The growers who work impossibly hard to produce something beautiful. The customers who care about sourcing, quality, and values. And my team, many of whom have been on this journey with me for years. But beyond that, it’s the product itself. We’re living in the middle of a food crisis. Obesity rates are soaring, ultra-processed foods loaded with salt, sugar, and additives have become the norm, and we’re raising generations of people disconnected from where real food comes from.
Fresh produce is what people need. If we all ate more fruit and veg and less of the over-marketed, over-engineered “convenience” food, we’d be looking at a very different picture in terms of public health. Diet-related disease, mental health, they’re all affected by what we put into our bodies. Its important to me that I have a business that has a clear conscience about what it sells. A business that doesn’t just sell plastic crap that none of us need but contributes to something better. simple food, grown well, can help shift the dial on some of the biggest challenges we face, from obesity to climate change.
How did you pivot operations to meet the needs of your customers during COVID, and what lessons did you learn when demand normalized?
COVID was incredibly challenging. A large part of our customer base was already online retail and home delivery, so we didn’t need to pivot in the way hospitality suppliers did. We didn’t start delivering to homes. Our sales actually increased by around £13 million that year.
The real challenge was that just three months before the pandemic, we had stepped into non-fresh food wholesale. That move came after Marigold Healthfoods burned down. It left a huge gap in the market. We already knew the brands and shared many of the same customers. I saw it as both an opportunity and a way to help. Retailers were facing serious gaps on the shelves and asking for us to assist. we were in a position too, so we did.
If I’d known what was coming, I wouldn’t have done it. It took a heavy personal toll and stretched the business to its limits. It was a big lesson for me, You can be ambitious and well-intentioned, but timing is everything. Growth means nothing if your team burns out delivering it.
You installed a professional CEO after your personal breakdown over delegation; what did you learn from stepping aside, and how has it changed your leadership style now that you’re back at the helm?
It wasn’t really a choice. When you collapse and suddenly can’t function, you do whatever needs to be done. I had already decided to bring in a CEO, but when I burned out, the timeline was pushed forward. I simply wasn’t able to work the way I had for the previous ten years.
Stepping aside forced me to look at how I was leading and where I was placing pressure on myself and on the business. Since returning, I think the biggest shift has been in pace. We’re still nimble and fast to adapt, especially when it comes to serving our customers. That’s part of our DNA. But I’m more conscious now of not creating a culture of constant urgency. Change still happens, but we manage it more deliberately. It’s about protecting the team and creating space to think clearly, rather than running on adrenaline all the time.
What are the biggest operational challenges in supplying premium clients, and how do you ensure consistency and quality at scale?
One of the biggest challenges is aligning expectations across the supply chain from grower through to the end customer. That starts with clear specifications. Everyone needs to be on the same page about what quality looks like, what counts as acceptable, and where the boundaries are. If you don’t get that alignment right, you end up with tension at both ends.
Timing is also critical. Starting a season too early or hanging on too long at the end just to keep a product on the shelf is a fast route to disappointing quality. Flavour and eating experience always have to come first.
Managing our own transport, from Europe through to final-mile delivery is also important. We don’t hand off quality control to someone else. We see the product through from field to customer, and that oversight is what makes consistency at scale possible. Having a great QC department and also ensuring that all our staff understand why we do what we do is key.
In an industry known for thin margins and tight logistics, what strategies have you found most effective for sustainable growth?
Discipline. Keeping the whole supply chain tight and just in time is critical, its also risky but with fresh produce there is no choice, Which is partly why I like it so much. Shelf life is always ticking, You have to get things done.
partnerships. Building long-term trust with both suppliers and customers creates stability in an unstable market. Technology is also key, forecasting, detailed reporting systems are essential to be able to grow.
Your background as an actor is unconventional for a produce wholesale. How has that creative experience influenced your approach to business and team communication?
Being a professional actor for such a long time is pretty helpful in many aspects of business, Being able to communicate, Listen, and really tell a story are major benefits. When you’re an actor every audition that you go on is basically a sales pitch, except YOU are the product, so having to sell your talents to a director/ casting director in sometimes 3-4 minutes really helps when it comes to selling anything, whether fruit and veg or widgets.
Can you share a specific “comeback” moment, before the 2024 rescue, when you thought the business might not recover, and how you turned it around?
There are many. Coming back as CEO executing a turnaround plan and taking the business back to its core of Produce and supply chain solutions was tough, and the challenges were daily. But even in the darkest hours, I always felt we would make it, I did not allow myself to have a mindset of reviewing how I may fail, Every big challenge just needed a practical, calm and diligent approach.
What advice would you give other business owners about knowing when to ask for help during tough times?
Don’t wait until you’re drowning. If you feel the weight piling on and you’re losing clarity, that’s the moment to speak. Whether it’s a mentor, friend, people can’t help if they don’t know what’s going on. Asking for help isn’t a weakness; it’s a survival skill and strength.
Looking ahead, what are your top priorities for Wholegood over the next five years to build long-term resilience and scale?
We are 90% through reviewing our ERP and WMF systems, ensuring that we are building a best in class tech stack and ensuring that as we continue to grow, we do it as efficiently as possible, Growing our business across independent retail and foodservice to ensure we have a good mix of customers to ensure level of safety if any particular core market for us has a slow down in growth is also very important and reduces risk.
Widening our supply base is also a big focus at the moment to ensure product quality and continuity.
