One week, three awards for Roosters

Sustainable food pioneer Simon Mellin has scooped three entrepreneurial titles celebrating his innovative approach to business.

Within six days the 28-year-old represented the very best of British as he collected two awards for his retail and wholesale businesses at the Great British Entrepreneur Awards and Young Entrepreneur at the Growing Business Awards.

Judges at the Growing Business Awards said: “Simon is being very innovative and re-inventing the industry. He has really thought through his business, building something which is great for farmers and presents an alternative to supermarkets.”

The awards acknowledged Simon, and younger brother Nick’s successes in their successful Lancashire-based sustainable food business Roaming Roosters as well as their year-old wholesale business, Grass Roots Wholesale Foods.

The brothers are no stranger to the awards scene, having won some 13 awards since Roaming Roosters opened its retail outlet in September 2012, celebrating the business’ green credentials, family history and sustainable ‘food that makes you feel good ethos’.

Simon said: “It’s incredible to think how far we’ve come since packing boxes in the back of our dad’s butchers shop.

“Our big idea for Roaming Roosters came in the midst of an economic slump, when no one wanted to touch two 20-somethings looking for investment.

“But we kept banging on the bank doors and eventually got the breakthrough we needed to make our dream a reality. We’ve worked hard to get here and continue to work hard to this day, but winning awards like this makes it worthwhile and keeps us forging ahead.”

Roaming Roosters has established a quirky, fun brand around the traditions and heritage of farming and butchery. Its application of traditional grass feeding methods coupled with a fun quirky brand proven to appeal to a wide age range and, available to order online, enables the local butcher service to be accessible UK-wide.

Grass Roots too is a unique concept with nobody else in the country white-labelling meat like they do. It is a completely new concept in food manufacturing and one which is opening up a number of doors for the fledgling business.

Technology plays a huge part in the success of Grassroots in particular, and they have recently put a system in place which enables huge growth without huge manpower.

Simon said: “It really is an honour to be recognised among so many fantastic businesses across the UK, and to win three awards is amazing.

“Taking the trophies back to Roaming Roosters creates a real buzz for us, our staff and our customers and we can’t think them enough for helping us get to where we are today. “We’ve already set up meetings to look at working with fellow winners and finalists and it’s great to think that we can work side by side with fellow entrepreneurs for the good of the UK economy.”