Food move for Raab
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• Hard times in the DIY sector have forced Rickaby & Lee to diversify into food and drink distribution, which it hopes will eventually account for 50% of its turnover; it currently represents 22.2m out of a turnover of £6.5m.
The latest move is a threeyear/1m contract with the Mansfield brewery. Rickaby & Lee will handle 300,000 cases a year, delivering to supermarkets and off-licences nationwide.
The company has set up a new 3,900m2 depot in Nottingham which is dedicated to food and drink distribution.
The 10 vehicles based at Nottingham work for Mansfield; more will be added when new deals are signed. Rickaby & Lee currently has a total fleet of 74 vehicles and nearly 28,000rnz of warehousing.
"We have very high specifi cation warehouses which lend themselves to food and drink work," says operations director Dennis Swannell. "We have been heavily into DIY but while that is profitable when times are good, it's a front-line business and is one of the first to suffer when there's a recession. Our DIY turnover has in fact not gone down but we have had to take on a lot of new business just to stand still."