Five years ago, Field to Fork started operating from Block B of the Market with a borrowed van and two orders totalling £300. Today, it’s a £15 million business working out of one of the most modern facilities in London. Founder and owner Danny Wallis takes us through his relatively short journey from Lockdown start-up to sizeable catering supplier

Danny first began working at New Covent Garden Market (NCGM) 25 years ago, as a driver. In his own words, he’s done a little bit of everything in that quarter of a century. “I worked in the warehouse, packed and then moved into sales,” he says. “I worked for Linkclass initially and then went to Sheringham’s. I did leave the Market for a year to work for Fresh Direct, in Cambridge, which turned out to be a bit of a year’s work experience as it wasn’t really for me, working for a big national company.

“It was one of the guys there though that first put me into sales. He said, ‘you’ve got the gift of the gab’ and I did sales three days a week and drove the big lorries three days a week. He wasn’t daft, I was on the lorries on the heavy days!”

It turned out he was right though and Danny performed very well in sales, very quickly. “So, when I came back to the Market, it was with Linkclass, in sales,” he adds. “I then went back to Sheringham’s for six years and started Field to Fork, by mistake. One of my customers said someone had offered to go to the Market, pick up the fruit and veg for him and the deal was quite a bit cheaper than what Sheringham’s could do. I thought, ‘there’s a model there’. I said to Peter [Sheringham] at the time that we couldn’t compete with the margins the customer were talking about and he agreed - so I bought a van and started doing it myself.”

That van soon became five vans and the business grew to the point of it being amalgamated into another NCGM firm, Pavits. When Lockdown kicked in, Danny became national sales director for The Menu Partners [TMP]. I enjoyed that role, but still thought that there was room for a little guy in this Market and wanted to give it another go,” he recalls. “Looking back it was quite a brave decision; we were mortgaged up to the eyeballs. This time, I borrowed a van – from Jason Tanner [at TMP] as it happens. On day one, I had two orders from customers that came to £300. Even that felt good – it was quite a nice easy start. But our niche was  that we were coming to the Market, buying all the products and turning them for our customers.

“Even when we’d grown to three vans, we were doing a fair bit of that work in the car park, often in the rain, going to the dairy and all the different suppliers, putting it all together, and making it look the part. We did the 20-hour days and all the rest of it, but the customers were coming to us as opposed to us chasing them – I think mainly because we were just a little bit different.”

With its foundations rooted, the firm began to expand rapidly. Danny says: “Our first unit at the Market was in the old B row; just a box with a fridge in it to be honest, and we soon outgrew that. Then, when Rushton’s moved into their new units, we took on their old bays, and we soon outgrew that too. It’s sad that Allison Risebro isn’t here anymore, but the units that they vacated gave us an opportunity to move and grow again last year. I’m sure we’re going to outgrow this too!”

At the time of talking, Field to Fork had only been in Unit 335-336 in the new B Block of the Fruit and Vegetable Market for a little over six months, but the firm has taken the chance to customise the units to meet its specific requirements. “We have moved it around to suit us. We’ve just become more efficient; effectively, more space has brought greater efficiency,” he explains. “We can pack on a Sunday here, whereas we couldn’t do that before because of other things happening in the Market. We’re pretty much

24/7 now; we’ve got a packing team here on a Saturday and Sunday, which means we’re always ahead of the curve. Monday used to be our hardest day, but it’s become the easiest because we were already prepared for it each week.”

It’s no great strategical statement, says Danny, just “operational savvy” based on previous learnings. He adds: "I learned from all the different businesses I’ve been involved with. At Sheringham’s, we had six vans loaded on a Sunday because we were a little set apart from the rest of the Market and we had the space and freedom do it. We had 50 vans on the road and you just wouldn’t get the work out if you didn’t stay ahead of things. During my time at TMP too I learned plenty of things from them. They’re obviously a huge, national operator now and very good at it, while we’re pretty niche - supplying London and the Home Counties, but there were plenty of transferrable bits I pulled from my time there.

“Our customer base is wide and varied. We supply Hilton hotels, we supply a sushi concept with 200 sites, so we’re pretty big in avocados, and we also supply care homes, private schools, pubs, restaurants and high-end staff canteens.”

But, have the customers kept coming to Field to Fork, or has the firm been more proactive in marketing itself to potential new clients? “A bit of both really,” Danny admits, "but we’ve got to the stage where we can be a bit more picky about what or who we take on. If we don’t think it would suit either us or them, we don’t do it. Because of my background, we tend to come up against more of the bigger catering suppliers and there’s enough business out there for everybody, in my opinion.”

