Ex-England rugby players’ new career in food and drink kicks off

Charlie Simpson-Daniel was just 21 when a shoulder injury brought his England rugby career to an end.

But rather than seeing it as something terrible, York-based Charlie says it is the best thing that ever happened to him.

“Being a professional rugby player and being injured was probably the darkest time of my life,” recalls the 30-year-old. “But I am so grateful it happened. I had already fallen out of love with professional rugby.”

Charlie is one of four brothers, originally from Stockton, who attended Sedbergh and then went on to play professional rugby.

And while he may have fallen out of love with playing the sport, the rugby ethos, nutrition, resilience and competitive spirit have all stood him in good stead when it comes to business.

He started his first company – Malton-based Kings Biltong – with brother James while studying business at York University following his injury. The firm made snack products which Charlie was determined to make more mainstream. “As sportsmen we know the value of high protein and low fat. I’d make biltong rather than go to lectures, but I learnt so much.”

In 2014, Kings Biltong was acquired by a global snacks group called New World Foods (Europe) Ltd and Charlie stayed with the firm. In 2015, he launched the brand Kings Elite Snacks which he had created with his brother James and rugby international Mike Tindall and which was sold by all UK major retailers.

He is now managing director of Upper Poppleton based Keys 2 Retail, an umbrella organisation for 12 different start-up companies with products ranging from healthy chocolate and cider to hand sanitiser.

Charlie said: “We are a family business and we all have a background in sport and therefore a keen interest in health. Our ethos is to create healthy, nutritional alternatives that taste good.”

The products from one of the companies, The Champions Kitchen range, is already available in more than 100 schools.

He set up the company with brothers James, who also played for Gloucester and was a full England international, and Mark, who played for Sale and represented his country at schoolboy level.

“My brothers and I benefited from a good food and fitness regime to keep us at the top of our game growing up, and we’re keen that young people, no matter what their background or where they live, can access and enjoy healthy and appealing choices throughout their time in education.

“We collaborate with international nutritionists to help us build our schools’ snacking and drinks range and we keep sustainability at our heart wherever possible.

“The key takeaway from the last 12 months has been the incredible passion of catering managers across the UK who are desperate to offer their pupils healthier drinks and snacks.

“In spite of Covid, we are anticipating our company to go from strength to strength with our sales team growing and our ambition is to expand to servicing over 300 schools by the end of 2021.”

The Champions Kitchen team works with top health food and low sugar drink providers across the United Kingdom and, as successful entrepreneurs in their own right, uses their combined experience and contacts in the retail industry to bring the best healthy and good value options to the school canteen.

To beat tight budgets that catering managers often have to work with, the products are offered on a sale or return basis and to date more than 100 schools in the UK have signed up.

Charlie, with brother James, also founded Wizards Magic Chocolate.

“We all love chocolate and we wanted to create something that was plant-based and very low in sugar but tasted great,” he says.

They have just launched a new chocolate to the brand that contains dairy and sugar but has added vitamins.

But not content with just chocolate Charlie also created Champions Cider.

“We love cider but we don’t like all the sugar and the calories and so we thought we’d develop a low sugar low calorie cider, that tastes great and we have just signed an exclusive deal with Tesco.”

After cider came herbal tea and now soup and snack pots called Ambition.

“We know a lot of these space are very competitive but we thrive on that.

“When a buyer turned down our cider it just fuelled our desire to succeed,” says the dad of Alfie, four.

An exciting departure for Charlie, and one that has come out of the current pandemic, is hand sanitiser.

“Live Free Hand Sanitisers is a single serving hand sanitiser in next generation packaging which is 100 per cent biodegradable and 100 per cent recyclable for people who don’t want to carry around a bulky bottle of hand sanitizer.”

It has developed from a partnership with Symphony Environmental.

“It is a real game changer,” says Charlie. “The pioneer technology we are working on is their antimicrobial additive which has the capacity to make the surface of packaging lethal to microbes and also double the shelf life of short life products like fruit, meat and bread. It is really exciting and could make all the difference.”

For more information on The Champions Kitchen call 01904 390151 or visit the website thechampionskitchen.co.uk