Ice cream supplier fwip confirms sales team redundancies amongst UK staff
It has been confirmed by management at ice cream supplier, fwip that they had to make the “difficult decision” to make 13 of its employees redundant in the UK.
Describing the termination of contracts as part of the “strategic decision” to focus on the digital side of the business, CEO Paul Kali said they were continuing to seek investment opportunities.
fwip supplies over 2000 convenience stores across the UK, to symbol groups and independent stores, including several in Northern Ireland, providing its own branded machines and flavours.
The job losses will affect roles providing sales and field support to independent retailers.
In a statement to NR, Mr Kali described the move as “unfortunate news”.
“We have made the decision to release this statement on account of some misinformation, which has been circulating in recent days,” said Mr Kali.
“We confirm that fwip is and will continue to be fully operational as we gear up for another busy and exciting summer season. One that sees forecasted growth of almost 100% year-on-year.
‘fwip’s intention to honour commitments has not changed or wavered’
“We had to make the difficult decision to terminate 13 employees in the UK. We have made a strategic decision to steer our focus away from field sales and focus on becoming a digital player with a new e-commerce site (store.fwip.com), a telesales team and by using our network of wholesaler partners to continue to implement fwip throughout the UK.
“This is the model already active in fwip Germany, which saw growth of over 100% last year alone.
“Our telesales team contributes significantly towards our global expansion – with multi-lingual capabilities and a reach that an ‘on-the-ground’ field sales team simply cannot match. This unfortunate news has been more difficult to accept by some than others.
“As a result, we have launched our brand-new e-commerce site and are investing resources into a fully operational telesales team available not five, but six days a week.
“fwip’s intention to honour commitments has not changed or wavered since our first Portobello store was launched in 2010 and will continue to do so. Like all growing businesses, we continue to seek investment opportunities to fuel our growth across the UK, Germany, Poland, Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal.”
