It's 10 years since Malcolm Baker took a life-changing gamble. When his employer, Country Range Group, asked him to relocate to its Burnley head office, Baker didn't fancy uprooting from his West Country home. So he started his own foodservice venture.
He and five other businessmen raised £345,000 by remortgaging their homes. They bought a depot at Newton Abbot and three trucks, and hired three drivers: MJ Baker Foodservice was born. And after a "hairy" first year in which the fledgling firm made a loss of £151,000, the business hasn't looked back.
Last year, in its 10th year of trading, MJ Baker turned a profit of £1.8m on £16.1m in sales. It's an impressive margin of 11% - well ahead of the industry standard of 1.6% [The Grocer Big 30 Survey, 24 January].
Small and profitable is how Baker likes it. The wholesaler, which doesn't trade in fresh produce in order to keep waste levels down, serves a diverse range of small independent businesses throughout the south west including hotels, restaurants and nursing homes.
Baker has no desire to surrender margins in the pursuit of big contracts. Nor does he have any plans for national expansion.
"We supply the independent marketplace - that means we don't have any national contracts, so we are not supplying Pizza Hut at 3% above cost."
As well as a regional focus, Baker believes the business's greatest strength is that it can be run with a minimum of fuss.
Its admin team, for example, has only five staff, which makes lines of communication efficient. As a result, availability is at 99.7%, a figure Baker takes pride in.
"We make sure we do things absolutely right," he explains. "We are very lean and mean. We don't lose a customer because we give such good service."
This attention to service has not gone unnoticed by suppliers, which recently awarded MJ Baker Nisa-Today's Foodservice Wholesaler of the Year. But he's not resting on his laurels. Baker plans to grow the business by building a frozen and chilled depot next to its current depot, providing enough space for 300 pallets.
The geographical reach of the business includes Bristol, Weymouth, Newquay and St Austell. Baker believes there is scope to deliver as far as Bournemouth and Penzance from the Newton Abbot depot, but no further. The prospect of opening a depot in another location is out of the question as Baker believes it would complicate the business and cause it to lose profitability.
Complication is the last thing any business wants at the moment, and MJ Baker isn't immune to the recession. Over the first two of months of 2009, trade was flat as the hospitality industry suffered from a slowdown in consumer spending, but
it picked up in March as Baker won new business.
"Sixty percent of our accounts are downsizing but we have signed up more than 240 new accounts in 2009," he says.
And with no bank loans, the business looks set to ride out the downturn. In fact, Baker would bet his house on it.
He and five other businessmen raised £345,000 by remortgaging their homes. They bought a depot at Newton Abbot and three trucks, and hired three drivers: MJ Baker Foodservice was born. And after a "hairy" first year in which the fledgling firm made a loss of £151,000, the business hasn't looked back.
Last year, in its 10th year of trading, MJ Baker turned a profit of £1.8m on £16.1m in sales. It's an impressive margin of 11% - well ahead of the industry standard of 1.6% [The Grocer Big 30 Survey, 24 January].
Small and profitable is how Baker likes it. The wholesaler, which doesn't trade in fresh produce in order to keep waste levels down, serves a diverse range of small independent businesses throughout the south west including hotels, restaurants and nursing homes.
Baker has no desire to surrender margins in the pursuit of big contracts. Nor does he have any plans for national expansion.
"We supply the independent marketplace - that means we don't have any national contracts, so we are not supplying Pizza Hut at 3% above cost."
As well as a regional focus, Baker believes the business's greatest strength is that it can be run with a minimum of fuss.
Its admin team, for example, has only five staff, which makes lines of communication efficient. As a result, availability is at 99.7%, a figure Baker takes pride in.
"We make sure we do things absolutely right," he explains. "We are very lean and mean. We don't lose a customer because we give such good service."
This attention to service has not gone unnoticed by suppliers, which recently awarded MJ Baker Nisa-Today's Foodservice Wholesaler of the Year. But he's not resting on his laurels. Baker plans to grow the business by building a frozen and chilled depot next to its current depot, providing enough space for 300 pallets.
The geographical reach of the business includes Bristol, Weymouth, Newquay and St Austell. Baker believes there is scope to deliver as far as Bournemouth and Penzance from the Newton Abbot depot, but no further. The prospect of opening a depot in another location is out of the question as Baker believes it would complicate the business and cause it to lose profitability.
Complication is the last thing any business wants at the moment, and MJ Baker isn't immune to the recession. Over the first two of months of 2009, trade was flat as the hospitality industry suffered from a slowdown in consumer spending, but
it picked up in March as Baker won new business.
"Sixty percent of our accounts are downsizing but we have signed up more than 240 new accounts in 2009," he says.
And with no bank loans, the business looks set to ride out the downturn. In fact, Baker would bet his house on it.
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