The Candy Ball zooms in to save the day & raises over £200,000!!!

KABOOM! So The Candy Ball has been and gone for another year but what a hero it was! A huge thank you to our sponsors of the event: Kellogg's, Kraft Foods, Mars Chocolate UK, Nestle Confectionery, Palmer and Harvey, Palmer and Harvey Snacks Direct, Unilever and United Biscuits as well as to everyone who attended; you are all heroes of Sweet Charity.

Thanks to all your kind generosity through ticket sales, sponsorship, our lovely brochure, fundraisers on the night and of course your personal pledges, we made over £200,000 which is an amazing effort and we are extremely grateful to our guests for everything they did to help us hit our target.

Despite the Joker's best efforts to sabotage the evening, it all went ahead as planned because our target was hit and the evening was saved! As guests danced the night away to the fantastic Love Train and Metropolis there was plenty of photo opportunities in our picutre booths and heads on bodies...for the superhero in you!

To view and download the photos from the evening please find the link through to Peter Steven's Photography here and please use the password 'sweetcharity'.

Many thanks again for your support and if you have any feedback do let us know, we're keen to hear what you think!

Scottish Sportsman's Dinner makes £3,500!

 What a great fun night we all had!

This was the inaugural Scottish Sweet Charity Sportsman’s dinner, and what a cracker it turned out to be.

The evening was organised by the Scottish Fund Raising Committee of Sweet Charity, and with some 125 guests there on the night we raised circa £3,500 for Scottish Beneficiaries, ‘a really great result’, said Easton Millar, Chairman of the Scottish Committee. The evening was hosted by Chick Young the famous BBC Scotland sports pundit, and he got all guests involved right from the start with his unique way of running the traditional opening table game of heads and tails!

Chick then went on to talk about current and past events within Scottish sport and, whilst his vast knowledge of Scottish sport was very evident, he made no apologies for making light of it all and by introducing many hilarious stories from his years in the industry.

Throughout the night a silent auction was in place with lots of Scottish sporting memorabilia available for guests to bid on. A prize raffle also took place, thanks to the generosity of many of our industry partners donating a varied selection of prizes including bottles of spirits and drives in Lamborghini and Ferrari cars.

Jimmy Stirling, comedian for the night left us all crying with laughter at his jokes and antics!

Yes this is a great event to bring into the calendar within Scotland and we can’t wait until next year.

Easton closed the evening by saying, ‘What a fantastic way to help a charity and have a great night out with business and family friends’.

Joining forces to help more people in need...

We are delighted to announce that the two leading charities in the grocery food and drink industry are merging. Caravan, the charity for the grocery industry and Sweet Charity, the charity for the confectionery trade are to become one. 

You can read the official press release here

Independent Retailers Conference puts the customer first!

Thanks very much to the Asian Trader for their fantastic write up about our 2nd Independent Retailer's Conference, you can read the full article here

Sweet Charity's second independent retailers conference flew by this week and delegates were given insights into the latest information in the retailing convenience channel from the likes of Palmer and Harvey, FWD, Kantar Worldpanel, Newtrade and him! plus valuable independent retailer's insights from Nisa Local and Premier stores.

The main theme to come from retailers and wholesalers alike was to listen to the consumers and work at getting first class customer service alongside getting to know the community and getting local people involved with their local store. In these times of extremely stiff competition, the focus is on differentiating yourself from competitors and offering the consumer a local service they cannot resist.

Thanks to all our speakers for making the day such a quality event. The feedback coming through is fantastic and whilst we are still finalising the figures, it looks like this year's conference has raised around £30,000 for Sweet Charity which is great news and every penny will go towards supporting those in the confectionery industry who find themselves in unexpected circumstances.

Thanks also goes to Deloitte for hosting us once again and to our sponsors; Booker, Kraft, Mars, Nestle and Palmer and Harvey.

The presentations are available to download (see below) and thanks to the speakers for agreeing to share their slides:

Patrick Davis- Sweet Charity- About us

Ed Garner- Kantar Worldpanel- Setting the retail scene

Rav Garcha- Nisa Local- An independent retailer's perspective

James Bielby- FWD- Wholesalers playing their part

Jonathan Rons- him!- Independent retailers competing in a changing market place

Nick Shanagher- Newtrade- The furture is great. The outlook for local independent retailers

Shahid Razzaq- Premier Stores- The credit crunch, the good news

Chris Etherington- Palmer and Harvey- The furture of convenience

Newtrade utilised our event management experience for their IAA gala dinner

Newtrade contracted the organisation of its prestigious IAA Gala Dinner to Sweet Charity’s events team. Simon Woodroffe (Founder of Yo! Sushi and former Dragon) hosted the night which saw 300 guests, including some of the country’s top retailers gather together to celebrate each other’s achievement.  This was a real win-win, as the fee Newtrade paid the charity, will enable us to help more people from our industry, including independent retailers. If you require any assistance with your events, press launches, awards or conferences, get in touch with Sarah or Rachael  and click here for more pictures of the night (password is 'ceinwen')