by Real Business - Thursday, 30th August 2007

Sandwiches are no good for hangovers. Head into your local Pret a Manger feeling like Oliver Reed’s corpse and you are going to struggle to find anything even vaguely medicinal. Tuna wraps. Cous cous. Reduced fat salads. There’s nothing but girly girth-control fodder on offer, when what your shattered system will be craving is manfood. Meat. Chunks of bloodied flesh. The sort of thing Homo Neanderthalis used to chew in his cave. But modern carnivores have a problem. Britain’s high streets are dominated by coffee chains and sandwich shops. If you want double skinny lattes you are spoilt for choice. But a half kilo of hog roast? Impossible. The best you can get is a plate of mouldy sausages and shrivelled bacon in a greasy spoon. Fortunately this may be about to change. Sam Hurst, a 27-year-old chef, is launching a chain of eateries that aim to do for meat what Starbucks did for the Arabica bean. Its name, Grazing, suggests something leisurely and urbane. But the menu is Neolithic. “We’ll have roast lamb, sides of beef and spitroast saddle of venison,” says Hurst. “Plus black pudding and roast chickens.” The signature dish is a bacon sarnie created with the sort of devotion not seen since Michaelangelo sized up the Sistine chapel. Choose between dry cured Dorset back bacon, Richard Woodall’s cured middle cut Cumbrian and West Country streaky. The bread varieties have been hand-picked by Hurst for texture and wholesomeness. The result is a Michelin star quality buttie. Bliss. As concepts go, Hurst’s Grazing is an outof- the-park home run. But can he make any money out of it? Organic meat isn’t cheap, Punters may drool over top-notch schweinfleisch, but will they shell out for it? Fortunately there’s a savvy side to this meat fetishist. “For the last four years I’ve been working as a restaurant consultant. I’ve helped firms come up with viable business plans, so I know what I’m doing. Everything down to the salt and pepper has been costed.” He’s also been meticulously researching his market. “I’ve sat outside all the places in London that serve roast meat,” he says. “I’ve counted how many people enter, how long it takes for them to get served, and what they buy.” In particular he has studied the Brass Rail at Selfridges and Fuzzy’s Grub restaurant in the City. The big obstacle to having chefs individually carving meat for each customer is that there’s a serious danger of rush hour bottlenecks, resulting in long queues and irritated customers. “We’ll have a production line to keep things moving fast,” Hurst says. “One guy to carve, another guy to put the meat in the bun, another guy to add ketchup and someone dedicated to work the till. It won’t be a problem.” He calculates that each outlet will do 700 covers a day. By charging £2.50 for a bacon sarnie, £4 for lunch menu servings, and £1 to ?2 for a range of drinks, he can generate a turnover of £700,000 per store. Each store requires ten staff, some part-time. Overheads will be kept as low as possible. “I’m going to source all the meat direct from the farmers,” says Hurst. “That way there is no cut for a middleman, and I can ensure I get the best quality stuff.” Hurst is going to pay himself £25,000 – a refreshingly realistic sum. “I’m still looking for backing. And I want to show that I’m doing this to build a business, not bleed the firm dry with my personal needs.” Ah yes, the backing. Grazing doesn’t have any money yet, but it’s early days, and Hurst is confident he can get the readies without too much difficulty. “Ideally I want three tranches of money. The first will be to open the first store. Then two more when we want to expand rapidly. I need £400,000 to get going.” He reckons he can get ?300,000 for a slice of equity, and £100,000 from the banks. “I’m looking at a Small Firms Loan Guarantee, but the banks don’t understand it. I went to Barclays, HSBC and RBS, and eventually found the Bank of Scotland’s Edinburgh branch had the expertise I needed. Those other banks might say they understand the Loan, but they’ve usually just got one guy who’s never around.” To get the rest Hurst has signed up angel network Envestors. “I’m going onto their mailout for two months, though they’ve warned me there is a 70 per cent chance I won’t get backing.” He’s also ringing up all his contacts in the hotel industry looking for backers. If he can secure his first hit of cash he can get up and running in a few months. He has already scouted out his first site and worked out where the next few will go. “The stores need to be on areas of high footfall. No one is going to head down a side street to find it. Our target market is office workers. They will come for breakfast, from 7.30 to 9am, and then for lunch from 12 till 2. After that it’ll get pretty quiet, but we are thinking of selling roast chickens in insulated bags so workers can pick one up on the way home.” The first wave of stores will be located in the City. “The concept could work anywhere, but there is such a big market there we will focus on it first.” Hurst needs £8.5m to open 30 stores in five years. By then, in theory, annual turnover will pass £18m and profits £3m. “The problem I’ve got now is how much equity to give away. But I am realistic. I would rather have ten per cent of a £30m firm than a majority share in nothing. In five years my backer will want to exit and a £3m share would be good going. I will still be only 32 years old.” And the heavy boozers of the world get their dividend too. Because the next time you wake up with a hazy recollection of outdrinking Freddie Flintoff & co, you’ll be able to gorge on the sort of food your ancestors ate. Only tastier.

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