QUALITY CUISINE COMES TO ORDER
QUALITY CUISINE COMES TO ORDER
Running a 1500-sow pig herd
and managing three young
children might be enough for
some women. But Meryl
Ward has recently set up a
mail order food business
that she describes as a
delicatessen on wheels.
Wendy Owen reports
MERYL Ward scours the country looking for specialty food producers so she can offer them an outlet through Grange Gourmet – the one-stop service where customers can order anything from a hand-made cheese to a fully prepared three-course meal – that she has established in partnership with life-long friend Rosemary James.
Orders are placed throughout the week, ready for delivery on Thursday and Friday. The company can supply a complete dinner party menu, from crisps and snacks right through to coffee and hand-made chocolates. Other customers prefer to browse the catalogue to "mix and match" their own meal.
Meryl and Rosemary offer four categories of meal – straight to the table; heat and eat; extra easy cook; and to cook. All come with detailed instructions on storage and preparation and vegetables are ready-washed and chopped.
The idea for the venture came from Rose-marys work with ADAS, where she worked with speciality food groups.
"Three years ago, we couldnt have started this business," says Rosemary. "There has been a general growth in home delivery and technology has made is easier to send perishable goods.
There are also a number of people who have diversified recently and are looking to sell specialised food products.
"However, they havent always got the time or the money to market them and there seemed to be a need for a marketing-orientated company to fill the gap.
"From the consumers point of view, there is a demand for good quality British foods but not everyone can get to farmers markets. The trend for convenience food is growing and partly because of the internet, the idea of having products delivered to the door is becoming more popular.
"There is expansion in two distinct markets – everyday food for people who want to eat better but havent got the time to prepare meals and special meals. The special meals market is growing because of the growing interest in eating as a leisure activity. Not everyone wants to go to a restaurant, particularly people with children, and we can supply a meal for two for about £40."
* Launch run-up
In the run-up to the business launch last October, Meryl and Rosemary visited food fairs and countryside shows to find a wide range of high quality products. They tested all the foods themselves and visited most of the suppliers.
Since then, further opportunities have opened up. Business people have ordered cold foods like salads, sandwiches and pies for lunchtime meetings, while shooting parties have been supplied with casseroles and soups.
During the first three months, the business had a turnover of £10,000 and is now sending out about 20 deliveries a week. The aim is for a turnover of £250,000/year within the next year or two.
The operation is based at Meryls Waddingham Grange farm in Lincs, where her husband, Stephen, has 270ha (600 acres) of arable land. As the telephones need to be manned seven days a week and most evenings, Meryl has put a manager in charge of the pig herd, although she still sees to its overall management. Rosemary, who has a young son, concentrates full time on the new venture.
Two part-time helpers are also employed. They deal with orders and make follow-up calls to make sure the food has arrived on time. They also assemble the orders, a complicated process because dried, chilled and fresh products need to be packed separately to comply with health regulations. The boxes are then bound together ready for collection by a courier service.
Some dried foods are stored on-farm and a chiller unit has recently been installed. Most individual suppliers deliver their products to the farm, although some also use a courier service.
* Close links
Grange Gourmet has close links with Lincolnshire Quality Beef and Lamb. The co-operative provides most of the meat, which is accompanied by a signed certificate of origin.
Local butcher Eric Phipps, who won last years Country Life award for the best butcher in Britain, is another local supplier.
"Lincs is an ideal base for us because we have such a wide range of foods being produced in the county," says Rosemary. "It is also fairly central, which is important because our customers live all over the country. We see ourselves as specialists in co-ordinating and marketing but because of our agricultural experience we also enjoy working with farmers and food producers."
For more information, call Meryl Ward or Rosemary James (01673-818500).
Meryl Ward
(top left) and Rosemary James
can supply
four categories
of meal, nationwide.