Some people wouldn’t dream of entering the business world with their families, but for Olly Kohn of the Jolly Hog, it was a no-brainer. The Bristol-born brand has grown from street food stalls to being in almost every major supermarket in the UK, with its unmistakable pig snout branding.
The Jolly Hog prides itself on tasty, honest food using prime cuts of British, Outdoor Bred pork for sausages and bacon. What started with the humble sausage has since branched out and expanded the range to beef, chicken and other pork products.
“We’ve always loved food. Lots of people say they’re passionate about food but it has always been our passion,“ said co-founder and former Harlequin, Bristol and Wales professional rugby player, Olly Kohn. “When I was playing rugby professionally I knew I needed something else because rugby doesn’t go on forever. I knew I needed to find a career in something I loved and I was passionate about.”
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The first step of the Jolly Hog’s journey was in 2007 when Olly was given his first sausage-making machine while out of action playing professional rugby for the Harlequins. The homegrown passion quickly evolved into selling and serving at food markets and events just one year later.
They got their word out about the brand at large-scale festivals like Glastonbury and stadium events, which got them thinking about what was next. “There were lots of things going around in our heads, do we start restaurants? Do we go to retailers?”
Olly's brothers, Max and Josh, a former ship broker and an ex-cabinet maker respectively, came into the mix a few years later. The family were bonded through their love for good food growing up, particularly high-quality meat and sausages.
Olly continued: “We’re pretty lucky to have a close family that we work with. In the early years, it takes a while to work out who's going to take on which role. As three brothers, we’ve all got slightly different skill sets but fundamentally our values are completely aligned and we trust each other.
“When you’re going into battle - going into business - there are some really dark times running your own business, you know you can rely on each other. It doesn't work for everyone but it works for us.”
Hog HQ has grown into an 18-strong team now based at Wapping Wharf down by the harbourside. It moved its HQ site to the Cargo development in summer 2021, which Olly said was a “game changer” for the Jolly Hog. “It’s great to have our HQ down there surrounded by food and lots of amazing traders that are of brilliant quality.”
Olly said it was great to be around the other businesses down at Wapping Wharf. “We were one of the first restaurants to sign up down there and we’ve learnt a lot about how to run restaurants. It’s a great community to be a part of. When the sun is shining, it’s a fantastic place to be.”
It’s also a minute away from its restaurant outlet, the Pig Sty, a space which allows them to test new retail products and gauge customer feedback before they hit the supermarket shelves. The family also has its to-go outlet On The Trot at Bath Spa Station.
However, retail is the “big arm” of the business now, he explained. “Over the last two and a half years, we’ve seen massive growth. We’re in all of the major retailers except the discount supermarkets, and we’re really pleased.”
Over the years, the Jolly Hog has diversified its range of products, but its core business is bacon and sausage. “We felt we could stretch into other areas and grow our range to scotch eggs, sausage rolls - these are all things that naturally grew from having a restaurant.”
The 13 Great Taste Awards out of a possible 20 products is a testament to the hard work of the team, Olly said. Taste, he added - without wanting to sound smug - is something the company prides itself on.
“That’s one thing we work hard on day-in-day-out to make sure our products are the best when it comes to taste. If it tastes great, people are going to come back and we don’t compromise on that.”
One thing that comes from great taste is the quality. Almost all of its meat comes from outdoor bred, RSPCA assured pork suppliers and it supports British farmers across all of their beef, chicken and pork products, which is not always the case with meat products sold in the UK.
In 2021, an estimated 885.5 thousand metric tons of beef were produced in the United Kingdom, according to data collected by Statista . While the production volume of pigmeat, has increased, the volumes of home slaughtered mutton and lamb and beef and veal have gone down.
While the meat industry remains strong with more of an appetite for buying local and British produce, there is also a plant-based movement that has been sweeping the nation. Richmond, known for their Irish pork sausages, has met success with their vegan range this year, which includes meat-free bacon and burgers.
While Olly said the Jolly Hog has plans to expand and grow the business into new areas, he does not envisage this to include vegan products. “Our biggest focus is to grown our core business, we’ve still got loads to go after.”
The Jolly Hogg hopes to expand its best-selling sausage and bacon lines, focusing on its core range.
The Proper Porker sausages remains its best-selling line, where it all began, with the Porky Black Sausage and the thick cut bacon continues to be shoppers’ favourite. The picnic items such as the sausage rolls, which were launched only this year, and the scotch eggs have also seen a lot of success.
More recently, the business was awarded Benefit Corporation (B-Corp) status - becoming the first UK meat company to be certified. The B-Corp status highlights how the Jolly Hog prioritises social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability needed to attain the extremely rare certification. B Corp has 5,575 certified businesses globally across a range of industries.
The Jolly Hog ethos has always been about quality - the quality of products, ingredients, and standards, but over the last few years, Olly and the team have been looking for ways to strive to improve. This included the company’s environmental impact and how they operate as a business.
Olly said he was really proud of the new status. “Now we’ve made these pledges, it’s about delivering on them. Now is where it’s ingrained in us as a business to be really making a difference. What it doesn’t mean is that we’re perfect or better than anyone else in terms of their business, but it means we’re striving to be the best we can.”
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