Four years after etablishing its manufacturing business, Melbourne-based food company Fine Food Holdings (FFH) is having a cracker of a time.
With its ObFinest Specialty Crackers, FFH won Top Ranked Supplier 2018 in the Australian Grocery Deli category of the Advantage Report, just four years after establishing its manufacturing division.
The awards are run by customer research industry specialist, Advantage Australia. It conducts 360-degree surveys with executive and buying teams across the retail sector, including Woolworths, Coles, Metcash and convenience groups. Companies are scored against KPIs including: business alignment; communications; innovation; responsiveness; strategy; growth; and service. Advantage Australia chose FFH, and identified it as the best at cultivating relationships between suppliers and retailers.
Seizing the gap
FFH was acquired last year by Champ Private Equity which owns a few premium food brands under the umbrella company Gourmet Foods Group. However FFH started out as a seafood business which also had a focus on entertaining products.
“Premium entertaining crackers seemed to be an ideal adjacency and complement to our existing entertainment product portfolio,” CEO Todd Wilson says.
Wilson has a long history in the food industry and says he and his partners were all from large corporate environments who knew the market and had well-established relationships. Wilson saw a gap in the deli cracker market and recognised the opportunity.
“We just felt that there wasn’t an innovative, active supplier in that space, offering the major retailers in Australia a quality product,” Wilson says.
“We had to deliver a brand proposition range and offer it to those retailers who wanted to support it and put it on the shelves.
“We also had to find what the consumer wanted as well.”
