Westbridge Foods

About the Customer

Chances are, if you or someone you know has enjoyed a ‘finger-lickin’ good’ chicken dish from a popular fast food outlet, you’ve already been served by Westbridge Foods. 

Based in Worcestershire, Westbridge specialises in sourcing, developing, and supplying poultry products and prepared foods. As part of a larger group that includes CP Foods UK and The FoodFellas, Westbridge operates on a significant scale, necessitating a robust IT infrastructure. 

Ben Yapp, the Group IT Infrastructure Manager, is responsible for managing IT operations, ensuring security and efficiency for around 250 users.

I’ve been at Westbridge for about ten years and am now responsible for about 250 users, and I’d say one thing that keeps me awake at night is making sure all our IT is set up and configured correctly to protect us from external threats. Attention to detail is really important to me – and so I need an IT partner that’s an extension of our team and one that takes care with the fine details. 

Ben Yapp

Group IT Infrastructure Manager, Westbridge Foods

The Challenge

Westbridge's IT infrastructure faced a serious challenge on 19th of July 2024, when a global configuration update resulted in a systems outage affecting Windows systems. The company's MRP system was disrupted, meaning the company's barcode scanning and labelling systems had stopped working, affecting inventory, essential management and order processing. Given the nature of their products, any delays posed serious health and safety risks due to potential spoilage of perishable goods. 

With a small IT team, Ben knew that timely support from their partner, Wavenet, was crucial to resolving the situation quickly. 

The Solution

As a partner of Westbridge Foods, one of the services Wavenet provide is reactive support during a crisis. Upon receiving the outage notification, Wavenet responded promptly. 

Ben explained, "We have a repacking facility in Newmarket that was affected, so I got in touch with Wavenet at about quarter to six that morning for help getting our systems back online. They told me to focus on our VMs while they would work on our Microsoft Azure setup. Of our 60 servers, we’ve got 38 servers running on it."

Ben and Wavenet coordinated closely to address the issue and Wavenet quickly identified that 18 of the 38 Azure servers were affected. While Microsoft worked on a resolution, Wavenet found a workaround by midday, significantly minimising downtime. 

There was more to do over the following days and one of the things that really stood out for me is that the incident happened on a Friday, but Wavenet carried on working with me over the weekend. There was a real team spirit to roll up our sleeves and get this sorted, which was awesome. 

Ben Yapp

Group IT Infrastructure Manager, Westbridge Foods

The Results

From Wavenet’s perspective, working with Westbridge entails more than the reactive support involved in the outage – it’s about being proactive, too. Wavenet has established a foundation for ongoing improvements in Westbridge's IT infrastructure, ensuring they are well-prepared for future challenges. 

Through its CyberGuard arm, Wavenet is Westbridge’s Security Operations Centre (SOC). The CyberGuard team monitors Westbridge’s systems 24/7/365 to detect potential threats before they even become full breaches.

"Westbridge uses a system called CyberArk and while we could offer our own comparable services in that respect, we completely recognise that this is the platform Westbridge has chosen to use, so we make it work at our end so we can always help Westbridge, even where CyberArk is involved." - Marcos Alexandre De Melo, Account Director, Wavenet

I’m someone who triple checks configurations. I want to make sure the right boxes have been ticked or not ticked, because not taking care over these details can have serious repercussions. It was clear during the incident that Wavenet takes the same approach – but it goes further back than that, right to when I first started working with them. I can tell they know what they’re doing when they’re setting something up, or fixing it.

Ben Yapp

Group IT Infrastructure Manager, Westbridge Foods

Along with this attention to detail, Wavenet also keeps an eye on the bigger picture. They take a proactive approach to the support of those customers who have their Azure managed service. One way they do so is through regular service review sessions with Ben, keeping Westbridge informed about best practices and updates from Microsoft ahead of industry developments. 

Ultimately, for Ben and Westbridge, and Marcos and his colleagues at Wavenet, it all comes down to working as a partnership – and one that, for Ben, goes beyond the incident. 

“Due to company takeovers and mergers, Westbridge’s partnership with Wavenet goes further back than my time working with them,” said Ben. “But it was towards the end of 2021 after my previous employer became part of the Westbridge group that I first worked closely with Wavenet, on a major cloud migration project into Microsoft Azure. It became obvious to me then through this project that this is a real partnership.” 

Today, I have a few key contacts at Wavenet and through that, I know if it’s a standard issue, I can email them – but if it’s a major issue, I know that I can call them, get straight through to someone, and rely on them if we have an issue that needs to be quickly escalated. Everyone there is always very willing to help.

Ben Yapp

 Group IT Infrastructure Manager, Westbridge Foods

Wavenet’s partnership with Westbridge entails the following areas: 

Wavenet Cyber Guard Security Operations Centre

• Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) 

• Managed Detection & Response (MDR) 

• PEN Testing 

• Security Information & Event Management (SIEM) 

• Managed Firewall Services 

• Cyber Essentials Plus Certification 

Other Wavenet Services

• IT Support 

• Azure Infrastructure Management 

• Microsoft 365 Management 

• Patch Management 
• Backup & Disaster Recovery