Our Story
Our story
Since we first became part of the Bidvest family in 1999, Bidfood has grown from strength to strength to be leaders in foodservice today. Here’s our story…
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In 1999, Booker Foodservice was acquired by Bidvest plc, a South African-based company, and renamed BFS Group Ltd trading as 3663 First for Foodservice (3663 spelled food on an old-fashioned touch-button mobile phone).
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In 2003, 3663 First for Foodservice acquired Swithenbank, a specialist fruit and vegetable business and Wilson Watson, a specialist catering equipment business.
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Forteith Foodservice in Oban, Scotland was acquired in 2012, and continues to play a key role in our Bidfood Scotland infrastructure.
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In 2012, South Lincs Foodservice also joined the company, adding to our portfolio of regional foodservice supply businesses, bringing their Black+White Coffee Co. to our range.
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It was decided in 2014 that 3663 should change its trading name to Bidvest 3663 to reflect its international affiliation.
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We acquired Cimandis, a foodservice distributor based in the Channel Islands in 2015.
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In July 2015, we changed our trading name to Bidvest Foodservice and introduced our key ingredients (service excellence, great food, real value, best team and forward thinking) as the pillars of our customer proposition, as well as our values (care, share, dare) which are the foundations of our culture across the business.
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In 2016 we acquired two manufacturing businesses: Yarde Farm, an award-winning and an artisan ice-cream business.
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In 2016 Caterfood joined our growing family of foodservice distributors, a successful, leading foodservice provider in the South West.
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From 3rd April 2017 we, along with the other Bidvest Foodservice businesses around the world, changed our name to Bidfood, reflecting both our heritage and our link back to Bidcorp, and our passion for food.
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In 2018. we launched a partnership with Enotria&Coe, the UK’s leading premium drinks supplier, launching UNITY Wines and Spirits , which has a portfolio that includes over 450 wines. -
In 2019, we acquired Elite Fine Foods, a highly successful foodservice provider distributing right across the South. In the same year we also and launched Simply Food Solutions, an extensive range of quality food solutions including Simply Puree, a range of nutritionally balanced texture modified meals catering for people with dysphagia, on the back of Bidfood’s acquisition of The Punjab Kitchen.