Blakemore and Bestway among the winners at FWD Gold Medal Awards

Judges said Bestway’s partnerships with suppliers had helped deliver “outstanding availability levels during the toughest trading period, through buying ahead, collaborative joint forecasting, backhauling stock to mitigate suppliers’ driver shortages, and adding significantly to its central ordering department”.

Spar distributor AF Blakemore & Son picked up the Gold Medal for best use of data and insight.

The award recognised its Project Utopia data initiative, which aimed to maximise trading profit and reduce promotional frequency to create more-effective, less-complex promotional strategies.

It analyses the profit contribution of every promoted product in a store by combining live sales data and case costs and incorporates supplier trading agreements to give a complete view of profitability.

In trial stores, consistent profit improvements of between 1% and 2% are said to have been achieved.

Gold Medal winners in the supplier categories included Monster energy, named best retail brand, and Madri Excepcional beer – which took home the trophy for best licensed brand as well as being named best new product.

The awards were hosted by comedian Al Murray “The Pub Landlord” (pictured above).

To see the full list of winners, visit the FWD website