Show Notes | Series 2, Episode 5 | Snaffling Pig
About our podcast
Brightpearl’s Lightning 50 E-Commerce Growth Hacking podcast, hosted by Caroline Baldwin, is a bitesize podcast that gets under the hood of highly successful e-commerce brands to discover the key technologies they are using to power growth.
About our guest
Snaffling Pig is a UK-based retailer of pork-based products and novelty gifts. The brand launched in 2014 with a starting fund of only £500, and is now an established retailer of the gifting sector, selling food items and gifts direct-to-consumer via its Shopify website and through a number of UK supermarkets. The brand placed 16th in the Lightning 50 list of fastest-growing UK brands with an incredible 100% rate of growth. For this podcast, we spoke to Nick Coleman, Founder and CEO of Snaffling Pig.
Transcript highlights:
● “Quite simply we make awesome-flavoured porky snacks. There’s so much emphasis on exercise and wellness these days, why not just enjoy time with friends and be a bit indulgent? ‘Life is for living’ was our initial vision and we still work on that philosophy.”
● “What a rollercoaster it’s been! We thought it would be a fairly easy journey, but going through the Covid era and now into an energy and economic crisis. It means we’re always ducking and diving, wheeling and dealing and taking things as they come; it has been a challenge, definitely.”
● “Our performance brings in about 3M a year. Overall the pork scratching market brings about 28M, so we’re really proud of that. There’s a ceiling for how you can market pork scratchings, though - so we’ve started to sell other flavours like barbecue, and we’ve branched into beers, utensils such as burger flippers and barbecue tongs; complimentary products that align with our brand and core offering.”
● “You can’t sell a typical bag of pork scratchings online, so we’ve made it into a gift, created something tongue-in-cheek and truly unique that you can buy either for yourself or for a loved one. We put them in cards, combined with sauces, beers, ciders and peanuts.”
● “We’re very proud of the fact that we’re omnichannel. We started six years ago with a vision to de-risk as a brand by selling through as many channels as possible.”
● “The creme de la creme is our Pork Scratching Advent Calendar which got huge PR and great exposure, and was a great way to accelerate our DTC arm. Online has been a really important way for us to show product development, engage with customers and to spread our risk so that during periods of uncertainty like Covid, we’re geared up to sell directly to people rather than rely on supermarkets and supply chains that are outside of our control.”
● “I don’t think the huge growth will continue as it has - in six years there hasn’t been a moment where it just shot up like a rocket, there’s been a lot of foundational work to get where we are now.”
● “We thought the way people responded to Covid would continue - it hasn’t, it’s slowed right down. But we’re in a good position to take advantage of changing consumer habits. As people have gone back to bricks and mortar we’re developing that side of our business more - and with the cost-of-living crisis we want to offer desirable items that are of better value to customers. It’s important to evolve the business and not rest on our laurels based on the Covid effect - the market is changing, so we must too.”
● “We have looked at subscription services - but it’s tough to find someone who wants pork scratchings every month - so we look at it as a gift. We do offer perhaps a three month subscription to give your Dad at christmas, for example, just to make it a bit more consumer friendly and reasonable. It’s about adapting so it suits the customer.”
● “This year has been interesting to say the least - supply chain was a huge issue. Our industry has very few suppliers and one burnt down recently - the others were unable to access the materials needed because of the Ukraine war. Now the material has started to boost, but cooking our products uses a lot of energy which is sky-high right now in terms of cost. So the brand needs to go through constant evolutions to survive these times - but we are not afraid of changing. Being smaller than the big guys makes this possible, and it’s the reality of being a small business.”
● “The tech available to support small businesses now is phenomenal. One app we use is Gorgias which interacts with our Shopify website and allows you to prioritise how you communicate with customers. Shopify has been great and how it’s evolving is fantastic. Also, all of our orders also go into an ERP system which allows us to monitor our accounts, CRM, warehouse etc all through one space. The time and money we’ve invested into that has allowed us to really understand profitability, by customer, channel and location, and allowed us to make better decisions we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.”
● “To come 16th and be the winner of the Toys and Gifts category is brilliant. We’ve got a wonderful team who are incredibly dedicated and knowledgeable and work tirelessly day after day. I’m very proud of the team for getting us there.”
Top takeaways
● Snaffling Pig placed as 16th fastest-growing e-commerce retailer in the UK, and the top brand in the Toys & Gifts sector.
● The brand reached an impressive 100 % growth rate.
● The tech that’s driven their growth includes Shopify, Gorgias and an ERP system.
● Snaffling Pig puts its success down to an omnichannel approach to de-risk the future of the brand.
- The business has also broadened its product line to include subscriptions, utensils, novelty items and gifting products to encourage repeat custom and a higher average order value.