Andrew Pickersgill, ECatering: The MD Who Scales Family Businesses

Andrew Pickersgill, Managing Director of ECatering, has built his career on a specific niche: stepping into family businesses, in categories he's never worked in before, and scaling them. He's done it in building supplies, gaming, power tools, and now commercial catering equipment. ECatering is a multi-million pound B2B e-commerce operation supplying Costco, Nando's, Subway, the NHS, Emirates, and first-time restaurant owners alike, from a 32,000 sq ft warehouse in County Durham with a team of just 29 people. It is the kind of business that makes you stop and ask how it actually works, and in this episode Andrew explains exactly that.

This week's conversation gets into what it really takes to scale a specialist B2B e-commerce business in a category that many people assumed could never work online. Commercial catering equipment is high value, physically large, and deeply considered as a purchase, yet ECatering has built a model that serves everyone from national restaurant chains to someone opening their first coffee shop. Andrew walks through how the business developed three private label product tiers under the Quattro, Contender and KINN brands, and why holding 95% of their range in their own warehouse gives them a level of control over delivery, pricing and customer experience that dropshipping simply cannot match.

The conversation also gets into the harder parts of the business. With around 3,400 hospitality businesses failing in the last two years, supplying this sector comes with real credit and trading risk, and Andrew is refreshingly straightforward about how ECatering manages it. He explains why Cyber Monday consistently outperforms Black Friday for a retailer whose customers are busy serving people on the big day itself, what named Trustpilot reviews say about the customer service culture Andrew has been building, and why he believes that in the not too distant future people will simply stop visiting websites altogether as agentic AI takes over the buying process entirely.

About ECatering
ECatering is the online retail brand of RGD Equipment, a commercial catering equipment business established in 2011 and headquartered in the North East of England. The business supplies restaurants, pubs, hotels, cloud kitchens, and street food operators across the UK with everything from commercial ovens and fryers to refrigeration and warewashing, with same and next day delivery on a wide range of stock held in its own warehouse. Rated Excellent on Trustpilot, ECatering has carved out a unique position in a market dominated by much larger players by combining competitive pricing with genuine technical expertise, flexible finance options at checkout, and a customer service model built around helping buyers get the right kit the first time.