How Jonathan Bye shook up Seabrook Crisps and made a packet

As risks go, when Jonathan Bye left Vimto for Seabrook in 2012 he was taking a big one. “People thought I was mad,” he laughs.

They had a point. Until Seabrook came calling, Bye was enjoying a “fourth excellent year” as Vimto MD. “It took Vimto 100 years to get to £30m,” he says. “We took it to £60m in four.”

Seabrook, on the other hand, was in a pickle. The Bradford-based brand, which fried up its first batch of crisps a couple of years before Walkers and Golden Wonder in 1945, was haemorrhaging sales and profits.

“When I joined it had just lost £1.8m,” says Bye. “Sales were down 35%. Suppliers didn’t want to supply us. The trade didn’t think much of us. The business was in difficulty, no doubt about it.”

So what was he thinking?

“I grew up with the brand,” he starts. “I knew Seabrook was struggling. Without overplaying it, there was a plea to me to come and save the business. I knew the satisfaction of turning it around would be worth a lot and I knew it had potential. And you only have to see where we are now to see that potential was there.”

His “very first move” was to slow everything down and get the cost base under control. “Turnover had fallen rapidly, so we had too many people from director level to the factory floor. We also had to get risk management in place for potato contracts and oil.”

He also put the brakes on pushing the brand down South, although national expansion is now back on. He laughs when I ask about the challenges a Northern brand faces trying to crack the South - “no one is ever concerned about an overtly Southern brand cracking the North!” - and points out that some of Seabrook’s fastest growth is coming from areas it “wouldn’t consider a traditional heartland” including “the South West and the South East, with London just behind”.

In his first year he slowed losses to £400,000. In his second he expects the figures to show Seabrook made around £1.3m. “It’s a huge turnaround. It’s really significant. We literally changed everything, the people, the approach, the culture.”

Take the redesigned packaging in 2013, and the new strapline ‘Lovingly Made in Yorkshire’. “It wasn’t just a tweak. It was radically different. It made a statement, internally and externally, and we used that platform to really kick on. That packaging took our new message to the outside world and we saw a shift in attitude from the trade. It saw we were making a difference.”

Convincing the trade was one thing, convincing the factory floor was another, however. “You’ve got 150 people and many have been there for 30 years, from the local school to the factory floor. They have been through the highs and the lows - and recently there were more lows than highs. It’s taken 18 months to get them to buy into what we are doing but they can see it is working. Stage one was about saving the business and getting it back into profit. We did that a year ago and we have been making a profit ever since. Now it’s all about growth.”

To achieve it, Bye says the plan is to bring more households to the brand as it’s “more sustainable than getting existing consumers to eat more crisps. In the last 12 months we have focused on driving trial and awareness to increase penetration, which is up 20% - equating to one million households. The focus is about putting the products in people’s hands and we can see the strategy starting to come to fruition.”

That sampling strategy is typified by Seabrook winning a contract to exclusively supply the O2 arena. “Brand visibility is everything. Some of the things we are trying to do are purely about building awareness. If it washes its face commercially, that’s fine.”

Where it does have strong commercial ambition is for its brand new product, a lattice cut crisp, “the only one of its kind on the market.”

The unique cut will be available in five flavours, in 120g sharing bags, and it offers Seabrook a genuine point of difference against big guns like Walkers and McCoy’s. “Retailers are desperate for something different in the aisle - and this is. So they are keen.”

It also required a “significant six-figure sum” to be invested, including on new machinery, but Bye says the new crisp represents a “strategic shift from a small business that plays in crinkle cut to a serious player in crisps and snacks. This is a huge statement of intent that says we can bring something new and exciting.”

Sharing bags was something Seabrook had to get into as they “make up 25% of the category and, at around 4%, are the only part in growth”. At the time of writing, listings are still being secured, but Bye is relaxed and confident. “It’s 90% secured in all four. They have been tested at every stage and it’s all come back positive. Whether it’s concept, packaging, flavour or purchase intent, the scores are among the best I have seen.”

In the first year he is hoping for “between £2 and £3m” sales. “Not too bullish. That’s decent for our size.”

The flipside to the popularity of the sharing category means it is more competitive, but Bye isn’t worried. “In 30 years I have never known a brand held in such affection, there is such a desire for us to do well,” he says. “So the message to everyone is that we are here. We are open for business. And we are more than up for the challenge.”