“Is Charlie Bigham based on a real person?” That really is one of the first questions people search for when they Google the entrepreneur.
Bigham, it appears, is seen as a mythical marketing creation. Less entrepreneurial visionary, more sales gimmick. An imaginary brand spokesperson in the manner of Aleksandr Orlov, the Compare the Market meerkat.
All of which, must be news to Charlie. Since, very much in real life, he was this year’s ‘Entrepreneur of the Year,’ at The Grocer Gold Awards.
As the trade magazine says, “A true revolutionary, Charlie Bigham has come a long way since dreaming up the idea of a high-end ready meals brand while travelling the world in a camper van back in 1994.”
Bigham’s Dulcote-based company now employs around 700 staff and serves more than 2.5 million consumers a year.
According to Just Food, the former management consultant has a simple business philosophy – “At the heart of Bigham’s personal and business foundations are what he calls three pillars – “delicious food, thriving people and looking after the planet” – with a thrust toward “how we can do our bit to be more sustainable.” The Grocer
A philosophy which, almost thirty years after setting up, continues to propel the business forward. The Grocer again, “Sales soared a further 16% to £121m in the year to 31 August 2022, as the business continued to expand distribution and an ad campaign featuring Bigham himself attracted even more shoppers.”
But, as Bigham told the entrepreneurial network FEBE, the real key to his success has been the ability to learn from his own errors – “after a while…I realised I was pushing water uphill trying to get customers to eat things they didn’t feel comfortable with. So, then we set our focus on classic dishes. An awful lot of people (including me) want to eat fish pies, or lasagnes, or steak and ale pies. So how about we make the very best fish pies, lasagne and steak and ale pies that you can buy?”
Not content to rest on their laurels, Bigham and CEO Patrick Cairns have recently pushed the brand into other categories. Something which particularly impressed the Gold Award judges – “Bigham’s supplanted Rustlers as the new king of the chilled ready meals category last year, knocking the microwaveable burger brand off the top spot for the first time in at least eight years, according to The Grocer Top Products Survey 2022. Bigham’s outsold the former category number one by as much as £43.5m.”
The jury is still out on Fr Christmas. But all evidence suggests Charlie Bigham really does exist.