About Us

Background Information

Berits & Brown was established by Sue Berits and Peter Brown in 2004. Sue and Peter, along with their partners Henk and Tracy, identified a lack in the local supply of interesting and tasty foods.  They located a run-down property in a neighbouring village, and decided to embark upon addressing the problem.  Having both come from a corporate background, Sue was a senior manager with DHL and Peter was a specialist in the outplacement industry, they had had enough of corporate life and decided upon a complete change of lifestyle. Armed with very little knowledge, but heaps of enthusiasm, Sue and Peter set about creating Berits & Brown.

The Business

The delicatessen was established to bring high quality, fresh and honest produce from all over the World to local communities. Sue and Peter value quality and flavour above everything and have personally selected a range of exciting foods and wines for sale.

The company operates from a shop located in Kippen - in rural Stirlingshire, Scotland - with a staffing level of 3. The core business is centred on Kippen although custom is mainly from a 10 mile radius of the shop.

Berits & Brown offers a specialist food, fine wine and first class coffee shop experience to the discerning consumer in a local setting. It also runs a wine club and provides for the delivery of high quality hampers and fine food and wine packs.

Sue and Peter have also established good relationships with specialist suppliers and have set up collaborations with local businesses.These factors have combined to give Berits & Brown a competitive advantage over the vast majority of businesses operating in the food and wine industry. The concept has proven so successful that both Sue and Peter feel passionately that others can benefit from their experience of creating a sought-after venue in a rural location and have decided to offer the opportunity to Franchisees throughout the UK.

Sue Berits - Co-founder


Sue is a mother of 2 young children, Romy 11 and Luca 8, who decided to embark upon a new career after staying at home with the kids.  Her interest in delicatessens stems from her life-long interest in travel and food. Having completed her studies in languages and business, Sue spent a few years working in France.  She returned to the UK in 1985, and worked in both Glasgow and London for the international courier company, DHL.  Sue then returned to Edinburgh with her Dutch husband Henk, where she worked as a General Manager, responsible for the sales and operations of DHL in the East of Scotland.  She was then relocated to Brussels by DHL to work as a Project Manager, and based herself in her husband's native Amsterdam.  Sue and her family returned to Scotland in 1998.

Peter Brown - Co-founder


Peter emigrated as a young man, to New Zealand where he continued his career in banking for 15 years ending up as a senior manger in human resources. He returned to the UK in the early nineties to pursue his career. Using his experience and background Peter became a specialist in the outplacement industry, helping people find new challenges and careers following redundancy. Having found it inspirational to see how people often reacted positively under such difficult circumstances, Peter decided to take a leap of faith himself, and in partnership with Sue, Berits & Brown was born. Peter's love of good food and appreciation of fine wine from around the World was developed during extensive travel with his wife Tracy.

Franchisee Support Management Team.

Of course as we've just stated, Sue and Peter play vital roles in supporting our franchisees, but the support doesn't end there.

As you'll see in the next section, our success depends on your success, so it's in our interests to make sure you are given the highest level of support possible to help you succeed. In fact we believe we have the most impressive support team anyone could wish for.

Franchisee Support Director - Bill McMillan


Bill is a Franchise Doctor working as part of our franchise support team.

Responsible For:

Bill's role in the team is to help you.

	Succeed! Bill's primary role is to contribute to the success of our all our franchisees. He'll be working closely ('hands on') with you to make sure you have the right level of support to help you achieve the results we believe are possible.
	Get A Steady Stream Of Customers! Bill obviously won't be doing the sales and marketing for you, but he will be continually developing, improving and testing all our existing marketing strategies, and adding others to them to keep your business flourishing.
	Improve 'The System'! Bill will also be continually working with us to improve and streamline the franchise system so we get the best possible results from everything we and you do.

Background:

	Fifteen years service in the Royal Air Force
	Designed and implemented formal training programmes
	20 years experience in sales and marketing
	Management of multi-disciplinary teams
	Recruited, trained and mentored winning teams
	Director of International Sales for a multinational corporation with experience in Europe, the USA, Asia Pacific and Japan
	Holds Postgraduate Diploma in Management, an MBA from the University of Stirling and is a Member of the Chartered Management Institute
If you like what you've read, why don't you contact us to arrange a FREE No Obligation Meeting. Phone us at 0845 157 7527, or complete the online enquiry form.