Although it has only been in operation for little over a year, Midlands-based Star Feast has already made a significant impact within the restaurant, hotel and catering sectors thanks to the quality of its seafood offering and its focus on customer service.
“We’re part of the Star Agro Marine Foods Ltd group so have a great deal of experience and expertise within the business that have enabled us to hit the ground running,” explains Mohammed Khan, Business Development. “Our existing contacts and connections have given us access to a wide range of different markets, while our relationships with suppliers are also well established. We’re therefore able to provide a variety of different seafood including shrimp, tiger prawns, squid and fish, as well as poultry. We also have significant buying power that enables us to provide our customers with competitive prices.”
With facilities in Bangladesh and India, Star Feast is able to keep firm control over the manufacturing process, which in turn ensures that the quality remains high. “The fact that we look after every element, from the manufacturing through to the sales and distribution, gives us a tremendous amount of control over the final product,” adds Mohammed. “This is where our main strength lies. As result, we’re able to supply products throughout the UK and we have customers spanning from Glasgow in Scotland down to Plymouth in the South-West. We also export into Europe too and we’re looking to make the most of the potential there.”
“Our existing contacts and connections have given us access to a wide range of different markets, while our relationships with suppliers are also well established. We’re therefore able to provide a variety of different seafood including shrimp, tiger prawns, squid and fish, as well as poultry. We also have significant buying power that enables us to provide our customers with competitive prices.”
Mohammed Khan, Business Development
With the rapid rate of growth it has been seeing, Star Feast has been careful to build the infrastructure to support the ongoing expansion of the business. “Even though we already had strong foundations within the company and an experienced senior management team in place, we’re continually looking to add to this as our sales increase further. We invested in a 3,000 sq ft facility in Canary Wharf earlier this year that is already performing better than expected and we’ve also added to our fleet of delivery vehicles. This is enabling us to expand strongly with London and our intention is to keep this momentum going.
“We’ve identified a real lack of service in the distribution and food products within the marketplace and we’re keen to make the most of that opportunity. To achieve this, we’re increasing the number of lines that we deal with on a daily basis and even though we started off specialising in seafood, our offering is much broader now encompassing the likes of rice, spices and oils. If a customer has a suggestion, we’ll endeavour to accommodate them if we can, so we’re increasingly being seen as a ‘one stop shop’ solution. Again the strength of our supply chain is a major factor behind this as our suppliers have been brilliant in catering for the needs of our customer base. If we were just a small retailer this wouldn’t be possible but we have the scale, the network and the reputation to come up with a solution for our customers.”
Despite the ongoing growth it is seeing, Star Feast is facing some potential challenges in the future, particularly with the Brexit question still remaining very much unanswered. “Brexit does pose a number of issues regarding importation rates but we’re striving to make our own operation as efficient as possible to ensure that we keep delivering for our customers,” highlights Mohammed. “We’re certainly keen to keep developing the infrastructure of the company so that our service remains high. Within the next 12 months we hope to have two new depots up and running, one in the South-West and one in the North of the country. Our Wolverhampton site does a great job of covering an area up to Leeds and beyond to Newcastle and down to Luton, while our London facilities are able to accommodate the southern regions. Having two more depots will allow us to strengthen our influence in the South-West and up into Scotland.”
With the amount of progress it has made already, it is clear that Star Feast is on the right track. What’s more, with the addition of further facilities in the months ahead, this momentum shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon.