Months of hard work is paying off for family run sausage company HECK, since they worked with retail guru Alex Polizzi as part of her new BBC2 series The Fixer.
In addition to Tesco who gave the Yorkshire-based company their first break just over a year ago, the Keeble family behind HECK has also struck deals to supply Waitrose, Morrisons, Asda and Booths and is on track to hit £5m turnover in the next 12 months after receiving advice from Polizzi and her team.
The Fixer follows family run businesses that need a helping hand to take them forward. The episode featuring HECK airs on Monday 8 September BBC 2 at 9pm and looks at trading with the big supermarkets.
Andrew & Debbie Keeble of Heck sausages with Alex Polizzi
The Keebles are already a well-established family of farmers turned food producers who have started a business in Britain’s notoriously congested food market and independently grown it into a major player with more than £3m turnover in its first year. But, like many small producers, they rely heavily on the supermarkets to sell their product to survive.
With major expansion planned for the brand, Alex was brought on board to help steer the Keebles in the right direction, and to advise them on how to survive the shelves of the supermarkets and realise their goal to become the UK’s No. 1 premium sausages.
Covering everything from recipes and seasoning, pitching to the supermarkets and their use of marketing and social media, the episode also delves in to the psyche behind the layout of supermarket shelves and goes behind the scenes at Morrison’s food development kitchens which reveals some interesting results.
Whilst working with Alex, the Keebles made their first foray in the festival world with a Yorkshire Sausage & Beer Festival in association with Camp Hill. With the aim to showcase their brand and get people trying their sausages, they gave away free sandwiches to the 1,000-strong crowd, tried out new recipes, sponsored the ‘best sausage’ competition between local butchers and introduced the Keeble siblings as the new faces behind the brand.
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