PEOPLE IN FOOD
Thrive with Sainsbury’s is a programme that’s helping Black founder-led brands on to supermarket shelves. Silika Shellie-Manso of Sainsbury’s explains…
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Hi Silika. Thrive with Sainsbury’s is a free 16-week programme that’s providing support for Black-founded food start-ups. How are you involved and why was it started?
I head up the product innovation team at Sainsbury’s, and we believe that to offer great food and drink for everyone it needs to be made by everyone. And it isn’t. We know that less than 1% of the industry’s supply base represents any Black founders or ethnic minorities. So the programme was designed to help us address that.
What barriers do Black founders launching a brand typically face?
The first challenge is investment. All of the founders on our programme have invested their own savings to get to where they are, and in the UK less than 0.3% of investment is going to Black-founded businesses. The second is a lack of social capital. Founders talk about how powerful a network is, but ethnic minority founders often don’t have those relationships. And the third thing is a lack of understanding of how retail works. So we’ve focused on these three key things.
After opening to applicants in summer 2022, nine successful brands were picked to take part in the programme. How were they chosen?
We were really looking for founders that had the potential to help us bring innovation. So, a great example of a purpose-led brand on the programme is House Of Cinn, a social enterprise bakery that specialises in cinnamon buns and gives rough sleepers an opportunity to be a part of the business. Others offer diverse flavours, like YumChop, which is a range of frozen home-cooked-style ready meals that fuse African flavours with meals from other cultures. We were really impressed by the quality of the applications and products.
Each brand has received a welcome grant of £20,000, with more funding available through the process up to £105,000 each. What other support are they receiving?
