Wimbledon 2011 pasty supplier targets ‘world domination’
Md Simon Bryon-Edmond (pictured) told FoodManufacture.co.uk that he began the Ottery St. Mary firm – which makes around 30,000 pies and pasties a week and employs 40 staff – in 2006 from the back of his butcher’s shop.
The firm supplied Wimbledon 2011 with pasties, and also has listings in River Cottage’s Axminster delicatessen, Harrods and Aramark. Regional stockists include the Co-operative Group, as well as service stations, farm shops and delicatessens throughout southwest England.
“We’re looking for world domination, or something close to that,” Bryon-Edmond joked.
Premium pie rivals
Bryon-Edmond said the company’s staff live and breathe the “Chunk philosophy”, where care is taken to produce award-winning handmade products using local ingredients and hot water pastry.
Asked how his business compared to premium pie rivals Higgidy and Pieminister, Bryon-Edmond said: “We’re in the same space, making similar products in a similar way – pastries, stocks.”
But he said that, to a certain extent, Chunk’s rivals had moved away from niche products (for instance, Pieminister now has steak and ale, steak and blue pies) because more mainstream products sold better, while niche varieties could be “finicky” to make.
He added that the two rivals also produced pies more suited to a meal context, whereas Chunk’s 245g products appealed as a handheld snack, sold via catering and retail outlets.
Chunk of Devon has employed Paul Haigney, former operations director at foodservice manufacturer Pasta King, on a consultancy basis.
Haigney said that Chunk was targeting garages, which have the highest yield per sq foot of any retail space across the UK, because the “big boys” found it hard to supply them.
Wary of multiples
These outlets and high quality delicatessens in southwest England, which Chunk sells into, are not cost-effective for larger firms to service, he added.
Said Bryon-Edmond:“We’d be delighted to be on the same shelf as Ginsters [in service stations], he said. “Because we’re confident that we’d outsell them.”
But he added that, the Co-Operative Group aside, “which, at least in the southwest [of England] feels like a local food shop rather than a supermarket chain”, he was wary of dealing with the major multiples.
“At our end of the scale you can so easily get turned over,” he said.“People get a Tesco account and think 'oh my God!' But then they lose their contract, say your buyer in the sector changes.
“We’ve seen other guys get dumped on heavily, and we’re not getting caught up in that.”
