The British Premium Sausage Co has avoided closure as the result of the coronavirus outbreak by securing listings with Asda and Tesco – saving 35 jobs in the process.
The West Yorkshire foodservice supplier “lost three quarters of its business virtually overnight” as the UK went into lockdown last month, it said.
Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, BPS produced two million of its core sausages each month, as well as a million more fresh items across meatballs, burgers and chorizo sausages. Most went to hotels and restaurants, while the company also supplied about two thirds of the UK’s airports.
The government’s call in March for all hotels and restaurants to close “got rid of 50% of our sales” said BPS MD Ian Cundell. “When the airports shut down as well, that accounted for a further 25%.”
As a result, the future of the company’s 35-strong workforce looked uncertain, he added. “I thought we were going to have to furlough at least half of the staff, and I didn’t know whether we’d survive as a business.”
However, new listings with the mults “hugely boosted” BPS’s chances of survival. It is now supplying Yorkshire Cuisine Premium Pork Sausages and British Premium Sausages to more than 220 Asda stores, while the former product is also in 93 Tesco outlets across the Midlands and Yorkshire.
“It’s testimony to the people we have working for us that we’ve been able to do this and, most importantly, it’s saved jobs and saved the business,” Cundell said.
BPS contacted Asda a week before the lockdown, as supermarkets were swept clean by panic-buyers, he added. “Usually, being listed by a supermarket takes time but we had supplied them in the past, so within a week we were accepted by them.”
Similarly, the listing with Tesco was secured after the sausage maker “dropped an email to Dave Lewis, the CEO, saying we had spare capacity”.
While both listings are temporary, they had the potential to be longer term “depending on sales figures” said Cundell. “On the basis of these new markets, BPS will aim to continue in this direction as well as foodservice.”
The supplier had also been buoyed to some degree from an 400% increase for its web store – albeit “from a relatively small amount” – and from sales by online butchers and meal kit providers such as Hello Fresh and Farmison.
Exports, which had so far remained unaffected by the pandemic, were also helping, Cundell added. “The British sausage is very popular worldwide. We shipped big orders to Hong Kong, Denmark, and Malta during March, and we also regularly export to Jordan, Singapore and the Falklands.”
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