Salami company Serious Pig is the latest snacking sensation, started by co-founders George Rice and Jonny Bradshaw. From humble beginnings – the idea came to them whilst casually chatting about bar snacks over a pint in The Junction Tavern near Tufnell Park – the company has gone from strength to strength.
Since 2011, Serious Pig business has sold nearly 1 million Snacking Salamis. The founders wanted to create a bar snack that was a tastier, artisanal, authentic alternative to the traditional crisps-and-pork-scratchings offered by most pubs and by all accounts, they’ve succeeded; their products have won several Great Taste Awards and been personally approved by Heston Blumenthal. Jamie Oliver’s Recipease sites list Snacking Salami, as well as it being offered in Claridge’s Hotel, Conran Shop, Harvey Nichols Food Hall and Brew Dog Bars.
Unsurprisingly, the founders are pleased with the brand’s immediate success:
“We’ve created authentic salami using British pork and carefully selected ingredients. I’m thrilled that we now have the chance to expand our product range and bring the snacking industry some serious competition.”
In order to bolster its position in the UK Serious Pig recently underwent a funding round using Crowdbnk, successfully raising £126,000. When asked why the company chose to crowdfund rather than pursuing more traditional options such as a loan, Rice said:
“We’d seen crowdfunding emerging and thought this would work for us. It’s exciting because it engages with the consumer much more and gave us another way to engage with potential customers.”
With Crowdbnk just one of many online crowdfunding platforms, I was interested to find out what drove Serious Pig to choose Crowdbnk for their online campaign.
“Crowdbnk does all its due diligence up front and saves investors a lot of time. Crowdbnk also offered us more guidance than the others and were proactive in in introducing us to investors at the beginning which gave our funding round some momentum. They’re also a start up too so we can help others in a similar position to us.”
The money raised will be spent on a sales and marketing campaign, including the appointment of two talented and experienced individuals, a Senior Sales Manager and a Brand Manager, as well as a reserve fund to mitigate the risk of unforeseen challenges.
It’s 10am and just browsing the Serious Pig website enough to make any meat lover’s mouth water. Their “Snackingham” packets of pork salami nibbles are infused with a special blend of herbs and spices, cured and air-dried in the traditional way. The company’s founders say that their salami is the “perfect and most delicious snack to accompany the recently ordered pint of real ale”, and I’m tempted to give it a go – roll on five o’ clock!
For more information on Serious Pig, visit their website here.
Miranda Wadham on 24/08/2015
