How the BFFF is helping members through the pandemic

The pandemic and associated lock down have been a major challenge for all of us in the frozen food industry. Here is how the BFFF is supporting members during this crisis.

As your trade federation we have never been busier protecting and promoting your interests. From one-to-one advice for individual members to industry-wide initiatives to find customers, prevent food waste and trying to maintain liquidity: we’ve been amongst the most active trade associations in the food industry.

There’s still a long way to go and you can be confident that the BFFF team will be here for you every step of the way.

With so many initiatives underway, here’s a summary of all the help and support currently available to BFFF members.

The Frozen Food Platform

As the out-of-home market has faced a massive downturn in trade, retail sales of frozen food have reached levels only seen during the trading period in the run-up to Christmas. Launched on 18 th March the Frozen Food Platform was created to restore some balance and helps put struggling foodservice suppliers in contact with the retailers striving to meet demand.

Frozen food manufacturers supplying the foodservice/out-of-home sector can register their details with retailers to discuss supply possibilities. So far 124 BFFF members have registered and every major retailer has accessed the system.

The Transport Support Platform

The lock down has meant many businesses having to take vehicles off the road due to a reduction in demand. At the same time there’s been increased demand from some businesses for wheels to keep the food chain moving. The Transport Platform was created in March to bridge this gap, matching businesses which have idle vehicles in their fleet to those requiring additional transport solutions. A total of 24 transport companies registered.

The Wholesale Support Platform

This initiative has helped foodservice wholesalers redistribute chilled products fast approaching the end of their shelf-life and avoid unnecessary food waste.

Launched by BFFF, in conjunction with the FWD and PTF, the platform on the BFFF website collated data on the top ten overstocked chilled lines such as cheese, cooked meats, fruit juices and other short shelflife products.

In the first few hours of the platform going live £3.1 million worth of food had been registered by 18 companies. Instead of being binned much of this food was sent to companies such as Company Shop or given away to charity operations such as FareShare.

We also published on the website an extensive list of blast freezing and storage facilities to enable businesses with perishable stock to preserve it until demand improves.

The Spare Worker Availability Portal

The BFFF is working with the Association of Labour Providers (ALP) to help promote the Spare Worker Availability Portal (SWAP).

SWAP is a free tool which allows organisations to post details of spare and available workers and be contacted by GLAA licensed ALP labour providers who have work for them, so businesses needing extra staff can find the workers they need.

The COVID-19 Weekly Webinar

Since the end of March, we have held regular webinars which cover a wide range of topics, from information on issues around PPE, to the Coronavirus Job Protection Scheme and the situation in the out-ofhome market.

So far, the webinars have included: The UK Foodservice Industry with Simon Stenning, the founder of FutureFoodservice.com, the challenges in securing supplies of PPE with ARCO marketing director, Adam Young and Social Distancing in Food Manufacturing with Paul Irwin-Rhodes, the SHE manager of Greggs who outlined their journey during the COVID-19 crisis.

We will continue to host these 30-minute webinars to update members on the latest developments and what it means for your business. Webinars take place on the third Wednesday of the month at 2pm and will be available afterwards on the BFFF website for anyone unable to listen live.

COVID-19 Queries

Members can ask pandemic-related questions to the BFFF and our team actively seeks answers from both government and nongovernment sources. Questions and answers are uploaded to the COVID-19 section of the BFFF website so they are available to all members.

Maintaining cash flow

In mid-April an open letter from BFFF CEO Richard Harrow and BFFF president Nigel Broadhurst was sent to customers in a bid to keep cash moving throughout the frozen supply chain.

It recognised the incredible job the food production and distribution chain has done to ensure supply has been maintained during the pandemic, but that many BFFF members were suffering financially.

Though the government had transferred more than £3bn to local authorities, and as a result many businesses have received support grants, the letter asked that this financial aid be used to pay wholesalers and food manufacturers to keep cash moving back up the supply chain.

It stated: “Like you, all our members want to be in business when this is over. So, we need the government’s financial assistance to flow through the industry to ensure that when the recovery comes, we are all able to return to normal business as soon as possible.”

Health, safety and legislative support

All advice coming from government departments is being closely monitored by the BFFF and we will publish anything that might relate to our members on the website. This is an on-going process with information reviewed daily and advice updated accordingly.

Health and safety

BFFF’s health and safety team has supported members throughout the crisis with numerous queries answered and a plethora of guidance sourced from both government advice and membership best practice. The guidance includes pertinent topics such as:

Safe homeworking

Social distancing in food manufacturing and logistics businesses

Car sharing

The Job Retention Scheme

First aiders G

uidance on fire safety

RIDDOR

Pressure systems and lighting inspections

Social distancing for food wholesalers/customer collections

Recognising the issues in the membership we have been writing to government bodies such as HSE, PHE and DHSC with concerns over PPE shortages such as dust masks. This resulted in the HSE looking at the current supply and demand to food manufacturing and allowing the temporary use of masks and respirators with an assigned protection factor (APF) 10 rather than those specified in HSE guidance with an assigned protection factor (APF) of 20.

In addition, as part of a collaboration with a cross sector working group, we helped produce a briefing document to highlight the challenges faced by the food industry in sourcing PPE to maintain food production. This joint document represented a call to government departments and agencies including HSE, DHSC, FSA and Defra to help us meet the needs of food production during this difficult time.

Technical advice

Early in the pandemic we started to get reports that, due to the closure of the hospitality sector, wholesalers were holding stock which was rapidly going out of date.

As a result, we produced “Guidance on freezing down of chilled and ambient product to preserve life”. This good practice guidance has been written in response to these problems with the intention of helping businesses manage unexpected supply problems effectively by freezing products down.

Speaking for our members

Through an active public relations campaign we have been promoting many of these initiatives and making sure our voice is heard by the media, government and other stakeholders.

We have featured in numerous trade publication articles as well as a range of national newspapers and websites including the BBC, The Daily Telegraph, BBC Radio 4 Farming Today, The Guardian and The Mirror.

We have also been actively engaging with consumers to answer their queries about storing and using frozen food. Visits to our consumer website www.freshfromthefreezer.co.uk surged with an extra 45,725 visitors between 1 st and 25 th April, a 320% increase on April 2019.

Website

Much of the support and advice has been delivered via the BFFF website. Our new digital CRM and marketing manager, Harry Hinks, has been driving our web and social media activity with the support of colleagues.

There is a clear appetite for information from members and we plan to adopt a similar approach to communicating the imminent changes that will result from Brexit. At the heart of this effort will be a new BFFF website with a dedicated members-only section.

During the pandemic the BFFF team can still be contacted on the office line and by email and we will continue to do whatever we can to support our members throughout this period.