Entrepreneur Life – Interview With The Founder Of AP Brands

Sundried is an independent UK business that was founded by entrepreneur Daniel Puddick. We encourage the growth of small businesses and want to empower consumers to choose ethical companies rather than defaulting to multi-national corporations and faceless conglomerates.

We sat down with Thomas Lock who is the founder of fledgling AP Brands which oversees several British snack brands, including The British Crisp Co and Awfully Posh, to talk about life as an entrepreneur.

In a nutshell, what is the story of AP Brands? What motivated you to develop the idea?

In 2013, I started making pork scratchings in my mum's kitchen and selling them from the boot of my car. Now, we supply pub groups and supermarkets across the country. One thing hasn’t changed – our desire to make the best quality pork snacks with no nasty ingredients.

What was the biggest challenge you faced when setting up this business?

Finding the right manufacturer to enable us to be competitive. We operate an outsourced business model, so we are competing with manufactures who have a lower cost of goods. We needed to find a manufacturer who we could build a long-term partnership with.

How do you manage a healthy work-life balance?

I have two phones – a work phone and a personal phone. I switch the work phone off and make sure I take downtime from emails.

What's been the most exciting part of developing AP Brands?

I love the early stages - the brand development, tasting samples and packaging design.

What does the future hold for AP Brands?

We are growing very quickly and are currently crowdfunding on CrowdCube –www.crowdcube.com/apbrands

What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs?

Don't rush things. Desire to get the product to market as quickly as possible so you can start generating revenue shouldn't override product quality and making sure you do things properly. Take your time.

Quickfire Questions

Coffee or tea? Coffee

Summer or winter? Summer

Gym or outdoors? Outdoors

City or countryside? Countryside

Sweet or savoury? Savoury, of course!