Case Study - Welsh Brew Tea
Adwell Foods Ltd (Welsh Brew Tea)
Swansea Bay Partnership’s trade missions have added hundreds of thousands of pounds onto the bottom line of Swansea-based Adwell Foods Ltd according to director Alan Wenden.
Adwell Foods first contacted Swansea Bay Partnership in 2001 when the company realised it was ready to export to international markets. The family-run company had successfully built up its Welsh Brew Tea brand in Wales over 10 years and felt the time was right to develop an export side to the business.
Swansea Bay Partnership quickly organised for Adwell Foods to be part of a trade mission to the Republic of Ireland, which resulted in the company finding an established distributor to sell its brand of tea in Ireland through the food services sector.
Since then, Adwell Foods Ltd has been on various trade missions with Swansea Bay Partnership which has helped the company establish contacts with distributors in many European countries including France and Italy.
According to director, Alan Wenden, trade missions organised by Swansea Bay Partnership have played a mayor role in opening up export markets.
“Since we started going on trade missions with Swansea Bay Partnership nine years ago I would say we have added hundreds of thousands of pounds to our bottom line as a direct result. Our company grew by 28 per cent in the first quarter of this year and the trade missions have been a definite factor in that.”
Alan advises other companies considering exporting to get in touch with Swansea Bay Partnership:
“Swansea Bay Partnership’s trade missions do all the hard work for you by bypassing all the research stage – from the moment you arrive there is a networking programme with pre-identified targeted companies who want to do business. Having these types of opportunities unearthed with all the legwork done so to speak is a huge help to smaller companies like us who don’t have the resources to do that kind of research. This has resulted in a rapid breakthrough in markets, which are notoriously difficult to break into – there really has been no end to the benefits we’ve seen since becoming involved with Swansea Bay Partnership.
“Without the advice and help of Swansea Bay Partnership we would almost certainly not be exporting to these countries”