Conversations with... The Jolly Hog

Angela Appiah Shippey and Ria Burridge met with Max Kohn, co-founder of family business, The Jolly Hog, to talk about where the business started and how it has fared during recent months.

When Covid started to become a reality in the UK back in March, Max Kohn, co-founder of The Jolly Hog, decided to start a journal documenting the business’s journey through a situation which was often changing on a daily if not hourly basis.

This journal, which Max updated monthly, was published at the end of August and was very well received not least due to how heart warming it was. Hence when we met with Max at Pigsty ‐ The Jolly Hog’s Wapping Wharf restaurant we were really keen to delve a bit deeper into the Jolly Hog story – not least as we spotted a plaque on the wall which stated that it all started when Olly’s wife Ella had bought him a sausage making machine for his birthday!!

Jolly Hog was set up in 2008, while Olly – the eldest brother - was still playing at Harlequins Rugby Club. Struck down by a knee injury that season, Olly had some time on his hands and so started selling sausages at the weekend with his youngest brother Josh (Jolly is an amalgamation of their names) outside the Harlequins’ ground.

They would go down to Smithfield market on a Friday and buy all the meat, then on a Saturday morning they would put up a gazebo and a barbecue and they’d sell the sausages and bacon rolls to fans before the match.

They really enjoyed the experience, and the Club were hugely supportive. They did not make masses of money, but the fans really helped the business to get off the ground in those early days.

From the humble beginnings of the Saturday barbeques, the brothers went on the road and started to sell their wares everywhere from the Glastonbury Festival to the Cheltenham races and events remains one of their key revenue streams.

Max joined the business shortly afterwards, which by this point had moved to Bristol, and he quit his job in ship broking in 2011 to fully focus on the business and put in some more commercial structure.

At the time the brothers were making about a tonne of sausages per week in a small room. Growth was prohibited by the money needed to invest in their own factory so in the end they decided to outsource production.

Although there have been a few changes along the way, most of their products are now made by companies under the same umbrella. Their sausage maker for example is also a family run business and this is important to The Jolly Hog as there is an alignment of values.

The move into restaurants came with the opening of Pigsty in Bristol’s Wapping Wharf in 2016. They developed the concept for the place around their products – so in effect the Home of the Hog, and that is what they believe makes it fairly unique.

The brothers are really proud of the place as it really showcases the products they have worked so hard to create over the last decade. New product development still takes place in the kitchen and although the menu has been temporarily reduced due to Covid, it still is extensive and of course includes veggie and vegan options, as well as the sausages and bacon that they are so proud of.

So on top of operating in Retail through their products being available in supermarkets, having the Pigsty restaurant and also continuing to have a mobile concession at a number of events (the last one pre Lockdown being the Cheltenham Festival), the business were about to open a new fixed concession kiosk at Bath Spa train station. After having worked for over 12 months to secure the site, get the correct planning and tick all the other complicated check boxes involved with opening a food kiosk they ended up only being open for 12 days before shutting on 24th March.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom on the business front.

In early Lockdown all the meat aisles were empty as the consumer, in this time of uncertainty, headed towards food that was not only comforting but easy to cook. A lovely Jolly Hog sausage or bacon bap definitely ticked both of those boxes.

As Max talks about in his blog and reiterated when we met, Lockdown was a real time for the business to reflect on what was truly important to them. This ranged from looking after the wellbeing of staff with yoga sessions and workouts, through to their regular trips up to Southmead Hospital to give out bacon rolls to the staff. The way Max spoke so enthusiastically about this little pop up was reminiscent of the buzz they got in the early days of BBQs outside the Harlequins Ground!

Max definitely believes that the diversity that they have within their business has stood them in good stead during this crazy year and is now allowing them to plan for the future. This includes resuming the expansion their product line – I for one am super excited for the slow cooked range as winter draws in and a lovely bit of Jolly Hog Gammon will be fabulous over the festive period! There are also plans to get into more supermarkets – luckily all the hard work over the last decade means Jolly Hog are now a brand that can have a seat at the negotiation table.

Running along side all of this though will the Jolly Good Deeds programme which is now part of the business’s strategy. Lockdown brought the importance of food to the front of everyone’s mind and The Jolly Hog are working with a number of foundations to ensure food can be provided to those that most need it.

Further information on the Jolly Hog can be found here.
The Pigsty can be found on Instagram here.

Max’s fabulous article on The Jolly Hog through Covid can be found here.