What began with a handful of deliveries is an operation now serviced by a fleet of 20 vehicles - from electric bikes to HGV lorries. And behind the business, every day, is a dedicated team of 45 who deal with an ever-widening range of products. “Predominantly we’re still our customers’ fruit and veg guys,” explains Danny. “And that’s what we do well, but we always ask what else we can do for them, so we can use the space we have here to an advantage. That could be dairy or bakery, it could be moving third party products around – we’ve been asked for all sorts, even tables and chairs. Essentially, we’re keeping our customers happy, while also keeping the vehicles moving and earning money.”

Behind every delivery is an operations platform built in-house that keeps Field to Fork’s fleet, logistics, and service running seamlessly, creating the efficiency to scale up without compromising on quality or reliability. “That too is built on years of experience, and picking the brains of everyone I’ve worked with,” says Danny. "Linkclass and Sheringham’s were both longstanding businesses, and they both had different ways of doing things. You take the best bits of that and use them in your own way. I wanted to get away from paper pick sheets, for instance, because they go missing and the order doesn’t get packed. Almost everything we do, we do electronically. I want to remove paper completely, and we’ll get there. I’m trying to do our bit.

“Our lead buyer lives between here and Poland and he’s very good. When he’s not here, he’s on the phone every night. There aren’t as many people to talk to anymore and we’ve got really good relationships with - and buy from - everybody on Buyers’ Walk. There are many benefits to being based here, two of which are low stock-hold and very, very little waste. The product availability and quality is second to none. And every wholesaler is holding your product for you. If that wasn’t the case, we would probably need a unit five times the size of this. So, when people come in and think we’re low on stock, that’s because the wholesalers hold on to my stock until we replenish each night.”

Building a team of 45 in five years in a wholesale market is no mean feat and Danny says staff turnover is “quite low”, adding: “We’ve really tried to be a bit different with our people. We’ve got a lot of competitors around us for staff, so we’ve looked at the business from the outside and asked how can we be a bit different, whether in terms of the uniform, buying kids eggs at Easter, you know, whatever it might be, we just try and make sure the staff have got a smile on their face.

“Quite a few of them worked at Linkclass and plenty knew me from before and approached me when they saw Field to Fork was blossoming. As we’ve grown, it’s been a case of having the right people at the right time and so many of them have been here a long time, so they’ve all got the experience you need to make it work. They know what they’ve got to do. And they’ve all got good ideas. So we listen and try and do it right. It’s definitely not me that has all the bright ideas!”

So, what’s the main difference moving from the older units into the nearly-new home Field to Fork has been in since late last year? “This space is more open plan. In our last units, we inherited someone else’s ideas because obviously they had it laid out to suit their practices and the size of their business. This place just ticked all the boxes. We didn’t need a particularly big office space because the majority of our admin is outsourced. It’s fully refrigerated and there’s space to be flexible, which we never had before.”

For Danny’s family, the firm is a way of life. His wife looks after the paperwork, their daughter works remotely in sales and customer service and their 17-year-old son does a couple of days a week between his days at college. They were all due to go on holiday just after this interview and an opportunity to be away together and switch off is particularly crucial when the day-today is as intense as a wholesaler’s lot often is.

Not that Danny’s complaining. “I’ve got to pinch myself with how we’ve got to where we are from just five years ago. My ambition then extended to filling a couple of vans up and driving and delivering myself, which I actually enjoyed. I didn’t think in a million years I’d get to this, but of course I’m thankful.

“The pleasing thing is that it has to be a reflection of how we’ve done it, doesn’t it? “As we grow, we remain committed to doing it responsibly,” he says, “and to making sustainability a meaningful part of that growth.

“It’s not just me, it’s the whole team around me. We couldn’t have done it without them. And to our customers - many of whom have been with us from the very beginning - thank you. Your loyalty and trust have been the driving force behind everything we have built.

“None of this would have been possible without the relationships we’ve built. From the growers and suppliers, to our national supply partners who help us reach customers consistently across the UK and Ireland, every supplier and partner has played a vital role in our story. These relationships aren’t just commercial; they’re the foundation of everything we deliver.”

The obvious question is ‘what comes next?’, so we asked! “I think we’re kind of at a good level now. I always said I didn’t want to get too big, but what is too big?” Danny asks himself. “We’ve grown by at least 20% every year to now and I think this is a sweet spot. I know all my staff by their first names, the good people are hard to get and the bigger you get and more people you need, it’s even harder to find them.

“I know we can’t stand still because it’s inevitable we will lose the odd one or two customers along the way, but we’re good at what we do and we’ve got new contracts coming on stream, so we’re at a sustainable level and everyone’s happy.

“Here’s to the next five years!”