Eat 17's bacon jam and artisan corner shop come to Hackney

Rebecca Burn-Callander
14 Jun 2014
The Telegraph UK
The creators of bacon jam on their rise from local convenience store to ‘destination’ food brand
Convenience store, restaurant, pizzeria, burger bar and condiments brand; Eat 17 has combined five businesses to create a food emporium in Walthamstow, in north-east London, and now the family business is bringing the unusual model to Clapton.
Brothers Chris and Daniel O’Connor, Chris’s partner Siobhan O’Donnell and stepbrother James Brundle launched the venture seven years ago when a local off-licence came up for sale in Walthamstow.
“It was a rundown shop called Paul’s Wines,” says Brundle. “None of us had ever run a business before, but we all grew up in Walthamstow and we saw an opportunity to create a local convenience store that was a bit different and offered customers an experience.”
Today, the £1m-turnover shop specialises in offering independent, artisan and local produce. It stocks more than 200 products that are made by small suppliers, such as salads from the Growing Communities project in Hackney.
In a single week, the store can try out up to 20 new products. The successful lines are added to the permanent range and if something doesn’t sell “we’re open and honest with the producer,” says Brundle. “It’s a great way for them to test the market.”
The Eat 17 store is independent but has partnered with the convenience brand Spar to ensure a reliable supply of more staple items, such as washing up liquid and chocolate bars.
“They were happy for us to stock our own products and make some of our own food,” says Brundle. “They just help us out with the daily essentials, which lets us be more entrepreneurial.”
Diversity and choice are key to the Eat 17 offering. According to Brundle, this is how the business has drawn custom away from local supermarkets.
“We’ll sell one Spar rice pudding for 49p and another one from France, made by a small supplier, that’s a lot more expensive,” he says. “We’re neither discounter nor upmarket retailer.”
The convenience store features a bakery and pizza restaurant on site, and creates its own range of ready-meals. “All our bread and pastries are made by hand every day and the pizza is made in front of your eyes by two Sardinian brothers,” says Brundle.
This makes the Eat 17 shop the antithesis of the conventional corner shop.
“Walk into most other convenience stores at 6pm and you’ll find a mouldy steak bake on the hot plate, if you’re lucky,” he says. “We wanted to create restaurant quality food in a shop.”
Five years ago, the family decided to create a restaurant, also using the Eat 17 brand, and acquired the premises next door to the existing shop. Chris O’Connor, who is a trained chef, leads the restaurant business, which now turns over £2m a year.
The final piece of the puzzle fell into place in 2011, when O’Connor was working on a new Eat 17 burger recipe. While trying out various relishes, he cooked up a new bacon-based condiment, which he called “Bacon Jam”.
“He called us in to try it and we just loved it,” says Brundle. “We decided to try selling it in the shop. We made 200 jars and they sold out in a single weekend.”
The jam is now stocked in Selfridges, Waitrose and Tesco nationwide, and even had a cameo on Jonathan Ross’s ITV chat show. “What started as an experiment has turned into a serious business,” says Brundle. “We’re in 3,000 stores now, we have five different flavours, and we’re starting to sell into Europe.”
The Eat 17 Bacon Jam business is forecast to reach a £1m turnover by the end of 2014. “The business grew 200pc last year,” says Brundle. “The resale rate is extremely high. It’s gone crazy.”
Not content to rest on their laurels, however, last year the Eat 17 family bought a former snooker hall on Chatsworth Road in Lower Clapton, where they are hoping to create another destination food hub. The location features a Spar convenience store, a 50-cover restaurant, and a burger bar.
The convenience store and burger bar launched last month, and the restaurant opened last week.
The new venture has cost the family business more than £500,000 to date, and it took more than a year to secure all the relevant planning permissions to transform the 9,000 sq ft site into Eat 17.
“It’s a big risk for us,” admits Brundle. “We don’t have investors, we’re independently owned. But so far, the Clapton residents seem to really like what we’re doing. We’re hoping that the business will reach a turnover of £3m, in line with the Walthamstow Eat 17, within a year or two.”
The business has been a labour of love for the whole family.
“When we started, we all used to kip in the van out front, sleeping for just a couple of hours and then coming back in,” recalls Brundle. “We had no lives at all. We were here 20 hours a day.”
Today, each member of the family is in charge of a separate area of the business. This not only ensures that none of the revenue streams are neglected, it also prevents the brothers from fighting.
“I can’t remember the last time we had an argument,” says Brundle. “We still get tired but we don’t snap. Working in the business together has made us all even closer.”
Fusing several businesses into a single location not only increases revenues per square foot, it also increases the amount of time customers linger there and their basket size.
“People come over, do their shop, and a few will wander over to the burger bar,” explains Brundle. “The customers that come to order a burger will browse the shop while they wait for it to be cooked.” The burger bar is licensed, which also helps to draw custom through Eat 17’s doors.
“This is the business model of the future,” says Brundle. “People have to up their game in retail to survive now. You need to be different. You need to create local destination businesses that people look forward to visiting.”
The local angle remains crucial to Eat 17’s model, so the family are unlikely to expand far beyond east London. This shouldn’t curtail the firm’s growth ambitions, however. “We feel there’s still a lot of scope with Eat 17,” says Brundle.
The brand name has also resonated with fans of a certain Nineties pop band.
“We get asked about Brian Harvey and East 17 quite a bit,” laughs Brundle. “He hasn’t come in, but it’s a great talking point.