Inspiring Business by Sharing Success

What an Eggcellent idea for a family business

What an Eggcellent idea for a family business

Putting her own unique spin on the humble scotch egg is proving to be a big hit for Noni’s Family Kitchen.

The food business, run by Jackie Williamson from her home in Broughton Astley, Leicestershire, has gone from producing 40 to 500 units a week in the last six months and has just taken on its first employee!

Jackie created her scotch eggs after being fed up of not being able to find healthy alternatives to eat whilst dieting last year. She began making scotch eggs from home as a healthy snack whilst working in her role supporting adult carers in Leicestershire. Her scotch eggs were so popular with friends and family that following the loss of her job in autumn 2018 she began selling the buffet and picnic favourite at craft fairs.

Jackie’s products are home-crafted using locally sourced pork sausage meat, baked crumbs and free-range eggs from her local farm. She has created not only the traditional scotch egg with sausage meat surrounding an egg rolled in a home-baked crumb and mixed herbs - from her own garden - but other tasty flavour combinations such as ‘Chorizo’ with sausage meat rolled in fine orange crumbs mixed with paprika, ‘Sausage, Chips and Beans’ using sausage meat, baked beans in a potato chip stick crumb and ‘Bombay’, an Indian inspired creation available in pork, vegan or vegetarian made with spices and rolled in Bombay mix.

Jackie has been supported by the Food and Drink Forum, a partner in the Collaborate business support project, that provided 12 hours of free advice and support. As Jackie started to sell to other businesses, including micro pubs, delis, butchers and garden centres she needed to have a HACCP certificate (Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points) which requires that potential hazards are identified and controlled at specific points in the process.

Jignesh Parekh, Technical Assistant at the Food and Drink Forum said:

“Noni’s Family Kitchen had a few challenges for the approval process with the local council in order to start trading business-to-business. We enabled the business to put together all the documentation to meet the requirements and advised Jackie on the various food safety criteria for scotch egg manufacturing. I am really pleased that the business has gained the approval with the local council and now growing.”

Jackie said:

“The red tape has been phenomenal and I had to get help if I was going to trade with other businesses, although my kitchen has a five-star hygiene rating, it’s much more complicated when dealing business-to-business over a certain percentage of sales rather than the public. The support from Collaborate means I can trade confidently with any size organisation knowing I have all the right legislation in place. Although I love selling to the public it’s wonderful working with other business people who often have that special appreciation for good quality food and drink.”

Jackie is the first person to get approval for producing products using eggs and meat in her own home kitchen in the district of Leicestershire. Things are going so well she has just taken on her daughter, Jemma as her first employee. She has also been invited to go to the House of Commons in October with a delegation of other food and drink businesses organised by Harborough District Council to showcase what the area has to offer.

Despite the success of her scotch eggs Jackie has no plans for mass production. A personal touch is very important to Noni’s Family Kitchen. It recently helped with the celebration of another new business by creating a special egg for them which in turn matched a beer to go with her jalapeño and firecracker scotch-egg creation. She sees more of the same in the future as she creates wonderful new flavour combinations for her protein-packed snacks.

For details about future business support and advice small and medium-sized businesses within Leicester and Leicestershire are invited to a celebration event on 3 September 2019 from 11.30am to 4.00pm at King Power Stadium. For full details visit this link http://bit.ly/GBT19

Collaborate for Growth is funded by the European Regional Development Fund and partners Leicester City Council (lead partner), Leicestershire County Council, East Midlands Chamber (Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire) and the Food and Drink Forum.

Picture caption: Jackie and Jemma Williamson with a selection of their home-crafted scotch eggs


< Back