What's in a name?

The company began life in 1986 as Sunjuice, with six employees (four are still with the company today) making freshly squeezed orange juice. It was one of the first commercial squeezers in the UK and the first to gently pasteurise. Today, Sunjuice covers the whole of the chilled fruit juice market, trading under the name of parent company The Serious Food Company, which employs around 700 people over six manufacturing sites and will turn over £95M next year, mostly in own-label business.

The name was changed to Serious Food Company in 2005 following the firm's expansion into the soup and ready meals category; and ahead of its move into desserts. But it wasn't an easy choice, as md Andrew Lord explains: "We were slightly concerned people would think we are dull and boring, but we're not, we're just serious about good food."

The Serious Food Company also encompasses Frobishers (it owns 65%), which covers the on and off-trade ambient juice market; Serious Soup; Serious Food Distribution, Serious Desserts and, most recently, Simply Organic, which it acquired at the end of last year.

The distribution business was formed in 1998 as a means to an end. "We tried to sell our brand of juices and smoothies into London but couldn't find a distributor, so we decided to set up our own," explains Lord. What started out as a business based in a 460m2 unit in Slough gradually expanded into a £15M business with national distribution from depots in south Wales and Birmingham, and with an alliance in Scotland. The business is split equally between its own products and a wide range of frozen, chilled and ambient goods going into foodservice.

However, the bulk of the business is in juices and smoothies, both short and long shelf-life. Sunjuice is something of a success story in its own right, growing from £25M to £80M in five years. As Lord points out, "some of that is luck, being in the right place at the right time, but it's also about analysing what the market wanted".

And with the focus still very much on healthy eating at the moment, that is fresh smoothies and juices - an area in which Serious has a strong position: last year it held 53% of the freshly squeezed market and 69% of the smoothies market. It makes drinks for the Tesco Finest range, Boots, Marks & Spencer, Morrison and Sainsbury, as well as under the Serious Food brand for outlets such as Eat.

It hopes to get listings with the major retailers under its Serious label next year and has already had some interest.

"We are the only business I know that can get the orange in, process it and then use it across the entire spectrum in concentrate and not from concentrate form," says Lord.

Oranges are sourced from 17 different countries: "We follow the sun around the world to ensure we achieve consistency," says Lord. "We blend every week and squeeze up to six different varieties at any one time." And all the effort is worth it when you consider that the UK is the largest market in the world for freshly squeezed orange juice, he points out.

People power

As with most major food and drink manufacturers, where there is normally hardly a soul in sight, you would expect there to be a high level of automation across the six factories, but this isn't the case. The squeezing plant is the most automated, but even then there is a strong manual element with all the visual checks that are made. "Most of our factories are full of people - we're a bit of a weird company really," jokes Lord. "To work here you have to have the bug. Part of that is integrity - it's very important to us as an awful lot of people are 'cheating' with juices."

However, the firm has recently invested in a Krones state-of-the-art filling line (the Rolls Royce, as Lord puts it) for the juices , which he claims is still fairly novel in the industry. According to Lord it extends the shelf-life of a product from 16 to 60 days using all the same processing but just adding in an aseptic tank (to sterilise).

It was perhaps the company's desire to retain the personal touch and not 'sell out' to mass production that caused some people to doubt the viability of its venture into the desserts market at the start of last year.

"When we took on our desserts experts they didn't really believe you could do top end desserts at this scale and volume - in fact we were told by one retailer that we couldn't do it," explains Stephanie Kean, corporate development manager.

But the company has proved its sceptics wrong, going from just three premium desserts at launch, to 25 by February this year, which will include a new range for Waitrose own-brand. It also manufactures the Gü Cheeky Pots, which are just about to launch in Europe.

So what took Lord down such a diverse track? "Everybody was coming out of the sector, which was what drew me to it," he explains. "I wanted to know why people were failing - it was a challenge."

Indulgence was where the growth was, adds Kean, who says the team came up with the idea almost by mistake. "I went into Books for Cooks in London and got totally immersed in the world of patisserie, the really refined stuff, and was inspired," she recalls. With the help of top chef Paul A Young (not to be confused with the slightly better known one) - a head chef with Marco Pierre White, they set about designing a range. "However, we didn't think the public were quite ready for the sort of things I was looking at, so we came up with a premium twist on the traditional puddings."

All are made with 100% natural ingredients, which together with the biscuit bases (rather than pastry) and ceramic dishes, gives the firm a unique selling point, says Kean. She admits, however, that the shelf-life was a challenge initially: "Retailers were not happy with the shortness of it. But we've been working with them on forecasting, getting it to store more quickly, etc." And that's not the only price to pay - for consumers this sort of luxury and indulgence doesn't come cheap, yet, they seem willing to pay. "In Waitrose, the crème brûlée retails at £3.99 but it is now their biggest revenue dessert. When it first went in it was selling at four times the forecast and it stayed that way," claims Kean.

Lord adds: "We have proven that there is a demand for top quality products in every category we enter. People are not only willing, but, importantly, able to pay for premium products. A lot of companies can't deal with the top end and the mass market, but we have found a way to do that. We have the strength of a large company but the agility of a small one, which allows for innovation."

He likens what Serious has done for desserts with what some bakers did for bread: "Bread was a sector with no value and then someone came along with value added loaves. We are doing that with desserts, just on a smaller scale, targeting the cash-rich, time-poor consumer," he states.

However, it hasn't all been plain sailing. Just weeks after launch, a customer claimed to have found fragments of glass in one of the desserts, leading to a £100,000 recall.

But, as with most dark clouds, there was a silver lining and the company now boasts the safest glass factory in the UK. "We have ended up with a better system," says Kean. "We made structural changes to the factory and now have as many people handling and checking the glass as we do making the product, which is almost unheard of." And the continued custom of Waitrose is a "huge seal of approval", she adds. "If they weren't 100% confident in the products and the health and safety, they wouldn't have our products."

Innovation centre

With such a strong hold in the smoothies and juices market, and with ambitious plans for the desserts arena, what's next for the Serious Food Company? There are no concrete plans to tap into other categories, says Lord, as there is still much to do in the existing categories. However, he hasn't ruled anything out and anticipates more acquisitions similar to that of Simply Organic, for which it already manufactured ready meals, soups and sauces.

The ball has also been set rolling on plans for a dedicated innovation centre, which will work two years ahead of the business. "It will be a blank sheet, so who knows where we will go?"

"We've always been own-label led, but we want to have more of a branded presence," he adds. "You can be replaced by someone else easily in own-label and the consumer doesn't know anything about it.

"But if you are a must-list product, that's not so easy. We want a foot in both camps. We've got a long way to go with our brand, but it won't be at the expense of own-label - it's too important to us." FM

Serious Food at a glance

* First to manufacture smoothies in the UK (1995)

* First to manufacture milk smoothies for children (2000)

* Winner of the Great Taste Awards, Gold and Silver (2004)

* Winner of Grocer own-label excellence awards (2006)

* Over 30,000t of oranges juiced each year

* Recently acquired ready meal firm Simply Organic

• Launching own-label desserts for Waitrose in 2007 and extending branded desserts into other retailers

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