Brakes signs new contract with Atos Origin - its IT business partner

Supporting and enabling further business growth

London - Atos Origin, an international IT services company, today announced that it has signed a 10-year contract worth more than £50 million with Brakes Group.

The Brakes Group has been successfully serving the foodservice industry for over 50 years. With a committed team of over 9,000 people in over 70 locations throughout the UK, Ireland and France and with experienced sales, telesales and distribution teams, they are the largest and most well known foodservice provider.

This new contract builds on the longstanding partnership between Brakes and Atos Origin to extend the IT contract originally signed in 2003. It follows Brakes expansion into new markets - France and Ireland - and its rapid growth through acquisition over the last six years to an organisation with a turnover of £2.5 billion today. The new contract will enable Brakes to better exploit new technologies, such as virtualisation and Cloud Computing in order to continue to efficiently and effectively support its growing business.

“As our IT partner, we need Atos Origin to play a critical role in supporting and enabling our business growth as we expand into new markets,” said Matthew Fearn, Group CFO at Brakes. “We are hoping that by stepping up Atos Origin’s management of our IT, we can focus on delivering great food to our customers.”

“Atos Origin has been running and supporting our IT infrastructure and systems for the last six years,” said Tracy Costello, CIO at Brakes. “We are looking forward to strengthening our relationship with Atos Origin in order to extend their knowledge of our business and harness their technical expertise to help ensure that we meet our IT challenges during this time of significant growth and change, including improving service levels, increasing our agility and responsiveness, and delivering our extended IS programme.”

“We are delighted to continue working with Brakes,” said Derek Ward, UK Executive Vice President for Atos Origin. “We will use our experience and expertise in the Retail and Distribution Markets to ensure that technology supports and enables their continued business growth and ensures that they can operate effectively and efficiently in an increasingly competitive market.”

Under the new contract, Atos Origin will manage all of Brakes IT infrastructure and applications including servers, service desks and its SAP business support systems for HR, finance and supply chain.

About Atos Origin
Atos Origin is a leading international information technology (IT) services company, providing hi-tech transactional services, consulting, systems integration and managed operations to deliver business outcomes globally. The company’s annual revenues are EUR 5.5 billion and it employs 50,000 people. Atos Origin is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic Games and has a client base of international companies across all sectors. Atos Origin is quoted on the Paris Eurolist Market and trades as Atos Origin, Atos Worldline and Atos Consulting.

About Brakes
Brakes is a leading supplier to the foodservice sector in the UK, Ireland and France with a turnover of over £2.0 billion. The Company has developed a clear customer focus and a strong understanding of the needs of the foodservice sector. Combined with innovative products and services, a commitment to both the environment and the communities it serves, Brakes is well positioned to continue its growth.

Customers can choose from the largest range of quality own-brand products available in foodservice as well as a comprehensive portfolio of manufacturer brands. Customers also benefit from the extensive offerings and expertise available from Brakes Group’s specialist businesses; M&J Seafood (the fresh fish specialist), Pauleys (fresh produce), Country Choice (bakery products and bake-off systems to retailers), Prime Meats (meat and poultry), Catering Equipment, Wild Harvest (fine dining produce supplier), La Boulangerie (bread and patisserie), Woodward Foodservice and O’Kane Foodservice.

The Brakes Group’s unbeatable offering is supported by services and resources that assist customers including; qualified nutritionists and dieticians, specialist expert sales forces, high quality brochures and product listings, and dedicated team of development chefs.

For further information, please contact Brakes Customer Service on 0845 606 9090. Alternatively, visit the website at www.brake.co.uk