Sixth Form A Level Business

Nine Upper Sixth Business A Level students had the chance to visit Heron Foods Head Office. Heron Foods is a company that prides itself on selling top brands at the lowest prices across its 310 UK stores. During our visit we were lucky enough to have a talk by Jonathan Laverack, the Property Director, and a tour of the warehouses by Carl Dawson, showing how their logistics worked. We were also not so lucky to spend what felt like much longer than 5 minutes in their -25 cold store where frozen stock was held! Later on we had various talks in the boardroom from the Head of Marketing/Buying as well as HR and Finance senior managers, when we discussed the impact of Covid-19 on the business and also Brexit, as well as learning about their cost leadership strategies. It was so insightful to see how external factors affected each department in different ways. We were all very shocked by how much rain causes Heron Foods sales to fall, due to the city/town centre location of their stores.

Heron Foods was acquired by B&M in 2017, with B&M being a FTSE 100 company Heron have had to be more transparent with their financial information due to high levels of scrutiny, adding increased pressure to the Finance Department. It was such an interesting and educational day out and we would like to thank Jonathan Laverack from Heron Foods for his generosity in inviting us to look around. Special thanks go to Mrs Nadin for organising the trip (and her fantastic minibus driving!) and also to Mrs Seeney for coming along and asking many valuable questions.