Amphire – the e-commerce and purchasing services provider – is to purchase barbox, the leading online ordering service for the licensed trade, for an undisclosed sum.
Jason Ridley, Amphire UK’s general manager, announcing the deal this morning, said: “The combination of barbox and Amphire will create a powerful market leader in the hospitality sector with tremendous future growth potential.
“In fact, this acquisition dramatically increases our capability overnight. With increased investment into our state of the art technology platform and the combined industry knowledge of the two teams, we’ll be ideally placed to help all operators and licensees run their businesses more efficiently and cost effectively.”
The companies will offer a range of food, drinks, consumables and other goods relevant to the hospitality community, seeing combined order values rise to exceed a staggering £1bn per annum.
Duncan Malyon, managing director at barbox, added. “This deal is great news for customers. It cements the company’s independence within our industry, and improves the offering.
“In particular, Amphire’s considerable experience with foodservice will be especially useful as more and more of the trade turns towards food. The barbox team is looking forward to being part of a technology focused organisation with the real scale necessary to ensure we continue to deliver a top class service. It’s the next chapter in the barbox’s success story.”
barbox, previously a joint venture between Coors Brewers and Scottish & Newcastle, has grown from a standing start in 2000 to handling weekly orders worth up to £8m per week.
Steve Ellis, Coors Brewers Free Trade sales director said: “barbox was a really innovative development when it was launched in 2000 and e-commerce is an increasingly important communication tool in the modern business world. We are really excited at the opportunity of working with Amphire to significantly enhance the quality of our online offer to our customers.”
