From a home kitchen to the supermarket
We take a look at some food brands that started off as small ideas but are now available throughout the land.
Many of us have had a business idea that we think could succeed but not many people actually make the step from that first thought to seeing their product on the shelves.
Yet when it comes to food, as we look for more interesting flavours, provenance and authenticity from what we eat, more small businesses are making that leap.
A good example is G’NOSH, which produces a range of gourmet dips with flavours including beetroot and mint, and sun-dried tomato and basil. Founded by Charlotte Knight (pictured above), who left her career in marketing to pursue her food passion, the company has gone from a kitchen table idea to being stocked in Budgens and Ocado.
The genesis of G'NOSH
“I began developing the dips in my kitchen after becoming disappointed with the quality of fresh dips in UK supermarkets. I realised there was a niche in the market for non-hummus flavours,” Charlotte explains.
“I’m from New Zealand so I took inspiration from the dips Down Under, and saw the opportunity to create a distinctive brand of gourmet dips without the fuss. I started with nine flavours and culled back to launch with five as our core range, after a lot of testing and refining.”
So how did she know she was on to a winner? “I blitzed and mixed dips for weeks on end to solicit feedback from small organised focus groups.” And it paid off, with first Selfridges stocking her range, then Whole Foods, Harvey Nichols and Harrods followed.
The national breakthrough came this May with the launch into Ocado and G’NOSH continues to go from strength to strength.
Here are three other products that went from a small idea to being stocked in some of the nation’s biggest shops.
Eat 17 bacon jam
This was dreamt up by the head chef at the Eat 17 restaurant in Walthamstow, north London. Originally they served their homemade onion jam with a rasher of bacon on their burgers, before some experimenting led to the creation of bacon jam. This combines those two ingredients with muscovado sugar, maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, bourbon and coffee. When the initial jars went on sale in the restaurant shop they sold out in two days. Jonathan Ross then fed it to actress Sarah Jessica Parker on his TV chat show. It’s now heading for the shelves of Tesco.
Gü desserts
One of the most famous recent success stories was created when marketeer James Averdieck noticed that there was a gap in the UK market for a premium pudding. He teamed up with Mordechai Wosner, the owner of a North London patisserie, to create a mousse that contained 50% chocolate. A spot of guerrilla marketing followed, including sneaking a batch of desserts into a branch of Waitrose and watching the reaction. They flew off the shelves and Averdieck knew he was on to a winner. Supermarket deals followed and the business grew and grew. Averdieck and Wosner sold up in 2010, becoming multi-millionaires in the process.
Ella’s Kitchen baby foods
Paul Lindley saw his gap in the market via his daughter Ella, whose face now adorns his company’s products. He launched a high-quality brand of baby and toddler food that was innovatively packaged in pouches rather than the glass bottles of his competitors. The likes of their beef stew with spuds, fish pie and mash and vegetable bake with lentils are now in every major UK supermarket. And the company has now expanded globally, picking up a host of awards as it goes.
Do you have a favourite small brand? Have you seen your food creations achieve local or even national success? Let us know in the Comments box below.
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