Liverpool-based importer Peter Gilding has spent the last 28 years building up a £63.3 million business using longstanding relationships split evenly across the retail, wholesale and catering sectors.
The firm said this year’s turnover was achieved by offering state-of-the-art facilities, flexibility by pre-packing on site, by providing excellent service and adding value.
Its core lines of top fruit and citrus are available 12 months a year from both hemispheres, adding to kiwi fruit, stonefruit and small volumes of salads. A £2m investment in a new state-of-the-art cold storage facility is the company’s next milestone; with plans set to come through in January, the expansion would increase Peter Gilding’s capacity from around 6,000 pallets to more than 10,000.
The company has bought an adjacent three-acre site to its Merseyside HQ, which it has continuously expanded through purchasing additional units and land since setting up in 1986.
“The reason it is so important to keep investing is keeping up. Technology is changing so quickly, so if you don’t keep up you fall behind. It’s cost saving at the end of the day,” CEO Peter Gilding says.
“We started on a small scale, but have since invested in new machinery as we’ve had indication from customers that they will be looking for greater capacity.”
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