Meet the company revolutionising the snack industry
Olly's Olives is the world's first 100% natural, unpasteurised snack pouch of olives with no artificial additives.
Founded by Olly Hiscocks in 2016, they first set up base in Duck Pond Market in West London with an idea to rejuvenate the olive snack category with bold flavours.
A few years later Olly’s has 4 employees, are generating £1m turnover and are looking to expand globally.
Then the pandemic hit
The company suffered during COVID-19, due to its high proportion of sales with airlines, trains and pubs where customer numbers fell massively.
This unfortunately led to Olly’s Olives losing 40% of its monthly revenue overnight due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Forced to furlough staff to stay afloat, Olly sought advice from the Department for International Trade (DIT) about sourcing new exporting opportunities.
How we helped
Newable is a delivery partner for DIT in the London and South East region. Olly was soon assigned to Paul Heritage, a dedicated International Trade Adviser who helped the company explore different avenues and the possibility of exporting into new markets.
Paul quickly set about signposting Olly’s to all the relevant government financial support available during the Coronavirus epidemic. Paul also encouraged Olly to pivot his business more towards e-Commerce as a channel to compensate for business losses elsewhere.
After making the decision to pivot efforts towards e-Commerce, as well as expanding into new markets, the business saw online sales increased by 800%.
Working with the Department for International Trade, showed us the value of pivoting more towards e-Commerce, whilst at the same time tapping into new markets, such as UAE, USA and Australia
Olly Hiscocks
Founder & Director, OLLY’S
OLLY’s currently exports to 9 countries, with overseas sales accounting for 20% of the company’s annual turnover.
In July 2020, OLLY’S secured a contract with a distributor for the GCC countries and signed a deal with Middle Eastern supermarket retailer Spinneys. The company is also currently expanding into Australia, as well as into Wholefoods in the US.