GBT are sad to announce the death of joint founder and MD of GBT International following a long illness. Barry has had a long and sucessful business career. His sucessor will be announced by Keswick Enterprises in due course  

GBT International MD Barry Croft had wide range of business interests. Joining The Keswick Group in 2014 when his company, Foodsearch Worldwide (now Food Services World Wide), became a subsidiary.

Beginning in 1976, Barry had a long career in the food sector as both a manufacturer and an international trader.  In 1985 he joined Hillsdown Holdings in the poultry business – leaving in 1987 to set up Foston Farm Produce Ltd to supply poultry to the retail, wholesale and hospitality sectors, trading from a UK base into Russia and Portugal.

After selling Foston Farm Produce in 2000, he created Elbar Services as a UK-based business sourcing foodstuffs, meat and poultry ingredients and packaging – with representation in The Netherlands, North America and Turkey. This in turn led to the creation of GBT to focus on Turkey as a key trading partner.

Barry was also a Director of co-packer APS – another Keswick Group company.

Technical Director Richards background is in the packaging industry where he has worked for over 35 years and where he still heads up a successful packaging consultancy business. Originally training as a packaging designer and technologist with global leader Smurfit (Now Smurfit Kappa) he went on to work in various roles for a number of very successful packaging companies including a spell as a Managing Director with the March Packaging group. More recently Richard has been working with a number of well-known global brands sourcing packaging and related products from overseas manufactures, and assisting these companies in gaining the necessary global accreditation they need to supply the European and US markets. These highly transferable skills are ideally suited for the work GBT specialises in.