Member spotlight: Calder’s Kitchen Limited
Where are you based?
Darlington
How many employees do you have?
1
Give us a brief overview of your business.
Calder’s Kitchen was formed by Andrew Calder in 2015 after discovering his late Granddad, Charlie’s favourite family recipe (Charlie’s Perfect Piccalilli) and deciding to make a batch at home in his memory. After quickly realising our classic, traditional condiment was vastly different from modern day mainstream piccalilli, we developed our Chillililli (piccalilli with a sweet chilli glow), winner of a Guild of Fine Food Great Taste award in 2020) and Indian spiced Sillylilli (Great Taste winner 2021) and then attending some small local markets to try our Pickles out on the public. The response was incredible and a new business was soon formed!
We supply our products into independent food shops across the UK and are currently listed in over 250 shops. We still love to attend food festivals, markets & local businesses to share our story and meet new customers and also sell online through our own website in Amazon.
In 2021, we launched a range of chutneys to compliment our Piccalilli range and also expanded into food service, packing into 2.3kg containers for kitchens.
We discovered another new audience for our products are tourism destinations, gift shops and hamper companies and have recently launched our new cheese lover’s and spice lover’s gift boxes and small hampers in time for Christmas.
All of our products are vegan-friendly, low in fat, gluten free and are used by people who follow the Slimming World weight loss plan.
Tell us about a recent business success.
Last year we won a tender to provide the NHS with two of our products for staff Christmas hampers (over 20,000 NHS workers). We won another Great Taste 2* award, a Farmshop & Deli award in 2023 and the Condiment World Cup (beating a host of household brands) in 2022.
Why are you a Chamber Member?
For business advice & support and opportunities to network and discover new opportunities and potential collaborations in the region.
Where can we find you?
You can find us on our socials below or through our website: www.calderskitchen.co.uk