Inside Track Q&A

Ed Hick, owner of J Hick & Sons, pork butchers

What is the most unique thing about your business?

The pork butchers is our main business. We make and supply sausages, pork steaks, porchetta, rashers, chorizo, ribs, you name it, mainly to restaurants. We can make the product exactly the way they want it, for example we could do sausages flavoured with fennel, so that gives us an advantage. Our bacon jam is a new and completely unique product, though. It’s salty, sweet, sour and bitter all at the same time. You can spread it on toast, serve it with eggs, dollop it on scallops or use it to make a lazy BLT.

I’ve always been experimenting with new products – in the past I’ve made bacon lollipops and chocolate-covered bacon but the bacon jam has been the one product that has really taken off. It was originally just a way to flog more bacon, I hadn’t thought of it as an end product. I was just mixing and matching ingredients at home when it came about and it’s a whole new area for us as it’s out first product that has any shelf life. Up until now, we’ve been dealing mainly with fresh meat.

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in business?

Being a control freak. It’s not my biggest mistake, but it was a mistake I was making on a daily basis, so it’s the biggest in terms of that. I was micromanaging everything. With the bacon jam though, I’ve tried to change that and delegate more.

What has been your major success to date?

Learning not to micromanage. For so long I was doing everything. That’s the thing about running a small business and being self-employed – you’re the post boy and the fleet overseer, you make the products and market them.

It took until last year for me to learn how to farm out various jobs and it’s been a great success. For example, I got someone to design and make the labels for the bacon jam, and it has really helped, as the packaging is far funkier than what I would have done.

Who would you admire most in business and why?

My parents. They always taught me never to apologise for making a living. We sell sausages and rashers that are considerably more expensive than the ones you buy in most convenience stores, but we take the view that they’re hand-cured, smoked etc, so they are worth more. My parents both ran the business when I was growing up and they shared everything equally, be it at work or at home, which I always admired. When I came home from school as a kid I was just as likely to see my dad emptying the washing machine and cooking the dinner as my mum. I would still tap my parents every so often for advice. They are both in their mid-80s, but have a wealth of experience behind them.

What piece of advice would you give to the Government to stimulate the economy?

Walk a mile in my shoes. I don’t know anything else that would make the Government fully understand the problems small businesses face and, until they do, it’s very hard for them to come up with workable solutions.

What would you say has been your biggest challenge?

The withdrawal of our overdraft by the bank. It was at a very difficult time for us as it came just after the total recall of all pork products due to the dioxin contamination incident. It was very close to a death blow for us.

Not having access to an overdraft makes business exceptionally difficult. For example, to get the new labels for the bacon jam, we had to save, as the guys who made them wanted to be paid upfront and we didn’t have an overdraft. A lot of our business has become hand to mouth.

How do you see the short-term future of your business?

Plug away and keep the head down through the recession. It’s a period of hunkering down and minding the pennies. With regard to the bacon jam, we want to develop that and get it out in more places. We have Sheridans cheesemongers distributing it now and it’s available in a lot of independent stores around the country. Nearly everywhere that has Sheridans cheese for sale will have our product next to it. We also want to do more tastings. We did one recently at the Bloom festival where we offered everyone samples of bacon jam together with ice-cream and it was a great success.

What’s your business worth and would you sell it?

It’s my way of life and how I earn a living. I’m a pork geek. I eat, sleep and breathe it, so I couldn’t put a value on it. If someone offered me a million quid I’d probably sell them the business, but then I would set up an identical one next door as I just love it and couldn’t imagine not working in the business.

Do you think the banks are open for business to SMEs at the moment?

No, but maybe we will look back in the future and say that’s what needed to happen to get the country and economy back to a good position. It’s very difficult for small businesses to survive without access to credit. You could have regular lodgments going in every week and that’s still not enough for them to give you a loan or overdraft. Also, if you’re even an hour late with making a payment, they’d be on to you.