Having produced our trial run successfully, as reported in August, we have continued to donate our product to people in need, but we are also having a thorough look back at our first year and trying to ensure we have everything right for next year to cope with our increased production run.
The main focus for us now is retailing our product on the basis that for every meal we sell we will donate one to someone in need and we are doing a lot of work in this area. We have already sold just under a thousand meals to the shooting community, but we need to really increase our production and numbers in order to feed a million people in the next five years. We need to make sure our product is not only doing its primary job, of feeding people in need with a nutritious meal, but is also appealing and selling to a wider audience.
We have been taking a lot of feedback and our day at Borough Market was a really good piece of market research. We handed out hundreds of small cups of hot casserole to some of the 60,000 people passing through this huge Saturday food market. Both Londoners and tourists loved it, and only one sample we handed out was not finished. In addition we only had one negative response by a man whose wife replied “ignore him he has no taste” and promptly bought three casseroles! There is no doubt it tastes really good but we don’t want people surprised by how good it is, we need to improve the packaging so people want to try it. We are working hard with some fabulous people in the food business to improve the packaging in an economic way. We are also talking to a number of people about how we best retail our product.
In terms of the food itself we are looking to make a number of changes. The first is to increase the percentage of pheasant meat from 15 to 30% and increase the size of the meat pieces so it’s more of a casserole and less of a meat soup. Test samples of the new 30% product have been well received although the size of the pieces may now be too big!! We may well also continue the existing product as a soup, or even a Stoup as we were told our product is (Stew/Soup). Finally, we are looking to produce a 1-kilo version for charities that cook for people in large numbers and this will reduce our packaging, waste and costs.
In terms of distribution, whilst FareShare remains our key distribution charity and partner we have also given to other charities either nominated by donors or who have applied to us, and you will see information on those elsewhere this letter.
Fundraising continues to go well and we are extremely grateful to all those who have given so generously – until we establish a substantial retail presence then fundraising will continue to be key to our charity. We are really grateful to our three dedicated County Ambassadors: Simon Ford in Gloucestershire, Barney Stratton in Wiltshire, and Richard Bourne-Arton in North Yorkshire for their continued support. We have also welcomed on board four Ambassadors to our charity who believe in what we are doing and are happy to spread the word and help as their time allows. A big thank you to Teddy Wakefield, Peter Mason, Eddie Benson and Ed Farquhar for working with us and for all their help and advice so far.
We are now working towards our first major fundraising event at Syon House in February next year and hope to see many of you there.
Thank you again for all your support in our start up year and for helping us to feed so many people in need. We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and New Year. It has been an incredible first year.