How to Deliver 27 Years of Profitable Growth | Jackie Reid, Deli Lites

How do you stay profitable for 27 straight years in one of the most commoditised categories in food? What happens when your biggest problem isn't finding customers, but making enough sandwiches to keep up with demand? And how do you keep genuinely listening to what customers want?

Jackie Reid co-founded Deli Lites as a teenager, cutting and filling sandwiches at night in her family's coffee shop in Newry, County Down. Soon Deli Lites' New York-inspired sandwiches were in serious demand, with no loans and no outside investment. Now the strongest sandwich brand on the island of Ireland, the business is split 60% own-label and 40% own-brand. Supplying supermarkets, workplaces, hospitals and more, Deli Lites is growing internationally through airlines in Germany and Aer Lingus at home.

All that without taking a loan to start the business, and every year of that 27-year run has been profitable - through COVID and global uncertainty, as well as through the current cost-of-living squeeze. Find out what's kept Deli Lites growing, which customers are driving sales and how NPD is keeping their range ahead of the curve. 

Listen to this episode to find out:

• How to stay profitable for 27 years running, through COVID, wars and constant cost pressure, without ever taking out a loan
• Why "we couldn't make enough" is a great problem to have, and what it forced Jackie to do next
• The customer listening habits behind Ireland's strongest sandwich brand
• How they're bringing new customers to the category rather than eating into existing sales, and the growth rates of their new innovations
• Why 27 years of instinctive leadership worked, and how she's continuing to develop the business - and herself

Chapters:

1:28 — "Filled to the corners": the midnight kitchen and the first 300 sandwiches

6:24 — Going up against "sad, boring looking" sandwiches

9:40 — The 60/40 split behind Ireland's strongest sandwich brand

12:27 — Deli Plus, and building a range around what customers need next

17:42 — What customer research revealed, and why it changed everything

21:28 — The gamble that paid off and opened up export markets

25:14 — "A chip in my head": 27 years of instinct, and finally going back to school

Links and Resources:

More about Deli Lites: https://delilites.com/

Connect with Jackie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-reid-786a92a1/

Kilimanjaro climb for Women's Aid: TBC

 

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