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Jesse Pattisson divides his week between meetings with top London chefs and running a wholesale and mail-order smoked food business in rural Somerset.
A few years ago he was earning a comfortable salary as an agricultural commodities broker in Suffolk. Now he's so immersed in his work at Brown and Forrest that he usually doesn't know whether it's a weekday or the weekend.
"I'm enjoying running my own business much more than I thought I would," he says. "I thought it would be scary and occasionally I don't sleep, like when there's a postal strike, but I've never missed having a salary. There's instant gratification in running your own business."
Officially, he is managing director of Brown and Forrest but the title makes him laugh because it sounds so grand.
Gift of the gab
"One of my biggest assets is my gob," he says, referring to his ability to sell smoked fish and other award-winning foods to the chefs who run big London restaurants such as The Ivy.
Increasing turnover from wholesale customers was one of his first goals when he joined Brown and Forrest at Langport in Somerset. Michael Brown and David Forrest started the business nearly 30 years ago and began by smoking eels in a converted cider barn overlooking the Somerset Levels.
They visited Germany and Holland to learn about the smoking process and gradually increased their product range from local eels to other fish, cheese and garlic. Originally all business was mail order.
Jesse had known Michael as a family friend for about 15 years and got to know the business when he did some consulting work for it. When Michael reached retirement age there was no obvious successor and Jesse raised money by remortgaging his home to buy Michael out. Jesse and his wife, Charlie moved to Somerset and now have a seventeenth-month-old daughter, Nancy.
Problems identified
He quickly identified cashflow and seasonality as the busines's two major problems. Around 70 per cent of sales were carried out in the Christmas period of November and December. Jesse, who has an MBA, decided to expand other areas of the business, such as the restaurant and shop attached to the smokery, to reduce reliance on mail order.
Although he's a self-confessed 'foodie' and his parents ran a cafe near Brighton he never thought he would end up in catering. When he first joined the business he spent days learning the smoking process but he says it was "his trading roots" that helped him to reshape the business.
He upgraded the business's freezer fleet and invested in staff by making one manager responsible for each area of business and introducing financial rewards for improved performance. This gave him the confidence that he could leave the office to make business trips to London.
The business employs 15 full-time staff but around 40 extras join in the hectic run-up to Christmas. Trade is far less seasonal and the last two months of the year now account for 30 per cent of turnover.
But, despite the shift in emphasis, the business was badly hit by October's postal strike. Several weeks later he is still furious at the effect it had.
"It was horrendously damaging," he says.
In fact, he still doesn't know quite how damaging it was. Brown and Forrest lost orders at the time but the real problem was that the strike delayed their vital mailshot to 8,500 customers in the pre-Christmas rush. Jesse was so angry that he emailed the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 and as a result found himself on News At Ten. The publicity helped to pack the restaurant but didn't make up for the mail order disaster.
Jesse says he will almost certainly switch to a courier but that this isn't something he can do overnight. It's a big move which involves changing prices and picking the right courier.
"It's a strategic decision that will probably take about 18 months to implement."
The experience reinforced his belief in the importance of a steady cashflow.
"Bank managers are always jumpy about small businesses, especially if they have gearing. Cashflow is utterly vital."
http://www.smokedeel.co.uk/Brown-and-Forrest.htm
http://www.tasteofthewest.co.uk/
