Pieminister - Challenger Business

Well Pieminister got started back in 2003 Before that I used to own a pub down in London where I had a young chef called Tristan who we got on particularly well and we thought we'll actually make something that we can sell back into the catering industry, so we teamed up, and set about setting up Pieminister It was about a year and a half in the planning and then quite soon afterwards we acquired a site down in Bristol where we started making the pies and we had a small shop out at the front, he was out the back making them, I was in the shop selling them, and the rest is history really Well at the moment we currently have five retail outlets. We've got two in Bristol, one in Oxford, one in London, and one up in Stoke-on-Trent, which is a franchise We've got 15 market stalls all around the UK. We've got someone on Borough Market which is a ... anyone who knows their food will know Borough another five or six in London, and yeah lots around the south west and then there's the retail through the festival circuit as well which is quite a big bit of business, we're doing 60 this summer The main challenges we've come across along the way really is just growing. We were growing very very quickly since the day we started you know, we've gone from a sort of one pie to 60,000 pies a week at the moment and looking to sort of double that in the next 12 months, and actually maintaining that, getting the people on board that can buy into what you do and actually maintain the quality along the way has been a huge challenge Getting people to buy into the original culture as well of what we were doing when we first started the business which was you know all about the quality, all about the ethos in the business, and actually having some fun along the way as well you know has actually been the biggest challenge I would have thought I would say the best business decision that I made was actually starting, you know, I've met a lot of people during the course of what I've been doing that have been talking about going into business, doing this, doing that, you know I've done it myself on various things, I do it now about new ideas that I have The most important thing which I did was just start it, getting off the ground, actually putting your hand in your pocket putting some cash down and saying, right, here's my stall, do you want what I do, you know, and actually making that first step Since then I think its actually just its been a very very conscious decision from day one just to maintain the quality and just not forget what we're about, you know, make sure that its all about the pies that we produce and its about the customers that eat them, rather than about us as a business as such because whatever we do here, if the customers don't like what we produce, then we don't have a business so you know its all about the product, all about the customers There are some other things that make it special and unique I suppose which is really just its about myself and Tristan, you know we've built the business very very much around our own personalities, our own beliefs and you know our own ethos and outlook on life, which you know I suppose every person's individual and unique and by doing that we've developed a business which has got a bit of character, you know, its got a nice interesting brand which isn't quite ... it isn't stale, it remains fresh, and it evolves the same way that we do as people I would say the top tips if I could offer anybody, even from start-ups, even up to some of the big businesses I would say just look after the product. Make sure that you get well known for one thing and you get known for it being good, you know, be the best in your field if you can, look after your customers There's no customer that's too small. They all ... some of them grow, some of them disappear but you know if you look after them from day one, they'll look after you I suppose, and they pay your wage at the end of the day