A magic Melbourne merger
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Armstrong's Foodservice and Lemchef joined forces in 2016 to form AR Foodservice, combining strengths to drive growth and secure a stronger future.
Countrywide’s conferences and study tours have a great reputation for promoting growth and learning, but for Colin Armstrong and Steven Rubenstein, attendance was a bona fide game-changer.
Indeed, were it not for the Countrywide National Conference in 2014, AR Foodservice may never have been born.
It was at that fateful conference that the two Melbourne business owners first got talking and quickly started to recognise some synergies. “We realised that we were both essentially doing the same thing in foodservice, about 500m apart, in southeast Melbourne” Colin recalls. “We were servicing different segments of the market but essentially operating very similar businesses.”
Over the coming years, they kept in touch as Colin and his brother Des continued to grow their business, Armstrong’s Foodservice, while Steven had his arms full with Lemchef Food Service.
“We identified that each business had something the other one needed – ours had an ERP and other systems, and Steven had warehouse space that we needed for the ability to grow,” Colin recalls.
“Over the course of a couple of years, Steven and I decided that a merger between the two businesses would be advantageous, so in 2016, we created AR Foodservice, in time for my brother Des to retire. Glen Cochrane, who was the CEO of Countrywide at the time, was very supportive of these initiatives where members were prepared to join together to become single larger members.”
We have 35 people in the business today, many of whom have been with us since we started in our separate businesses.
A decade on, AR Foodservice serves Melbourne’s diverse food scene with 35 dedicated staff, continuous innovation, and a commitment to enhancing customer experience.
Connecting on Core Values
Colin was thrilled to increase from his 600m2 warehouse to Steven’s 4500m2, which has enabled them to store some 2000 products to service Melbourne’s vibrant food scene.
“The merger was a significant challenge – essentially it’s like a marriage!” Colin admits. “But Steven and I identified pretty early that even though we come from diverse and different backgrounds, we have pretty similar values as people.”
One of those core values has always been customer appreciation. “We always say that regardless of the size of the customer, they will have a profile in our business, and feel like we listen to them,” Steven says. “And if we’ve made a mistake, then we be open and up-front saying, ‘Sorry, we made a mistake, now how do we fix it?’ And people respect that.”
Fast forward 10 years and AR Foodservice is firmly on the Melbourne foodie map, servicing everyone from local bakeries to Subway franchises under the careful watch of their new General Manager, Allison Stockdale. “We have 35 people in the business today, many of whom have been with us since we started in our separate businesses,” Colin says. “We always looking for ways to improve our operations and improve the customer experience, whether it’s investing in a million dollars worth of fridges, adopting new technology or updating our warehouse systems.”
Deep Care
AR Foodservice puts people-first - focusing on customers, suppliers, staff and the community with respect and care.
As Melbourne foodservice continues its slow recovery from the COVID lockdown years, Colin says customer care has never been more important. “There’s certainly a lot of pressure facing foodservice businesses in post-COVID Victoria. People were really damaged by the lockdown strategies we encountered,” Colin says. “CBD takeaways used to absolutely boom and now they don’t have the through-traffic that they used to have.”
AR Foodservice tries to do their bit by making customers’ lives that little bit easier. “Our big focus is people – our customers, our suppliers, our staff and each other,” Colin says. “If you treat people with respect and understand what their pain points are, and reduce those with a smile on your face, that puts you in good stead. The thing we love most about this business is the people we work with – the people in this industry are really authentic and relatively unaffected.”
Director, AR Foodservice