Couple fight back in battle of the brands

You might have been forgiven for thinking that Debbie and Andrew Keeble might have had enough of sausages. But you’d be wrong.

The North Yorkshire pig farmers were the couple behind the eponymous Debbie & Andrew’s “posh” sausages created around their kitchen table in 1999.

But in 2005 the Keebles sold their brand to a larger food manufacturer called JJ Tranfield although they stayed in charge. In six years they went from experimenting with recipes at their kitchen table to selling £2m of sausages a year through all the major supermarket chains.

But in the last few years their success story has been anything but, as they saw the brand they had built up and given their name, become removed from its original ethos.

JJ Tranfield ran out of money and was taken over by Dutch meat producer Vion and the Keebles quite quickly felt they were losing control of their brand as big business was at odds with their small business principles of traceability.

“We had a strong ethos and felt that was being lost and as a result customers were being misled. They also made it clear that there were no opportunities for our children. Big isn’t always beautiful,” explains Debbie.

The Keebles left the company last year, despite failed efforts to buy back their brand which was subsequently sold to Kent-based WA Turner, a subsidiary of ABP Food Group in January.

“It has been a very difficult few years, we realised that we were stuck in a situation we weren’t happy with,” says Debbie. “But we had been involved for 12 years and it was very hard to make the break, but there’s a point where you’ve just got to draw a line. The hardest thing was that it had our name on. It was awfully traumatic.”

Debbie admits that it had been tempting to walk away from sausages altogether, but the couple felt they had responsibility to their children.

The Keebles have four children aged 17 to 23, including 19-year-old Roddy who is severely dyslexic.

“They all thought they had a future in the business. The jobs market is so depressed, especially in rural areas. We had a duty to them.”

“I did feel really frustrated. I knew we could make really good sausages. We decided to go back to doing it how we used to do it; with all the values we first started with but this time with 12 years experience of making sausages.” The couple have rented a small production unit at Leeming Business Park, Bedale and last week launched their new brand called “Heck” thanks to a workforce of ten, including their children.

“We got to the point where we just said ‘What the heck’ and the name stuck,” says Debbie who personally hand stamped dates on 16,000 packs of sausages after the instructions to the printing machine were all in German.

After months of product trialling and a £750,000 branding exercise, the Keebles’ new lines of gluten-free sausages hit the shelves of 500 Tesco stores last week.

“It was really important to us that we spent time listening to what our customers wanted.”

The Keebles want to put “provenance and traceability back to the farm” at the heart of a brand which they hope will grow into a £5m business in its maiden year.

“We only use shoulder pork in our sausages and there is very little fat,” says Debbie.

Andrew added: “We know it’s going to be very challenging to pit a new brand against some very established ones, particularly in this economic climate but even though money is tight people are prepared to pay a little bit more for good quality sausages. People are beginning to recognise that food has been too cheap for so long.”

Seeing Heck sausages on a shelf next to a Debbie & Andrew sausage bring mixed feelings for Debbie, who hasn’t been able to taste her old brand recently.

“I just can’t bring myself to. If I have any advice it is not to give your name to your product.” But she can take some solace in the fact that she has achieved her goal of bringing employment to her brood, agriculture student Ellie, 17, Roddy, 19, Guy, 21, and Jamie, 23, are involved in the running of the business. Guy farms at the family plot, Roddie is head of production and Jamie is head of sales alongside his father. Three of the family’s new sausage recipes are on sale in Tesco; Pork & Proud, 97% Pork and Plump Pork & Apple. A second wave of recipes are being created which will include the Superior Skinless, the square, sandwich-ready ‘Squasage’, Mediterranean Chicken and Fresh Chorizo.

“We have chosen to do something a bit different,” says Debbie, who is also keen to introduce French black pudding into the range.

As if launching a new business wasn’t enough, Debbie is busy preparing for a charity trip to Africa where she is going to help women farmers.

Dig For Good sees a number of volunteers help to dig ponds for fish production among rural communities.

“I was asked a few months ago if I would like to go to Africa and with our new motto of ‘what the heck’ I decided to go.”

With her own battles to create a business enterprise to help her own children in the future, she knows only too well the crisis faced by third-world communities and their fight for food survival, and she is getting involved to pass on her learnings and help give something back to these communities, she says.

“Women in Africa aren’t traditionally the ones who farm or have their own income, we are hoping to help change this.”

Africa visit to back women farmers

Debbie Keeble will take time out of her busy schedule launching and developing the Keeble’s new range of Heck sausages next week when she travels to Africa with the charity Farm Africa. She is taking part in a project called Dig for Good which will see her join other women food industry leaders taking time to dig a pond the size of an Olympic swimming pool in just three days.

Working shoulder to shoulder with local women farmers at one of Farm Africa’s projects in Kisumu, they will leave a lasting legacy to set this rural African community up in fish farming.

The aim is to kick start a business for the women of Kisumu.

For more information visit www.farmafrica.org/food-for-good/digforgood

The Keeble’s new sausage range Heck is now available in 500 Tesco stores. Three of the family’s new sausage recipes are on sale; Pork & Proud, 97% Pork and Plump Pork & Apple. They retail at £2.99 for a  400g pack.