Case History
City Wine Bar & Bistro

A chance meeting at a Premiership football match led Acquire Services Limited (ASL) to becoming the long term procurement partner for a new city bar dining concept.

Our client had the vision to create a unique food led bar concept and had already secured his first operational site in Cambridge. A publicist by trade, he had all the skills to develop and sell the concept, what he needed was the expert procurement knowledge and industry insight to support the long-term sustainability of the business.

The brief given to us was to prepare a comprehensive supply chain solution across all hospitality products, and, critically, to deliver it within a four week time frame. Quality, service and price were paramount, local produce was essential, and a range and diversity of food and wines was required to appeal to the most discerning palate.

In addition, we were tasked with sourcing small wares and fixtures and fittings for both front and back of house operations that included kitchens, the lounge bar offering international cuisine, DJ sounds and the VIP party suite.

Working within tight deadlines, we immediately arranged a series of supplier ‘taster’ days that gave our client and his team the opportunity both to select the products and services they wanted and understand the wide range of goods that we were able to source on their behalf.

As soon as the selections were made, we embarked on the supplier integration programme, undertaking all the administrative arrangements for supplier set up, including account opening, developing and agreeing supplier service levels, price file negotiation, product testing and finally roll out for opening.

Two years on and we continue to manage all procurement, covering perishable goods, dry and frozen commodities, wines and spirits, small equipment and cleaning materials. In addition, regular reviews with management ensure the client is fully informed on industry initiatives, new products and services and ongoing pricing performance. These reviews also provide the client with the opportunity to monitor service performance and adherence by suppliers, pricing controls, and maximise savings whilst strengthening the overall brand proposition.

Our client is in no doubt about the value of the relationship. “Acquire developed a sustainable and robust procurement solution that has enabled me as Managing Director to focus on the direct customer-facing elements of the business, allowing the business to grow safe in the knowledge that the costs are expertly controlled by Acquire”.

For us, the pleasure of working alongside a client has been in seeing a bright new concept grow into a soundly based business, and demonstrating, once again, that irrespective of the size of the client organisation there is no substitute for expert planning and management of the procurement process.

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