10 Jun 2011

dbc foodservice was acquired by Malcolm Walker, Andrew Pritchard and Tarsem Dhaliwal, the team behind the Iceland recovery, in April 2009. The business has been restructuring and modernising over the past two years in order to enhance and improve the service offered to meet customer needs and to become even more competitive and successful in growing this business.

dbc grew through a series of acquisitions prior to 2009. This resulted in employees undertaking similar roles at different sites engaged under varying terms and conditions which has led to inequalities for some employees.

The business has looked to resolve this through consultation and the introduction of consistent standards so that all employees enjoy the same terms and conditions. The consultation has involved over 1,000 employees nationwide between October 2010 and March 2011, with the overwhelming majority having agreed the new terms and conditions.

However, a very small number of employees at Dundonald depot have not agreed to the changes in terms and conditions, despite ongoing negotiations with ACAS and GMB Scotland, which has resulted in the planned industrial action between Thursday 9 June and Monday 13 June 2011.

The Dundonald depot was originally acquired to service the MoD contract in 2006. However, the plan is to develop a significant commercial business in Scotland whose customer base will require a 24 hour, 7 day a week operation.

dbc has implemented a robust contingency plan to nullify the impact on its customers and it will be business as usual.

Our commitment to the success of the depot remains clear, and having recently recruited two additional Territory Sales Managers, we are actively recruiting a Regional Sales Manager and Meat Trader to complement and enhance the Dundonald team.

As part of its continual business improvement programme designed to enhance the service provided to customers, dbc has also consolidated its telesales operations with three telesales teams having been merged into larger teams, creating a total of eight new telesales centres of excellence. These centres of excellence provide the telesales teams with more modern, up-to-date working environments. As part of the consolidation process, the outdated Manchester depot has been moved to the new state-of-the-art warehouse and office facilities at Warrington.