Photo by Bekir Umut VuralGood procurement looks beyond the price.
Portcroft brings market intelligence and senior procurement experience to UK manufacturers, helping you understand costs, negotiate with suppliers and plan beyond the next purchase.
For manufacturers in food, drink and personal care.
Ingredients · Oils and chemicals · Packaging · Freight and warehousing
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Photo by Tiger LilyIndustry insights
Developments in the markets you depend on, examined from a buyer’s perspective. We look at what has changed, what is driving it and the implications for purchasing.
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Photo by proudlyswaziA supplier’s price is only part of the picture.
Compare monthly benchmarks for key raw materials, all in sterling. Follow the underlying market, assess proposed increases and build a stronger case in price discussions.
Photo by HardingferrentKnow the market before
you agree the price.
Our strategy papers bring together detailed commodity research and practical purchasing analysis, helping you decide when to buy, how to split the volume and which alternatives to consider.
Photo by Morteza MohammadiProcurement support that fits your business.
Senior procurement capability for mid-sized manufacturers, brought in when it is needed and handed back when it is done.
Portcroft works across food, drink and personal care manufacturing, covering ingredients, oils and chemicals, packaging, and the freight and warehousing that move them.
- Review
What you spend, with whom and where the value sits, before anything changes. Every category and supplier on one page, ranked by the size of the opportunity.
- Reduce
Prices on the categories that matter, with contracts that keep the saving in place. Suppliers benchmarked, tendered where it pays and renegotiated where it does not.
- Strengthen
Your supply base, with suppliers held to clear standards and a second option ready before you need one. The categories that would stop production are mapped first, so failure is planned for rather than discovered.
- Lead
Your procurement, hands-on, while your own team is built, then hand it back. Interim cover for a gap, a peak or a change, at senior level from the first day.
Twenty to one
A pound saved is twenty pounds sold.
- £100,000
- of cost taken out of what you buy
- £2,000,000
- of new sales needed to earn the same at an illustrative 5% operating margin
The UK’s 150 largest food and drink suppliers averaged a 5.7% operating margin in their 2024 financial year (OC&C Top 150, 2025 edition, The Grocer).
Photo by Alex UrezkovPortcroft
Portcroft is a Manchester-based procurement intelligence and advisory firm for UK manufacturers. We bring together research and purchasing experience to help businesses manage costs, improve supplier terms and give procurement a considered place in their wider business plans.
- Independent by design
- No software is resold, no supplier commissions accepted and no referral fees received. Every recommendation is made solely in your commercial interests.
- Senior attention throughout
- Every engagement is led and delivered by an experienced procurement professional. The person who understands your business is the person who carries out the work.
- Built to be handed back
- The objective is a procurement function that is stronger once the engagement ends, not a dependency on the adviser who built it.
Most mid-sized manufacturers need senior procurement capability without needing it full time. Hiring for that is hard to justify. Bringing it in when it is needed is not.
Let’s discuss your commercial priorities.
Start with a conversation about your procurement objectives and where you want to improve.
- Phone
- +44 333 090 4360
- Based
- Manchester, working UK-wide