The Greek Farmer Limited began in 2018 when Tony Charalambides & his family moved to Langley Hill Farm, near Hitchin, Hertfordshire. Tony decided to convert a disused grain silo into a walk-in smokehouse for producing high-quality smoked and cured meats. It took until late 2021 to perfect the curing and smoking processes.
One of their key company challenges included capacity, which is where the Manufacturing Growth Programme was able to assist by providing funding towards the cost of a filling machine. MGP also helped to prepare the business to achieve ISO 9001 quality management and ISO 22716 cosmetic standard accreditations, which are necessary to safely manufacture, package, test, store, and transport cosmetic products.
Their most recent project with MGP helped Good Ventures to work towards understanding and reducing their carbon footprint. MGP part-funded the cost of a consultancy project to investigate the environmental impact of their ingredient sourcing and production processes, and to measure their carbon footprint accurately.
To help the business grow digitally and globally without the need to export, they have created a brand-new fitness app which creates an online community for their customers to share training tips and information. Through the programme, they were able to access a grant to assist with the app’s launch.