Selling to major food retailers

A Berkshire Food Network event

Austin Bailey of Lacka Foods will talk about the trials and tribulations of selling to the major food retailers. Austin will present the story of his experience of starting and growing a food business. He will talk about the successes and failures of his sales strategy with the major retailers.   

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Speaker Profile - Austin Bailey

Austin started his FMCG career with Coca-Cola, moving on to Evian & Volvic and lastly General Mills before starting Lacka Foods, his own business, in 2012. He created the Be Fast brand almost by accident which went from an idea in May 2012 into 500 Asda stores by October 2012. The Be Fast brand has since continued to grow despite competition from Weetabix.

In June 2014 a new protein drink “Ufit”, was launched. Initially going to present to Tesco only two products, Austin went on to launch 15 new lines with Tesco. These products are now also listed in Asda, Ocado, WH Smith, Whistlestop, Road Chef, Superdrug, Ocado and Holland & Barrett.

Austin has a real passion for selling and working with food & drink, his experience covers branded and supermarket own label products and has worked in ambient, chilled & frozen categories.

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The Berkshire Food Network – Aims and Ambitions

The Berkshire Food Network is a forum where food businesses share ideas and insights.  The University of Reading is the UK’s centre of excellence for food and nutrition research. This research activity combined with Berkshire’s growing number innovative food companies makes Berkshire one of the best locations to build a food business.

This forum is a place where food producers, manufactures, distributors and researchers meet their food industry peers, as well as companies involved in food packaging, marketing, sales and logistics. 

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