PROFILE
We’re still
standing! On 2 January this year, Love Bites (www.love-bites.co.uk) celebrated 30 years as arguably the longest established independent sandwich manufacturer in the UK, having been founded in 1991 by husband and wife team, Richard and Gill Smith (pictured), who are still the only two directors to this day, having also brought up their family over this period. Here, managing director, Richard Smith, looks back over an eventful time for the sector… 1991 The sandwich industry was so very different back in 1991 with the majority of “entrepreneurs” making them in their houses without any control - calling at offices with a basket of non-refrigerated products from the boot of their car (comedically depicted in the TV series of the time Bread). As with all businesses, it has been a rollercoaster ride from humble beginnings on a post-Christmas dark early morning back in 1991 when our first customer was a policeman just coming off a night shift (technically, he wasn’t our first customer because we gave him our company’s first ever sandwich!). We had rented a small industrial unit belonging to the supermarket chain, Morrisons, bought a refrigerated van, and then began the process of finding customers. There was very little legislation in those days relating to our industry and things such as labels were very small and just printed with “Egg Mayonnaise” or “Ham Salad” with a use by date and a “keep refrigerated”. CORNER SHOPS TO FROZEN EXPORTS Our first real customers were corner shops and petrol stations, and where we supplied the sandwiches on a sale or return basis. The industry has gone
through massive changes since those days and the afore-mentioned label is now nearly as big as the sandwich. The corner shops, petrol stations and sale or return gave way to schools, colleges, universities and hospitals. Then came sporting venues, theme parks, prison service, foodservice, supermarkets and the odd coffee shop to name but a few. In more recent times it’s been trains, boats and planes, coffee shop chains and frozen exports to Norway and Hong Kong. As mentioned earlier, it hasn’t all been plain sailing and our darkest hour came back in 2001 when a
50 September 2021 www.sandwichandfoodtogonews.co.uk
company quite deliberately took us for over £110,000! There have been others since then, but none as bad as that, so philosophically one might say it could have been worse and we survived. PRESENT DAY Does anyone remember the pandemic of 2020/21? That was interesting, wasn’t it! We decided to approach it with a positive attitude based on the old adage “there’s no point in crying over spilt milk.” We have been very fortunate in the fact that not one of our staff caught the deadly coronavirus (I think they
