Ben Mckechnie is the Founder and Managing Director of UK based healthy snacks wholesaler, Epicurium.
With years of experience in the snacking and wholesale industries, Ben has overseen the growth of Epicurium from a start-up business during its inception back in 2014, to now working with over 125 brands and serving over 2,500 customers.
With a goal of becoming the UK’s favourite source of innovative, on-trend, snacking products, Ben leads from the front in Epicurium’s ongoing mission to banish boring snacks.
Where have you worked before and in what roles have you worked?
My first ‘proper’ job was as a function manager at an upmarket caterer serving dinners to London’s palaces, livery halls, national museums, and other exciting high-profile venues across the capital. We did everything from intimate lunches and weddings to album launches and even a state banquet where the Queen hosted the German chancellor.
My next role was as a marketing analyst for a small product development company in Newcastle. This wasn’t related to food, but rather was very innovation focused and closely linked with one of the drivers of 3D printing in the UK (then called ‘rapid prototyping’.)
My next step was to join with a friend as freelance account managers selling a brand of innovative ambient ready meals to food shops and delis. As part of that we toured the UK’s food fair circuit offering tasters to the nation’s foodies everywhere, from Somerset to Glasgow. We would pack up a van with stock and spend the summer going from show to show, which was great fun.
After four years, however, we were starting to wonder why we weren’t making much money, and it turns out a lot of companies aren’t very good at managing customers’ orders. The brand we were selling on behalf of kept messing up our deliveries and customers were leaving faster than we could bring them on. So, that’s when I decided to get into wholesale distribution – I thought if I’m doing the hard work of finding customers, then if anyone was going to mess up my deliveries it should at least be me!
We got a little self-storage unit, a laptop, and a desk and just like that we were in the wholesale business. After adding a few cool new brands like ‘Propercorn’ and ‘Bear Nibbles’, we quickly realised there was a good opportunity in the growing demand for healthier snacks and quickly outgrew our little storeroom.
In 2014, we signed the lease on (what was to us) a massive warehouse, and that’s really the start of Epicurium as it is today.
What does your current role involve?
With Epicurium still being a smaller, fairly tight team of 35 people, I still have to get stuck in and get my hands dirty on a daily basis. My main role is heading up the sales and marketing team whilst coordinating my other department managers so that we can tackle the challenges of each day as they arise, whilst still keeping focus on delivering on our longer-term growth plans. With the many – seemingly endless – disruptions and challenges of the last few years we’ve all built up quite a resilience!
Each day starts with a full management team stand up to keep us all on track and aligned, then I’ll generally split my day in two with half dedicated to my own duties as head of sales and then the other half working with my department heads on active projects.
It’s rare that I have to get into the warehouse picking and packing (as much as I enjoy it), but I’d probably just hinder more than help nowadays!
I’m most useful out of the office, however, and I’m lucky to be able to get out and about visiting customers regularly.
What are your goals for what you want to achieve in the role?
Our key goals in the short term are developing the team to build our capabilities into a highly effective distributor capable of launching and nurturing the best new challenger brands. Our customers rely on us to advise and help curate exciting ranges to engage the modern consumers that visit their store or venue.
How is Epicurium performing as a business?
We’ve survived a tumultuous few years, which is testament to the team. With Covid, we had half of our customers close up instantly when the city centres locked down, and the other half stayed open serving their local communities. So, we did alright, and certainly were more fortunate than many businesses – we came out of the Covid years in a similar position to when we went in.
Since then, we’ve lost a significant chunk of EU business through the complications of Brexit, and also survived a huge loss when IDC went into administration. Through all that we’ve managed to continue a good level of growth and have plans to continue doing so for the foreseeable future.
This year has perhaps been the toughest period out of all that. The cost of living combined with acute supply chain and input cost increases have created a formidable environment over the last six months, but positive economic news and a bit of sunshine saw April turn a corner and swing back to where we’d originally expected. There’s no rest for the wicked in wholesale!
How would you describe Epicurium for anyone who hasn’t heard of the business?
Epicurium is a UK based healthy snacks wholesaler, offering a wide range of delicious snacks and drinks to meet today’s hottest trends. We provide expert range and category advice to help retailers find the right products for their business.
Our mission is to banish boring snacks and to help our customers differentiate their snack offer to better satisfy modern lifestyles. We help retailers stand out from the competition and attract a wider range of shoppers, workplaces engage better with their workforce, and cafes, venues, and sports clubs better serve their visitors.
Is Epicurium part of any larger buying group? If so, what benefits do you get from being part of that group?
Epicurium is a member of Confex, but we’re only really just learning how to take advantage of the opportunities the buying group offers. We’ve recently identified a great range of core products to complement our challenger brands and provide a more rounded offer to our customers. Alongside that, we’re joining Confex’s data sharing platform and hope to benefit from some excellent grouped category info. We also receive a lot of support and benefit from some great events throughout the year.
How far is the geographical reach of your business?
As a delivered wholesaler with a primary focus on challenger brands, we target the consumer groups rather than a geographic area and our reach is national – to all parts of the UK. Despite us being in the North-East, a significant majority of our trade is within London and the South-East, as many trends develop in the capital first before spreading out through the larger urban centres.
Whilst it would be great to have a full presence in the South-East, our location offers some unique advantages and ensures that our focus isn’t drawn unduly to any one part of the country.
Do you have an e-commerce site for your customers?
We’ve invested heavily in our website and ecommerce platform over the last few years. About half of our trade comes through the website, and almost 70% of our independent customers use the web portal as their primary ordering method.
How many products does Epicurium supply and what categories do you cover?
We currently stock around 1,300 products from across 125 brands, almost all of which come from the key snacking and food to go categories.
Do you have any new products in your ranges that you want to talk about at this time?
We’re regularly adding a mixture of new, exciting, and upcoming brands to our portfolio alongside expansions to ranges from our existing and more well-known brands on a monthly basis.
Some notable recent additions of new brands include CNP, SOAK’d Oats, Jade & Joy, Sugar N Spice and Waffuls!, as we continue to expand our healthy snacking range, especially ahead of this year’s hotly anticipated summer of sport, while also increasing our indulgent flavour profiles.
Elsewhere, recent additions to the ranges of some of our existing brands include Huel’s Ready to Drink Complete Meal Black Edition as well as the Daily A-Z Vitamin Drink, PROPER’s Chickpea Chips, BEAR’s Fruit Splits, and Tony’s Chocolonely’s Everything Bar.
What is in store for Epicurium?
To continue our market growth, continue to expand in both our customer base and number of partners, and continue to offer industry-leading knowledge and insight to allow our customers to stand out from an increasingly busy crowd.
How has the wholesale industry changed in recent years?
It has certainly been a rollercoaster ride in the relatively short time that we’ve been in business. Out of the 10 years that Epicurium has been operating, three of them have been Covid years, most have been in trying to understand Brexit, and the last couple dealing with supply chain disruption and rampant inflation, so there’s never been a dull moment!
Amongst all of that, I think the key changes I’ve seen have been in the move towards delivered wholesale and ecommerce. Trends are constantly evolving, and the competition keeps getting better, but the core principles of wholesale distribution never change.
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