For one food manufacturer in South Wales, digital advice from a business support service gave them food for thought, and Terry’s Patisserie is now tasting success with turnover set to double for the second time in as many years.
The company’s business development director Rhys Williams attended a Superfast Business Wales workshop to find out the key dos and don’ts for social media and website marketing, just as the Caerphilly-based family firm entered a pivotal stage of its journey.
Terry’s Patisserie, which specialises in supplying caterers high end patisserie products including tarts, tortes, and cheesecakes, has transformed from a “home-made operation to a serious manufacturer”.
Superfast Business Wales flagged up some really important issues
And Rhys believes its digital presence has played a crucial part in winning work with foodservice wholesalers and chains of hotels and restaurants. “Perceptions have changed,” he said. “The new website and social media channels portrays us in a more professional light, and positions us as someone that can handle larger contracts.
“We were starting to attract more attention thanks to exhibiting at trade shows and gaining top industry accreditation SALSA (Safe and Local Supplier Approval), which demonstrates our work is to a certain level and standard
“We were in the middle of building a new website and Superfast Business Wales flagged up some really important issues, which we were able to implement before it went live. For example, because more people visit websites on their mobile as opposed to desktop, they recommended it was mobile-first to cater for this.
The advice was invaluable
“In addition, the workshop assisted us with SEO (search engine optimisation) to help us rank for certain key phrases in the search results, as well as Google Analytics so we could identify what people were doing when they landed on the site.
“For social media, it was suggested that we focus on LinkedIn as we are targeting B2B foodservice professionals, and we were also given some pointers on the best content to publish on the platform to maximise results. All of the advice was invaluable!”
Terry’s Patisserie is adding a 800sq ft site to its operations this year as it expands into pastries. In addition, the business, which employs 12, is introducing an ERP system to handle the extra work involved across the patisserie and pastry divisions.
ERP software will help us reduce costs and increase efficiency
Rhys added: “ERP is enterprise resource planning software and is a huge project for us. Gaining the SALSA accreditation and winning new contracts significantly increases paperwork including invoices, sales, traceability, stock, and cost. ERP will streamline this for us and will actually help reduce costs and increase efficiency.
“It will also act as a weighing scale and production only continues if the recipe is adhered to: if 200g of butter is in the recipe but isn’t included in the manufacturing process, it will stop. This will dramatically increase product and quality control.
“Once ERP is in place, we will evolve the website to an e-commerce site, which will allow customers to order directly from us. We doubled our turnover last year to £250k, and our goal is to repeat this and hit £500k next year. We feel very confident based on the digital infrastructure we have, and will have, in place.”