A Chinese healthy food business looking to take on the world - and its ready-to-eat snacks are already on the shelves at B&M.
Liang Zhang is director of Bootle-based Green Kitchen, whose salt and pepper chicken bites are already available at all of the bargain retailer's UK stores.
Ambitious Mr Zhang hopes the product will soon be sold by Ocado, and is confident the snack, along with the vegan tofu salt and pepper bites, to be sold at every UK supermarket - becoming bigger than rivals Fridge Raiders and Peperami.
He said the ultimate aim is to change perceptions of Chinese food as being unhealthy, with Green Kitchen priding itself in its low sugar, low fat and low saturate products - all without MSG.
Mr Zhang said: “We wanted to do it in the most healthy and authentic way. You won’t be able to find any other business like us.
“These dishes we are going to put on the shelf are tested and loved by all of our English customers."
The firm’s other main products are ready meals including kung po chicken, black pepper beef, Szechaun pork and home-style tofu, and Mr Zhang said: “In China, it’s not traditional to eat chilled meat but it’s obviously so convenient. They’re also good for kids’ lunch boxes or can be heated up if you want a warm snack.
“Salt and pepper is such a popular flavour, but you can’t find it anywhere in the supermarket. We want to change that.”
How did the business start?
Mr Zhang, 37, moved to the UK in 2007 to study an MA in International Business at Leeds University.
He later moved to Liverpool where he launched Green Kitchen in 2016 as a takeaway, with the aim of becoming the first serving “truly authentic” Chinese cuisine in the city.
He said: “We are probably the first business to standardise authentic Chinese food and make them into ready meal products which can be sold in the supermarket.
“From our trading name you probably will be able to tell that we promote healthy eating as well. All our food is specially designed to be low sugar, low fat, low saturates and low salt. We want to break the stereotype that ‘Chinese cuisine is oily and unhealthy’' because mostly it isn’t.”
Despite the death of an investor later that year, the company opened its first takeaway which saw some success, achieving hundreds of positive reviews on Just Eat.
In June 2018, Green Kitchen opened its first shop in Anfield, but closed months later as the pricing structure “was unsuitable for football fans”.
That was followed by the business making a decision to stop running as a fast food brand, instead becoming a food manufacturer.
In late 2018, a buyer from supermarket giant Morrison’s offered Green Kitchen a trial listing in 13 stores across the North and Scotland, but due to poor performance from its entire World Food section, it was pulled in June last year.
Mr Zhang said: “We then started to contact many other supermarkets, big names, small names, whoever could get us listed, we tried to talk to everyone.
"In the meantime, we managed to create a new product line - salt and pepper flavoured chicken bites and tofu bites as ready to eat snacks.
"They taste amazing."
The salt and pepper chicken bites soon caught the attention of B&M, and the discount giant’s core buyer made a huge order.
Hundreds of batches of product later, and last week, it hit the shelves of every store across the country.
Mr Zhang hopes Ocado will soon be stocking the product, and talks with Aldi are already underway.
The firm employs 10 people at the Bootle site, and Mr Zhang added: “Our plan is simple: become a national and international market player, and to do that, we will try to get our products to most of the UK supermarkets by the end of this year.
“We already succeeded in our first step and now we are planning for expanding and exciting new products including premium breakfast wraps and many more.
“Just imagine if you could buy something like a Green Kitchen black pepper beef wrap or a salt and pepper wrap - wouldn’t it be amazing?
“With all the delicious products, who can say we won’t be the next Fridge Raider or Peperami?”
