Pohco Ltd
If the kit doesn’t exist, design it…
We spoke to business consultant Paul Albone, co-founder of Pohco Ltd, about the support he received at FoodWorks SW in efforts to bring his new product to market.
What’s your professional history?
“I’m a Business Operations Consultant focusing on strategy deployment and manufacturing processes. I’ve worked for Mars but wasn’t interested in entering the food industry until about five years ago. My very creative partner, Stefi, developed a recipe in the kitchen using readily available ingredients that soon exploded into a product described by a Michelin-recommended chef as ‘Hands down the best of its kind I’ve ever tried’. We thought we should take things further!”
What’s your product?
“Stefi had pulled some readily available ingredients (such as olives and sun-dried tomatoes) into a mixture that can best be described as a tapenade, though that name really doesn’t do this combination justice. The flavour profile was sensational. It started as a personal indulgence then graduated on to dinner parties with friends. The response was unanimously superb. ‘Wow, where is this from, where can you buy this?’ We needed to develop this product professionally and set to work on two distinct products under the same banner.
“We defined the fundamentals of the recipe in micro detail - the size of the chunks chopped and the ratios down to the last gram - until we’d reliably nailed the flavour profile. We then spoke to cafe owners and were soon linked in with food distributors and a Michelin-recommended chef. Following a verbal agreement we got to work on a starting volume, planning to sell direct to the trade.”
Describe your equipment innovations
“In order to produce at volume, we needed to move to industrial processes and equipment. We soon realised that we couldn’t achieve the right chop size for our ingredients with existing food processors: the kit just didn’t exist. We needed to innovate - without spending a vast amount of money. Through FoodWorks SW, we contacted Electrolux Professional, whose superb team brought a wonderful piece of kit in for us to trial but, alas, this still didn’t meet our needs. Through FoodWorks SW’s contacts, we’re now working with someone to prototype a new piece of kit to meet our needs and have also met a new potential distributor and people keen to stock us at food markets.
“Foodworks SW’s’ great advice has caused us to slightly alter our direction of travel. We’d planned to go direct to catering but following further consultation, we’re now looking at developing trademarks, intellectual property and brand identity and there may be a patent to apply for on the new equipment we’re designing.”
What Foodworks SW facilities have you used?
“We’ve used the food hub’s demo and commercial kitchens, throwing some ingredient ideas around and trialling some things. For us, it’s the intangibles like the networks and connectivity that Foodworks SW offers that are most beneficial to us rather than the physical spaces, impressive though they are. I know that if I have a question around recipe development, I can call Zoe and she’ll provide or seek out the answers for me. We don’t need to know everything ourselves! It’s massively useful and comforting to know.
“Once we get into the legislative questions and industry-standard certification, the team’s expertise will be invaluable. We hope to be in a situation to have our trials and certification signed off this year, to be able to meet demand from autumn onwards and to be stocked at markets from late summer.”
Advice for startups considering FoodWorksSW?
“I’d advise all food business to get in touch with FoodWorks SW, to identify what help support they might need. I also recommend existing members of this fantastic food innovation hub to explore the extent of the support that’s available - it goes so much further than its physical spaces and online networking events. I’m a business consultant myself, working with Business West and the Innovate UK project, and am seriously impressed at the breadth of FoodWorks SW’s’ offer.
“Rather than waiting for a virtual or actual event to happen on site, I’d recommend that anyone keen to start or scale up their own food business get in touch and start asking their own questions and building their own networks at FoodWorks SW.”
Any stumbling blocks?
“Where to go to get it produced in larger volumes proved insanely difficult. We went through contract caterers and a variety of time wasters, companies that rank highly online who promise to bring your recipe to life. Some even charged us for advice, then we wouldn’t hear back. After a few years of this, we became aware of just how busy contract manufacturers have been during the pandemic which explained our difficulties but we were still no closer to getting the product we wanted.”
What advice did Foodworks SW give?
“We sought alternative ways to get things made, and Alan Bailey at Future Leap suggested FoodWorks SW. We got in touch and very soon had a meeting and tour of the facilities with Business Director Simon and Innovation and New Product Development Manager Zoe. We were blown away by it all. They helped us identify what questions we needed to answer providing expertise on everything from supply chains and bacterial testing to shelf-life analysis and finding a manufacturer of the right type and size.”