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Milligan, who joins from high-end pet food firm Kennelpak, previously worked for two Scottish wholesalers and has experience of the convenience retail channel. He will report directly to Filshill’s chief sales and marketing officer Craig Brown.
Filshill, who operates the fast-growing KeyStore and KeyStore More retail fascias, is experiencing a period of robust growth and is increasing its resources.
Brown said: “Gary will work with customers to stimulate growth and increase profitability in a competitive convenience marketplace that continues to evolve and throw up challenges while helping them retain the flexibility to run their stores the way they want to and offer a point of difference over their competitors. His technology experience and interest in our use of data, including our industry-leading epos system, online ordering and our click-and-collect operation which has transformed our business for the digital age, will help us attract the type of tech-savvy, entrepreneurial retailers with the community at their heart who will shine a spotlight on the KeyStore brand.
“KeyStore has good visibility in the east of Scotland and Gary’s knowledge of the territory will be crucial in helping us achieve our goals.”
Milligan said: “It’s an exciting time to be joining a forward-thinking business that is setting out its own stall for future growth by moving into a new distribution depot and head office premises next year, and I’m really looking forward to getting know my customers in the east of Scotland, forging new relationships and helping make their businesses stronger over the coming months.
“As someone who’s already heavily involved in my own local area through my under-14s football team I’m also looking forward to helping retailers recognise how important community involvement is to their business and how supporting local good causes can transfer into increased sales.”
Filshill, a member of Unitas Wholesale, currently supplies more than 200 independent KeyStore outlets across Scotland and the north of England.
