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Simpson Ready Foods - all steady and set to go!

Simpson Ready Foods is one of the UK's leading suppliers of ready to eat foods, specialising in canned products, glass jars, pouches and pots and supplying most of the UK's leading retailers with a range of branded and private label products. This autumn sees Simpson Ready Foods setting its sights on an even bigger bite of the UK's 'RTE' category, with a £1 million investment in modernising its Manchester production site and moving into the production of microwavable desserts. This investment has already paid dividends, as Simpsons has recently been appointed to supply Asda with its 'Good For You' and standard microwavable sponge puddings. But the story isn't stopping there, as William Simpson, Simpson Ready Foods' Managing Director, told The Grocery Trader. The Grocery Trader - What's your working definition of 'ready foods'? As we see it, ‘Ready Foods’ embraces any food you can prepare quickly and easily, which is ready to eat in under 3 minutes and doesn’t have to be kept in the fridge. GT - Presumably that means you're totally flexible in the products you can supply? Yes, we are. It gives us a lot of scope! GT - You've recently won a major contract with Asda - what was the story behind that success? We’ve enjoyed a good relationship with Asda for a number of years. We wanted to go ahead with the microwaveable pots for some time, but were waiting for the right customer they gave us a specific timeslot, and we met it. It comes down to teamwork: winning the Asda contract is a credit to everyone involved. GT - When was Simpson Ready Foods founded? My grandfather - also called William Simpson - set up the business in 1910, in his late 50's. He had a wealth of food experience, having previously made mincemeat and plum puddings and founded a Co-op in Droylsden, Manchester. By 1938 we were making meat puddings under our Goblin brand, which we still trade under today, and we supplied canned foods of various kinds to our troops in World War II. GT - Who owns the company now? My brother Andrew and I own the company at present. GT - What's it like being part of a family-owned company? The main difference is that we have a tight-knit team. Everyone knows each other really well, and we can reach decisions and move very quickly. Within three months of Asda's commitment to our microwavable pots, we had shifted two production lines to make space for the new 'pot' line and built a new production room, which, incidentally, gives us complete separation between the meat and non-meat production areas, so all our products benefit. In the process we have also speeded up the canned pudding production line, bringing further business improvements. GT - How big is Simpson Ready Foods now in turnover, and employees? We have a £10 million turnover and 135 employees. GT - How fast are you growing year on year in turnover, and why? Our turnover has been growing 10% annually for the last four years. The growth has come as a result of exploring different styles of packaging, particularly pouch packaging, mainly for our contract packing customers, and branching into microwaveable pots. GT - Have you any plans for going public, as you expand? We have no intentions of doing so for the foreseeable future. We don’t need outside capital to realise our plans, and we like to be free to make management decisions - as with our recent capital investment in production facilities - without pressure from investors. GT - You also supply ready to eat foods in cans, jars and pouches. What kinds of food are involved in each format? In cans, we mostly supply 'traditional' meat products: Irish stew, curried dishes such as Chicken Tikka Masala, and meat puddings. In pouches and jars, our main business is pour over sauces. On the dessert side, we supply traditional canned sponge puddings, recently complemented by our new micro ‘pots.’ GT - What proportion of your business is in each of the different packaging formats? Canning represents around 75% of our business by value, pouches 20% and glass jars 5%. Micro pots' share is currently 1% and rising, since their launch in June. GT - Which areas are growing fastest? Our 'Micro' pots are growing from a standing start and are likely to become our fastest growing revenue stream, but we aim to have a balanced business. Hence we are committed to keeping a solid base of canning, to support our exploration of new growth opportunities as they emerge. GT - What are your biggest selling products? Our overall biggest sellers are Irish stew and steak and kidney puddings. GT - Do you sell any products outside the UK, and if so what, and to whom? We supply some products to customers outside the UK, primarily contract packing. We used to do a lot of export trading of meat products - including selling Irish stew to Ireland, an achievement in itself! - but we do less these days. GT - You invested £1 million modernising your Manchester production site. What will the benefits of this investment be to your trade customers? First, it means we make our canned sponges more efficiently now, which is good news all round. Second, in microwave pots we offer our