Black Farmer founder Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones has debuted the first brand from his new incubator scheme, The Hatchery – an authentic Swedish meat brand called Smörgåsbord.
The brand’s first product, Swedish meatballs, went on sale in Asda and Ocado last month (rsp: £2.50/400g). The 55% pork and 15% beef meatballs will also go on sale in Sainsbury’s this week and will be available in 1kg packs when they roll out into Costco next month.
“These delicious meatballs are a local favourite, made in Sweden to a traditional recipe combination of pork and beef,” said Smörgåsbord MD Chris Monks. “They are truly versatile and can be eaten cold, straight out of the pack as a snack, or heated up as a main meal.”
Smörgåsbord came about as a collaboration between Emmanuel-Jones and former Kerry Foods executive Monks, after the latter spent two years working at Nordic meat supplier, HKScan.
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Monks pitched the idea of a range of authentic Swedish-made Scandinavian food products to Emmanuel-Jones, who invested in the project before the brand was born. Its design aimed to highlight “trustworthy, natural, wholesome, authentic and quality” messaging.
Further Scandinavian-made meat products were planned under the brand, said Emmanuel-Jones. He is also in the process of bringing other brands to market using The Hatchery, founded in April 2018, as a vehicle to offer investment and mentoring to food and drink start-ups.
“After spending 33 years in the protected and structured corporate food business world, I challenged Chris to take a leap of faith and jump into a fully hands-on start-up environment where there is no place to hide,” he added.
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