Barbox sold to Amphire
Amphire, the provider of e-commerce and purchasing services to the hospitality and foodservice industries, has bought Barbox, the leading online ordering service for the licensed trade, for an undisclosed sum.
The companies plan to offer an unrivalled online 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.
"The combination of barbox and Amphire will create a powerful market leader in the hospitality sector with tremendous future growth potential," said Jason Ridley, Amphire UK¹s general manager.
"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, we¹ll be ideally placed to help all operators and licensees run their businesses more efficiently and cost effectively."
Duncan Malyon, managing director at Barbox, said: "This deal is great news for customers. It cements the company¹s independence within our industry, and improves the offering.
"In particular, Amphire¹s 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.
"It¹s the next chapter in the Barbox¹s success story." Barbox, 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."
Amphire already provides e-commerce solutions to hospitality companies and foodservice operators in the UK, handling in excess of 850,000 transactions each year. Their expertise in this area is complemented by barbox¹s emergence as the dominant player in the licensed trade.
"We now have the scale and resources to support serious growth over the next few years," added Ridley. "It is our vision to increase our UK transactions to 2.5 million annually at a value of over £2bn over the next three years."
