From seafood wholesaler to Foodservice Distributor of the Year: the story behind New West Foods
/At the recent FoodService Association Australia National Awards of Excellence presentation dinner, WA foodservice distributor New West Foods took out the coveted Distributor of the Year Award. Foodservice Rep spoke to managing director Damon Venoutsos about this achievement and the story behind the business’ success.
New West Foods managing diRECTOR Damon Venoutsos
“It most definitely came as a surprise,” Damon says of the award announcement. “A lot of people asked me did I know in advance and I honestly had no idea. It was truly a night for the independents – we saw a lot of very strong companies from across Australia sharing the limelight, and being a fierce independent myself I was relishing and celebrating that. WA is a small state and I don’t know whether a WA distributor has ever won the award before, but never in my wildest dreams did I think we would get it!
“As the awards were held in Melbourne which is two hours ahead of WA, I was able to get in touch with my team, most of whom were still awake – the night shift was just getting ready for work – and share the news. I sent about 80 texts and it was great to be able to let everyone know.”
“I was 15 when my parents started the business and I vividly remember seeing tubs of fish being brought in to weigh”
Listen to Damon’s inteview on The Network podcast
New West Foods traces its origins back to 1988, when the term foodservice distributor wasn’t even in widespread use. “They were called wholesalers, and we started off as a seafood wholesaler which meant we were buying from local fishermen all around the coast. I was 15 when my parents started the business and I vividly remember seeing tubs of fish being brought in to weigh, then my Dad would be writing cheques. We would cut it, clean it, pack it and sell predominantly to fish and chips shops. That led us to thinking about what else we could sell alongside seafood, like salt and vinegar, dim sims and so on.
“Dad was born in Greece and back then a lot of fish and chip store owners were Greek, and they’d go to the market, come past us, buy what they wanted and go on their way. One fine day around 1995 they brought in a catalogue called Best of the Best which they’d picked up at the market, threw it on our desk and said “if I buy everything I need from the market they’ll throw in a TV.” That was a big deal because every shop wanted a TV to entertain customers waiting for their orders. This was the NAFDA loyalty program, which had never been spoken of in Perth before, and Kailis Bros who owned the market were giving it a red hot push. So I rang NAFDA and said we needed to become a member and the rest is history.”
Joining NAFDA gave New West Foods the opportunity to grow its range. “In retrospect it was the best business decision we ever made – the ability to be price competitive, to harness that national buying power was just huge for us. We soon went into frozen chicken, frozen vegies, smallgoods, pastry – just heaps of product because we were able to sell them. We started with lunch bars, then a couple of pubs; everything we offered was well priced and we were able to be competitive, and that’s how we grew. In the beginning the goal was business retention, not growth but we were able to earn our membership fees back in rebates very quickly so ROI-wise it was great for us.”
Damon started work in the business in 1992. “I used to joke I had the longest apprenticeship known to man because I worked with Dad who was our MD until he retired in 2010, which is a decent innings. My brother Peter was also in the business, he started a couple of years after me and finished in 2016.”
Expanding operations
As New West Foods expanded it undertook extensions to its facilities, adding more freezers and chillers plus dry goods storage. “We maxed out the land, went higher and bought up the adjacent block. And that’s how we remained until we moved to our new site in 2021. Our motto right through the 1990s, through to now has been “personalised service is our specialty” – I don’t know we coined it, but thinking back now, to be able to say that probably meant we had identified there was a void in the market. Even now, if a customer rings me I’ll return the call on the same day; if they ring me after five they’ll still get a call back.
“That culture goes through our whole business because you’re never too good for your customer. And it goes beyond the customer to the supplier. The reality is that a lot of suppliers in the early days didn’t have to give us the same deal they were giving others in WA, but they chose to back the little guy and that’s a true partnership. So we strive to give them what they need – we’re accessible, contactable and nimble enough to make decisions and that helps customers plan.
“They don’t need to know what’s going on in our business, many of them are too busy with their own, but they need solutions delivered in a timely manner and that’s what we do. No one phones you because they want an order, they phone because they need it. When they call they expect you have to stock and they need it delivered – they’re usually not ringing about next week but about what they need tomorrow. And being able to fulfil that is fundamental to who we are.”
Damon says when it comes to maintaining the business ethos, “I believe that comes from within and it’s set by everyone who works with us. We’re in WA where you can get a lot of money in the wines for not doing a lot of work, but we have extremely good retention and I give my team credit for that because it’s a place where people want to work. I can’t necessarily offer a higher hourly rate or more incentives, but I can make it a place where the bulk of your time is spent in a happy and pleasant environment. I always say everyone contributes every day so everyone has to have a sense of achievement every day. We’re at 82 staff now and I still know everyone’s name, I still walk through the place every day when I get to work and say good morning to everyone and I’ll never stop doing that.”
“Family owned” resonates in WA
New West Foods has seen a lot of change over the years, with many of its biggest competitors no longer in the market: “They’ve been sold, acquired, divided up. Back in the mid-90s there were four companies which had 80 per cent of the Perth market and none of them exist in the same form now. Whereas being a family owned business has been a large part of our success, because in a parochial state like WA that resonates with people, especially when you have significant change. We’ve made acquisitions too, we made one in 2021 and another this year and if you want to be in this industry you have to take those risks.”
The 2021 acquisition of Countrywide member Elite Foods saw New West Foods take on 30 new staff and allowed the business to expanded into new customer segments. This was followed in April this year by the acquisition of European Foods, a former WA juggernaut during the 1990s and 200s.
“They were big in imported cheeses, a sector we weren’t in – now we’re bringing in cheese from over a dozen countries. Their other big category was couverture chocolate, which is used in bakery and premium high end restaurants, so those categories have brought us new customers plus there was a lot of crossover with our existing base.”
“Back in the mid-90s there were four companies which had 80 per cent of the Perth market and none of them exist in the same form now”
Looking ahead, Damon says the business’ longterm goal is to be a one-stop shop for its customers. “That’s what we want to achieve and I think we’ll do it by range extension, both through further acquisition and via regional expansion. WA is a massive state and we do some big runs down to the southwest, Bunbury and surrounds, but sometimes we might want to go a bit further and we might need a depot to do that.
More frequent deliveries the way of the future
“These days time is more precious to our customers than ever before, so we spend a lot of money on IT and systems to give them order flexibility – they can order up until 11pm for next day delivery, which is important for us.
“We’re also acutely aware of the fact that the new foodservice premises whether in shopping centres or standalone have smaller and smaller back of house space on account of rents being so expensive. That means they need more frequent deliveries – once upon a time they’d order once a week, but nowadays they don’t have the storage space so if they need a delivery every day we have to be able to do it.”
“I think we’re a damn great industry and you saw it in the room during the FSAA Awards”
Having lived and breathed the industry for many decades, Damon has no regrets about following his parents into the business. “I think we’re a damn great industry and you saw it in the room during the FSAA Awards – you can be sitting on a table with your fiercest competitors and have the utmost respect for each other, whereas a lot of other industries don’t have that.
“My team can pick up the phone and talk to a Countrywide member – you understand that not every outlet or every business can be your customer. You just do what you do as best as you can and maintain good relationships with everyone else because it’s too small an industry not to. As I’ve said to many people, I feel like I won lotto because I’ve got my dream job.”
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