Supplying to the discount retail sector: behind the business with 151 Products

Manchester’s 151 Products supply homecare and motoring products to the discount retail sector. Here, managing director, Richard Shonn, takes Bdaily behind the business.

What key challenges has your company recently faced?

In December 2012, we completed the purchase of the UK’s largest independent manufacturer of insecticides, weedkillers and garden care products – Doff Portland – within five weeks. It was a tough challenge that acted as a steep learning curve for all involved.

What has been your biggest achievement over the last 12 months?

Our acquisition of Doff Portland has reached the objective of bolstering our garden care and pest control offerings. There are lots of exciting developments in the pipeline, so we’re looking forward to announcing them soon.

What is your most important focus, and what do you hope to achieve next?

A key short-to-medium term focus for us is growing the business in order to achieve £100 million turnover by 2017. We hope to reach that figure by expanding within our best performing sectors – kitchenware, DIY and gardening – as well as securing new licensing deals and acquisitions.

What excites you about your industry and business

Working across multiple sectors enables us to have the ability to be creative and take advantage of opportunities, as and when they arise. We’re really excited about the ongoing, increasing success of the discount sector too, as our business model is perfectly suited to supplying this thriving market.

What do you wish you’d know when you started out?

I wish I’d known to delegate more. Learning to hand tasks over to the relevant people could have saved me time and unnecessary stress.

What will be the next big thing in your industry and how do you plan to handle it?

There isn’t really one ‘next big thing’ in the manufacturing and supply retail industry that we can pinpoint, rather there are several all happening at once. To keep up with new demands and trends, we need to continually evolve and strive to be even quicker to market with new products.

At 151 Products we’re constantly innovating to provide our retail customers with the latest items, so our new product development needs to be continuously driven forward, which our team of in-house professionals is well-equipped to handle.