The company will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year
Danny Gutmann
19:54, 03 Feb 2026Updated 19:56, 03 Feb 2026
2U Food was started back in 2006(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
A dad and son took a risk and left their careers after spotting a “gap in the market”. Paul, 68 and Dan Foster, 42, opened their own catering business, 2U Food, 20 years ago and have gone from strength to strength.
Now, they have a fleet of more than 100 food trucks, catering to businesses across the country. James Massey started at the company four years ago and is now the company’s national sales manager. The 37-year-old looked back to how the dad and son team joined forces and opened the business.
He told the ECHO: “Paul had a career in food service sales for a number of different bakeries and national brands and Dan had had a career as a professional chef.”
He added: “Both saw a gap in the market for food to be sold and delivered to workplaces. So they initially started small, with just three vans in June 2006, they had a small unit in Skelmersdale, they served customers in the Liverpool area and Skelmersdale, and then organically grew from there, and expanded the fleet.
“We’re a food-to-go retailer with three divisions. So, we have the food trucks which go to workplaces across the North West and the North East. We’ve got vending machines, and then we do corporate catering. So our customers are workers at work.”
2U Food was started by Paul Foster and his son Dan(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
He added: “We feed workers that don’t necessarily have [shops nearby], so we don’t serve in city centres. We do out-of-town office complexes, factories, some hospitals. Everything from a vet’s practice to a doctor’s surgery right the way up to big global brands and warehouses like DHL and Ministry of Defence sites.”
After originally starting the business with just three vans looking to supply to local businesses, Paul and Dan now have a 170 strong team of employees working across various parts of the business.
Looking back at why the business has been so successful down the years, James said it was “word-of-mouth” which really helped the company grow.
He said: “In the early years, the money is tight, you build a business and you haven’t got millions in the bank, so the cheapest and most cost effective way to grow is through word of mouth, so that was integral. As we have grown and had better cash flow, we have still relied on that word of mouth heavily.”
They now have over 170 members of staff(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
He added: “So, people might move to different workplaces, but they’ll say ‘I’m here and you don’t visit us, can you come in?’ It’s only very recently that we have been focusing a lot more on our social media and we’re currently having a new rebranded website.”
Despite growing the business massively since they first started in 2006, James said managing directors Paul and Dan still very much have an active role in the day-to-day running of the business.
He said: “Dan is very hands on with the business, he makes sure that he gets to every depot and he’ll be in the yard with the drivers. We’re at a [large] scale now, we’re quite a large business, we have 170 employees, but we don’t have a structure where we have a CEO or director that are in the office all of the time and you don’t see them. They’re very much hands on in the business and you can see that when you step foot in the bakery.”
He added: “Pretty much every day, our managing director, Paul, is in the bakery and helping night shift finish off at the end of the shift. He’ll put his apron on and he’ll be with the production line finishing off sandwiches and salads. He doesn’t have to come in at five o’clock in the morning, there’s no reason for him to do it, but he does.”
Meanwhile, key to the businesses success has been their ability to form close relationships with local companies, something that James said has a two pronged benefit to the business.
Since starting the business with his son, Paul has also got other family members involved in running the business (Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
He said: “We have got good relationships with the suppliers that we have worked with for a long time. We work with a couple of big national brands, but the vast majority [of companies] that we deal with are family run.
“The fresh ingredients for our salads comes from Burscough, our fresh meat supplier is in Wigan and their businesses have grown with ours. It’s all about treating them fairly, they make their margin, we make ours and we pass the value onto the customers.”
He added: “We don’t need to be greedy and hike our prices up. We don’t need to squeeze for even more margin, we can be fair, make our cut and pass the value down to the customer, and I think we get loyalty from our customers because of that reason.
“We’re a huge part of their business, so their success is reliant on ours and vice versa, we would have a different business if we didn’t have those suppliers supporting us.”
“I know that those businesses are invested in us and we’re invested in them and I know that they’re more likely to help us with the margins. Unfortunately with the big national brands you’re more of a number.”