Charlie Bigham, eponymous owner of the posh ready meal and meal kit brand, is looking to former Asda CEO Allan Leighton to help drive the business to £100m in annual sales.

But it wasn’t Leighton’s legendary status in grocery that convinced Bigham he was the right person to come on board as a non-executive director - it was the fact that he was “such a nice guy”.

“His UK grocery experience is obviously incredibly valuable, but the most important thing to me is that he is a nice guy and that we really want to work together,” Bigham told The Grocer, adding that Leighton joined the company’s board meeting for the first time last week.

“We loved having him there - he has a great background of working with entrepreneurial businesses and has worked with a lot of owner-manager operations with very impressive results.”

Bigham predicted that the brand, which is available through retailers including Waitrose, Ocado, Sainsbury’s and Booths, would hit sales of around £24m this year.

It has made major distribution gains in the past year, with Sainsbury’s rolling out six of its meals to 300 stores. And last week, its fish pie picked up the prize for best fish ready meal at The Grocer’s New Product Awards.

“Charlie has tapped into the key insight that although people lead such hectic lives, they still want to make time to share a delicious meal at home together,” said Leighton, who has sat on the boards of businesses including the Royal Mail, BSkyB and Dyson.

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