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Gloucestershire Business News

From kitchen table to £400,000 sales in a year

A Gloucestershire couple who quit their jobs to launch their own BBQ business have seen sales top £400,000 in their first year.

Ben Williams and his partner Sophie Tinsley - who got married this week - started their enterprise making sauces in their kitchen during lockdown.

Ben, who formerly worked at The Stable Bar and Restaurant in Bristol, explained: "We thought 'let's make some food to complement the sauces, so we started smoking meat in our back garden and sold it to friends. It got to the stage when we had four of us in the kitchen cooking and four delivery drivers.

After officially launching their business, The BBQ Society, on Christmas Day 2020, the couple opened a permanent unit at the Morelands Trading Estate in Gloucester where business really took off.

"We started off doing hot dogs and pulled pork but we did a lot of research into burgers and they are now probably 75 per cent of all our sales," said Ben.

"In November last year we got approached by the Five Valleys indoor market in Stroud who had a unit free. It was a perfect little unit with potential for growth. We opened there in early December. A year in we've got two kitchens and eight members of staff."

Although they have some passing trade, Ben said the thing that really drives the business is social media.

"Without social media we would definitely have struggled," he said. "We have professionals coming in, we have families and the elderly and a lot of people who are travelling through who google us. People don't really understand the importance of leaving reviews and how important they can be for a business and it truly means a lot.

"When we started we did a couple of grand a week but now across both sites we're looking at ten grand a week. It's amazing. If you told me where we would be today a year ago, I would have said you are bonkers. We're really happy and we know it's only going to get better."

With costs generally going up, Ben said they had made the decision to reduce their 'massive' portion sizes to regular and reduce their prices too.

"It's a bit of a gamble but we think it's going to be the best way forward," he added.

Ben and Sophie are now so busy selling burgers that they have no time to make their sauces. Ben said: "We've given Tubby Tom our recipe and he makes the sauce for us."

As for their burgers, Ben said every single element of the burger has been thought through. "We've got really good tasting thin onions, home-made mayo and gherkins on top and that's the perfect cheeseburger."

Now looking forward to their honeymoon, Ben added: "I know when we go on honeymoon all we're going to think about is our burgers and how good they are!"

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