Keeping Up With Demand
Sarah Varley speaks to Ewood Foods’ MD Stephen Sutcliffe about the rapid expansions taking place, including a new in-house butchery department and their range of award-winning Kennedy’s sausages
Ewood Foods is an independent, family-owned business and one of the North West’s leading food service suppliers. Originally established in 1977 by MD Stephen Sutcliffe’s father Geoff, right next door to Ewood Park, the business is now based in Accrington and is going from strength to strength.
Operating from a modern, purpose-built warehouse and distribution facilities, they have a fleet of modern and purpose-designed, multi-temperature vehicles delivering throughout the North West and West Yorkshire.
“We have customers from across the food service industry and the entire North West, including schools, colleges, hospitals, nursing homes, sandwich bars and delis, pubs and restaurants, hotels, garden centres and outside caterers,” explains MD Stephen.
“We have over 40 years’ experience and we believe in exceeding expectations in both quality and service, providing next-day delivery on which our customers can depend.”
“To have won so many awards this year makes us immensely proud, including winning Best Family Business at Lancashire’s Red Rose Awards, Best Family Business at Blackburn with Darwen’s Hive Awards and Best Supplier at the North West Hospital Caterers Association Awards,” Stephen says.
“We now have around 4,000 product lines at Ewood Foods, including butchery, chilled, grocery, frozen food and non-food, which means we really are a one-stop shop for our customers, with everything they need in one place.”
As part of a £1 million investment over the last five years, Ewood Foods now also have their own in-house butchery department, Kennedy’s Wholesale Butchery, to provide customers with all of their butchery requirements including the famous Original Real Steak Canadiann and their growing range of hugely popular Kennedy’s sausages.
“We are very proud to have launched our own brand of Kennedy’s sausages, which is a range of premium, fresh sausages made to our own unique and original recipes,” Stephen says. “Kennedy was my grandmother’s maiden name and we are absolutely delighted with how popular they have become – we are producing a premium range of fresh sausages consisting of many different flavours.”
“The butchery was a big investment of around £350k, but we have seen a dramatic 20-fold increase in sausage sales alone. We were also thrilled that after only two years of production and on the first time of entering, we were runner up at the National Sausage Week Awards for Best Traditional Sausage in Food Service with Kennedy’s Tasty Pork and Herb Sausage.”
Stephen adds: “Steak Canadiann is a finely sliced real steak that cooks in a minute. It was invented right here in Accrington by family friend Derek Ingham back in 1976 and named after his wife Ann, hence the spelling. It has now become part of Kennedys butchery, made to the same original recipe and great quality real steak and not to be confused with any reformed imitations! It is one of our biggest selling products because it is perfect for making delicious, fast and cost-effective steak sandwiches.”
“Cafes and sandwich shops are also now displaying our new Kennedy’s sausage and Steak Canadiann wall posters to let their customers know that they use these high-quality products, really helping get the name out there.”
“Reinvestment is something we have always believed strongly in. The Kennedy’s butchery range is constantly growing, with a full butchery range now available to our customers including fresh steaks, beef, lamb, pork and chicken products and we are in the enviable position of struggling to keep up with demand so we are continuously reinvesting in new machinery, new product lines and more staff.”
Ewood Foods
Huncoat Business Park
Newhouse Road, Accrington
Lancashire BB5 6NT
01254 235575
sales@ewoodfoods.co.uk
www.ewoodfoods.co.uk
