Ocado’s Britain’s Next Top Supplier Competition

A great friend and supporter was telling another friend about our Spice Drops® at a dinner party, and heard about the BNTS competition and how it is designed to give small producers with unique products a leg-up whilst simultaneously enhancing Ocado’s own ranges. My friend called me and urged me to apply.

Holy Lama Naturals Spice Drops® make it really easy to infuse food and drink with true spice flavours derived from natural extracts. On reading the competition’s description and questions, we were excited and confident that we stood a chance of getting noticed, because of our unique, ethically-produced product. It was a great opportunity and an attractive challenge through which we could validate our company and products, and pitch to really savvy buyers - which would test our skills and message.

We were very successful; although not the outright champion, we definitely felt like we’d won. We are listed on the Ocado website, which marks out Spice Drops® as a high quality product, and we continue to receive fantastic support from the Ocado team.

The competition has given welcome visibility to our products and afforded us access to our target market. Having our products listed enhances our credibility because potential customers feel reassured that they can find them there. For our part, we have also introduced new customers to Ocado.

On the day of the finals we had the undivided attention of top people in the business world and received valuable business advice from people like Sir Stuart Rose, chef Tom Kerridge and Jason Gissing - priceless!

Throughout the application and preliminary presentations, we received excellent support from Ocado’s social media campaigns, including being featured in blog posts on notable participants. We have enjoyed continued support from the Ocado PR team, boosting our own profile and certainly helping to get us on the radars of top food bloggers, chefs and magazines. The results of our involvement speak for themselves: a significant increase in sales and distribution. It works!

The whole process of applying and taking part in the BNTS competition prompted a truly valuable exercise in filtering, synthesizing, and goal setting for our business. If your product is right for Ocado, this initiative offers a brilliant chance to get it in front of the site’s buyers.