Luton company keeping the nation fed during tough times

MS foods is one of UK’s most recognised halal fast food distributors. Located in the south of England in Luton, they specialise in frozen, fresh, chilled foods , soft drinks and food packaging, offering customers excellent quality goods at affordable prices. On the first score, MS Foods also has another company in Paris that is a hub for distribution of fast food products across France.

With more than 25 years of experience and excellence, they have built their business on loyalty internally and externally, 50% of Ms foods customers have been with the, for over 15 years.

MS Foods built its business on offering customers an unbeatable collection and delivery service. Goods are delivered in refrigerated vehicles ensuring stock is delivered to customers’doors in perfect conditions. MS Foods sales representatives offer a unique personalised experience where members of staff are allocated to specific regions offering a balanced personal and professional experience. The company also offers other wholesalers the opportunity to work alongside them with our range of own branded products including pizza and chicken boxes, cheese, fresh chicken products, and per peri and southern friend chicken ingredients.

Qasim Saleem of MS Foods explains: “We’re a family run business and I run the day to day operations. The sectors we supply are predominantly the fast food businesses, and takeaways, and we also do some schools and mini markets.” We have a low turnover off staff with majority of our staff working with us for over 10 years. All employees are seen as family as we look to create a culture of loyalty through trust and transparency within our company making it welcoming and comfortable for all”

Qasim also suggested “We produce our own chicken products in a processing plant behind our main warehouse so that is a major part of our business.” It has of course been difficult time for everyone, with Brexit causing uncertainty and the Covid-19 pandemic hitting a huge number of businesses.

There were complications just before Christmas with lorries not allowed to enter the country for a few days due to the pandemic, but that seems to be ironed out now.

Qasim says, “Having the company in Paris has its pros and cons. We do a lot of traffic between there and Luton and as far as Brexit goes there have been some delays and some things are still a grey area, and there is a lot more paperwork. We’re looking at how we can streamline our operations further to make it all work.”

Covid has obviously been a huge blow to the food industry. However, with MS Foods mainly working in the takeaway sectors, they’ve managed to ride out the pandemic so far.

“I suppose we’re lucky in one sense,” says Qasim. “Fast food businesses managed to stay open when a lot of other food industries were closing and I really feel for those businesses that were hard done by the pandemic. “They stayed open and we need to applaud that, not to mention how it helped our supply chain to continue to operate from wholesalers, distributors to manufacturers. ”But the independent takeaway businesses we supply really stepped up to serve the nation as the Giants in the sector such as Mcdonalds, KFC and burger king were not prepared to help the country in taking stress off supermarkets. Things really worked out for the smaller businesses, so much so that when the PLC’s of the industry saw how it was working they opened up for takeaways as well and decided to offer a delivery service. “we also launched a new home delivery service called Simply Halal. This was originally introduced to help people the people of Luton to get their groceries delivered, at that moment lead time from supermarkets were in times were 2 weeks plus. This has allowed us to offer great wholesale deals and products to the public and helped widen our scope within the food sector.” we have got great feedback and are now looking to increase our delivery radius to neighboring towns.

And what happens when things get back to normal for MS Foods? “What’s normal?” laughs Qasim. “Will we ever know? I suppose for us, we’re looking to branch out into different areas that we weren’t catering to before hand.

“And we’re also looking to streamline our services, looking at our logistics to make our delivery runs more efficient.”

MS Foods runs to tight margins because it operates in a very competitive market.

“We don’t work on huge amounts in our margins,” says Qasim, “Which is why it’s important for us to keep going and supplying our smaller businesses, because they are the ones who have kept open and working late to make sure the nation has food.”

Having weathered the storm of the last year, Qasim is confident that MS Foods with its 25 years’ experience and solid footing in the market will be prepared to move forward into the future.