Sacla’ UK MD Clare Blampied reveals why the £24.3m business is now poised to expand beyond its ambient heartland into the chiller aisle for the first time. Vince Bamford reports


Most UK consumers probably hadn’t heard of pesto 20 years ago, let alone cooked with it. But today it is a mainstream product, with 95 varieties on sale in the UK (or so says the Daily Mail).

Last month, the paper claimed to have surveyed that many pestos for its story decrying its high salt levels. The exposé thrust unwelcome scrutiny on the sauce, which has grown hugely in popularity over recent years, sales leaping 7.2% to £33m in the past year alone [SymphonyIRI 52w/e 16 April 2011].

But the food scare didn’t scare Sacla’ UK MD Clare Blampied. As she pointed out at the time, people only use a small amount of pesto when they cook. And as she points out now to The Grocer, Sacla’ UK is in rude health which is why it is about to extend its offer beyond the ambient aisles for the first time into the fresh category.

At the end of June, the £24.3m business will debut a 20-strong range of fresh pesto, pasta and pasta sauces in Waitrose, Ocado and Selfridges and Sacla’ expects to confirm further listings soon. The company is also introducing further new products to its 36-strong ambient range.

It has come a long way since Blampied and UK chairman Guiseppe Ercole, the founder’s grandson basically launched the UK pesto market with just two products. In the late 1980s, Blampied was employed by a company that imported Sacla’ canned veg for foodservice. “Guiseppe had finished university and was told to go out and conquer the world,” recalls Blampied.

The UK was virgin territory at the time. So the pair persuaded “every food writer and journalist they could” to travel to Italy to see how pesto was made. The ensuing articles generated interest among retailers. “In some ways we were in the right place at the right time. The World Cup took place in Italy in 1990 and there was a lot of interest in Italian food.”

By 1991, pesto was generating strong sales in the UK, which prompted the parent company, formed in 1939, to set up Beaconsfield-based subsidiary Sacla’ UK.

Blampied admits it hasn’t had things all its own way. “We have had to give retailers what they want in terms of promotions,” she says, adding that bogofs and 3-for-2 deals have been a fact of life. But despite the challenges, the business has gone from strength to strength. Now it’s about to break new ground with its foray into fresh. This month, Sacla’ also rolled out its new Per Uno ambient sauces designed to serve one (see p27), and there is further NPD in the pipeline, with wave two of the chilled range likely to appear early in 2012.

Bampied is also keen to move into frozen. “I love frozen food its day will come,” she says. For the time being, though, she’s focusing all her efforts on ambient and the new chilled offer.

“We can’t afford to get this wrong,” she says. With the nation’s passion for pesto showing no signs of abating, there’s no reason to think they will.

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