Dominie Fearn founded The Wild Hare Group in 2016 in a bid to create environmentally-friendly, nutritional, carbon neutral British ready meals – and now the company has landed a deal with national online supermarket, Ocado.
Six years after launching the Cotswold firm – which developed its meals with Michelin-starred chef Anthony Robinson – Fearn has now received a boost that will allow her to grow the business from a small start-up and create as many as 40 new Gloucestershire jobs.
National online supermarket, Ocado, has just agreed to stock five of The Wild Hare Group’s meals, a move which will immediately increase its turnover from £150,000 to £450,000 – and potentially to as much as £4 million in the next five years.
Ocado will sell the Aldsworth firm’s red wine braised British chuck steak with buttered mash; cauliflower and chickpea dhal; British chicken dhal; British chicken caesar risotto; and a lasagne dish made with regenagri-certified beef from the Ethical Butcher.
Fearn said: ‘Partnering with Ocado is a huge milestone for Wild Hare and its ambitious climate targets only amplify how delighted we are that one of the UK’s leading online retailers will be delivering our meals as of April 2022.’
Lucy Hamblion, buying manager at Ocado Retail, added: ‘Carbon conscious brands like Wild Hare represent a greener future for the industry.’
It is understood the new jobs created at The Wild Hare Group will be mostly administrative, with all production brought together in Gloucestershire as well.
The Wild Hare Group has also been working with mobile app, Reewild, which allows customers to check up on its ambitions to become a net zero food producer.
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