The number of foodpreneurs (that’s food entrepreneurs for the uninitiated) is rising exponentially. People are beginning to realise that a life spent behind a desk, dreaming of starting a business, is a life half lived. And who doesn’t love great food?
But only those who have been there and done it can truly grasp the enormity of the task involved. There are rewards – the food industry in the UK generates over £77bn annually, and with customers now demanding provenance, quality and responsibly sourced ingredients, it is no longer a penniless race to the bottom. But when demand outstrips supply, the question of finding the right manufacturer keeps many of us up at night.
I co-founded my chilled dessert company, Fools & Queens (then called Proper Pudding), with my ex-military colleague Matt Heath in 2014. We started around his kitchen table but we quickly outgrew the space. At first we looked for empty kitchens in London to rent, but realised these were like hen’s teeth, with rents to match their rarity. We considered ‘rent by the day’kitchens, but lugging ingredients andfinished products across town just wasn’t for us.
We investigated outsourcing production and thought we had stumbled on the answer: no more being tied to the kitchen, worrying about what happens when we outgrow the next space, and definitely no more fretting about health and safety accreditations – a time consuming and expensive process, which can lead to a whole new world of pain.
We searched and we searched. We contacted countless factories and were rebuffed time and time again. We were told we were too small, that our ingredients were too expensive, that our recipes were too fiddly. At one point we were quoted twice the retail price of a pudding. It was incredibly frustrating.
I know we aren’t alone in this. I’m a member of an online forum for food producers and the number one question asked is “I’m hoping to outsource production of my [insert name of food item] does anyone know where I can find a factory to make it?” The second is “I can’t find anyone to make my [insert name of food item] does anyone know of any affordable kitchen space in London that we can rent?”. It’s a never ending cycle.
If you have money of course, you can throw it at the problem. But when so many of us are starting out, you have to take what you can get.
There are startup companies emerging to fill the gap, such as FoodStars, which provides daily and long-term kitchen hire in London, helping foodpreneurs keep production in house and costs down. But perhaps manufacturers on the whole need to do more to be open to small businesses.
When it became clear there wasn’t a manufacturer for us, we had a decision to make – did we keep production in house, or walk away? Eventually we found a large kitchen out of town, knuckled down and achieved SALSA (a food safety accreditation scheme for small producers supplying supermarkets). It cost us just shy of £1,000, took three months of frantic paperwork and countless sleepless nights to prepare for the audit. We passed first time, but the whole process made us change the way we think about the business. We are no longer just two idiots having a bash at making puddings, we now run a commercial kitchen.
Is there an ideal solution? Not as far as I can tell. Often it comes down to a little bit of luck. Some companies strike gold and find a manufacturer on the first look, others are forced to drastically change their business model or close the company altogether. We are fortunate in that we have adapted and overcome this challenge for now, but we know our current situation is only an interim measure.
Aly Johnson is the co-founder of Fools and Queens.
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