customers an alternative supplier to the New Zealand-based market leader, which means less food miles. Third - and for us the most exciting benefit - we sterilise the pots using new technology of our own, which will also be appropriate for other food areas that we plan to explore on behalf of our customers, including savoury products. GT - Are any of your products branded? Yes, they are. Goblin is our biggest brand, and we’ve been putting that name on our meat and steak and kidney puddings since the 1930s. Goblin 140g individual serving meat puddings are in all the major multiples. We supply sponge puddings to the cash ‘n’ carry sector under our Simpson brand. We’ve been supplying Indian foods under the Sundar brand since the 1980s. Over the years we have developed Indian ranges for the Veeraswamy restaurant and for Sheer Khan, which have been very successful, and we’re looking for further contract packing work in this key area. GT- Are you spending any money on advertising and promotion? Yes, we’re currently running a small ad campaign for our Goblin puddings in Leeds. It's a trial campaign on radio, press and posters, which we’ll be evaluating before rolling it out elsewhere. GT - As one of Manchester's larger food manufacturers, do you sponsor or support local sports or other activities? No, we don’t at present, but funnily enough my uncle - another William Simpson - was invited to be Chairman of Manchester United in the 1950s, but turned it down! As it was, another local meat company boss, Louis Edwards got involved instead. In those days we had two players on the Man U team who worked here as their day job… things are very different now! GT - Are you looking for more private label customers, and if so what kinds of products are you proposing to supply them? Yes we are looking for more private label work, in particular more sauces and other pasteurised products in glass jars and pouches. One knock-on effect of the Microwave Pots development has been the refurbishment of our glass room, giving us greater capacity in this vital area. GT - How long does it take you to bring private label products on stream, once a contract is signed? It all depends on the product. A new variant on a sauce or a meat and vegetable ready meal may need work in our experimental kitchen, which can take two or three weeks. Something more unusual, like cous cous or rice in a pouch, can take longer. But the biggest ‘time cost’ is usually label development and printing. GT - How much reserve production capacity do you have? We can double the output in our glass room, and have plenty of capacity across the factory. GT - As a company, what recognised quality accreditations do you have? Our whole factory is EFSIS-approved at Higher Level. GT - What product development resources do you have? In our experience NPD is very much a team effort - you need to be able to meet the client’s spec and take a product from recipe development to the production line, while meeting all the statutory labelling requirements. Bryan Cooke heads up our product development. He works closely with John Raynor, our production director, who has a lot of experience with food and production machinery. GT - What distinguishes Simpson Ready Foods from other UK or European private label suppliers? The main difference is that we know how to conserve foods without resorting to preservatives, either natural or artificial. We conserve food by using heat. The combination of the food’s pH and the cooking temperature determines the product’s eventual shelf life. Other private label suppliers can give you great flavours in their test kitchen, but that’s no good if the finished product doesn’t perform when the consumer gets it home. GT - Supplying the major UK supermarkets is very demanding! Do you run your own supply chain operations to these customers, or do you use a logistics partner? We have different logistics arrangements for each major retailer. We also have five HGVs of our own and can service individual customers as required. GT - Have any of your products won quality awards over the years? To be honest, we haven’t entered any products for awards recently - we’re too busy! I have to say, getting successful products into the market place is more important - we’re focused on achieving at the business end, rather than seeking accolades! GT - Looking forward, what do you see as your biggest opportunities? The biggest opportunity lies in exploiting the potential of our plastic meal containers facility. We can offer customers a range of shapes to suit different meal occasions. With a can, you are essentially stuck with a cylinder for your product. Pies come in different can shapes, but the tooling costs involved mean you need to produce millions of units. You need to offer consumers different shapes to eat out of, and with plastic meal containers, we can deliver total flexibility. GT - Finally, where do you see Simpson Ready Foods going from here? I see us building on our new Micro pots, while also actively growing our business in the glass jars area. If all goes well, we expect to double the business to £20 million within five years. Simpson Ready Foods Tel: 0161 865 2241 www.simpsonsfoods.co.uk