Harlech celebrates best place to work status
Harlech Foodservice, a wholesaler that “cares passionately” about its workers, is officially one of the best places to work in the UK
Harlech Foodservice has been included in the The Sunday Times Best Places to Work list for 2025, with judges commenting: “This family-owned catering supplier cares passionately about the morale of its 245-strong workforce. … Teamwork is encouraged by management and this is felt key to the company’s wider success.”
They continued: “Colleagues are motivated to have a say, making them feel valued, and last year almost 20 per cent were promoted from within the business.”
Members of the Harlech team are in agreement, including regional sales controller Dave Roberts who joined the firm four years ago. Roberts now leads a team which looks after the company’s national and key accounts in North Wales, North West England and the Midlands. Roberts said: “Still being a family business is quite key for me. … We’re not too big, so we are still an agile and responsive business that can go out there and give customers what they need. … I think they’re a great business to work for, I really do, and I would recommend anybody to join them.”
Morgan Jones, warehouse manager at the firm’s headquarters near Criccieth, joined as a part-time van driver’s assistant aged just 16 and said the opportunity of long-term employment and training at the company meant many young people didn’t have to move away from the area to find a satisfying career.
Eleven years later Jones now has a key role within the company’s operations. “I’ve worked here since I was 16 so I clearly like working here”, he said. “Promotion within the company has not just been possible, but strongly encouraged.”
Managing director David Cattrall said the listing was great recognition for the firm. “I am chuffed to bits quite honestly”, he said. “We have been driving sales growth in the last couple of years and to make it happen we knew the first thing we had to do was invest in our people, and strengthen our people from top to bottom.
“The fact that we have done that and a short time later we have been recognised on our first attempt when being measured by the Sunday Times and WorkL is terrific. The staff have fed back that we genuinely are a great place to work, so we are very pleased. It was the team that gave us the feedback and it is done anonymously.”
David said one of the company’s strengths was that it remained family-owned. “What we try to maintain as we grow is that small business feeling where everybody knows each other. We want people to be able to speak to each other, it’s that small family feel that we are trying to maintain. We don’t want to lose that informality you get in a small business.
“We also recognise from the feedback that we are doing a pretty good job on the whole but there’s room to improve. What we are working on is what can we do better. I’m very keen on making sure that new opportunities are offered to people within the company first, so they can grow and prosper. We are really keen that we try to grow and develop our own people, that is our culture.”
David Cattrall Foodservice Harlech Foodservice Sunday Times Best Companies