In this free session, Great British Entrepreneur Awards Head of Content, Jonathan Davies will sit down with the founder of Snaffling Pig, Nick Coleman.

Whether you are an established business or just starting out in retail, bringing a new product to market can be daunting.

Stocked in Sainsbury’s, Tesco, John Lewis, Ocado, and Selfridges, founder of Snaffling Pig, Nick Coleman will share his expertise on breaking into the big retailers, pitching to big supermarkets and how you can bring innovation to the shelves with your products.

Nick originally came from a completely different background, having absolutely no knowledge of the lingo or the connections he would need to make his foray into the food supply world. Nick Coleman, 35, from Essex, came up with the idea of Snaffling Pig in 2014 when his friend challenged him to set up a business on just £500. Three years later, the company which produces gourmet pork scratchings, or pork crackling to be exact, has a turnover of 3.5 million a year. He talks about how to navigate that and despite its difficulty, it is doable. He said his way that he made it work was “[he] embraced [his] naivety. To embrace your naivety, you have to “offer them a range that wasn’t available elsewhere. We gave them passion, which the big corporates just won’t give. We said to them we will be fighting for every sale, we will do as much as activity as low cost as possible. We would get out and sample and be human.” Sell your story at the end of the day. 

It’s this passion that Snaffling Pig has that has allowed them to compete even when the stakes reach a new height. 

Winning retail is only half the battle, keeping it is the real work. Nick will offer top tips and advice on the benefits of winning retail listings, how to keep them, scaling up for retail and how these can impact your business. 

Nick is a big advocate of learning from your mistakes and not getting caught up in the paralysis of choice. Take action first, make mistakes, learn from them, and become a better entrepreneur that way. 

“An entrepreneur is someone who will jump off a cliff and try to build a plane as they’re falling. And that’s Snaffling Pig’s mantra. We’re never really ready. (…) Let’s just get it going.”

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