Having grown up on a farm in County Tipperary, Sam Pearson may not strike you as a likely food entrepreneur with aspirations to shake up the vegan market and build a business of international reach. But that is exactly what he is doing through Vegan Sandwich Co, a business he founded in 2019.

The Currency interviewed him a few months later, at a time when he had just turned down an offer to partner with the cafe chain Insomnia after the two businesses found themselves in contact over the awkward use of similar branding for competing chicken-substitute fillet rolls. So, where do Pearson and his business stand now?

The Covid pivot 

Like a lot of businesses, Vegan Sandwich Co started as a passion project born from frustration – at the inadequate supply of tasty, vegan options. “Being vegan forces you to be creative. After one too many encounters with terrible vegan sandwiches, I made the decision to leave the corporate world behind and set up Vegan Sandwich Co. Producing vegan food for myself gave me a good foundation for an initial product offering. Necessity was the mother of invention,” explains Pearson.

Inspired by this energy, Sam had just launched his vegan sandwich business through local farmers’ markets in Dublin when the pandemic landed on our shores and forced an immediate halt in sales.

While understandably deflated, Sam still had access to a production kitchen, so rather than shutting up shop completely, he decided to pivot the business to focus on a direct-to-consumer model with an in-house delivery service. Within a relatively short period, the weekly turnover of the business had doubled from pre-pandemic levels, customers were ordering regularly and a new course for Vegan Sandwich Co had been set. 

By September 2020, and with the Covid cloud of uncertainty settling in for the long haul, landlords had started to offer increasingly flexible terms on city-centre shop leases. Seeing a moment of opportunity to solidify the business, Sam seized it and took his first steps into full-time retail with a new restaurant launch on Queen Street on the northside of the city.

An underserved market 

The move was a pivotal one. According to research from Bord Bia in 2021, only 2 per cent of the Irish population or roughly 100,000 people are vegan. However, the same research reveals that 14 per cent, or nearly 700,000 people, have “an association with a vegan lifestyle”, highlighting a more sizeable market within the vegan niche. As soon as the doors of their first unit had opened, Sam and his team quickly realised that consumers had been crying out for what they were offering. 

From the outset, the business focused on products that were vegan, tasty and made with natural ingredients. An obsession with this holy trinity inspired the team to look at how they could produce everything, from meat substitutes to sauce substitutes, in-house from day one.

Using chickpea as their primary ingredient and innovative food processing techniques to achieve meat-like textures, Vegan Sandwich Co has managed to create a range of products that not only address the primary needs of their restaurants, but it has also led them into retail outlets across the country. “We don’t use any artificial ingredients. Consumers can look at the back for our products and understand exactly what ingredients we use,” Pearson says. 

Managing multiple routes

With a focus on centralised production, through its commercial kitchen unit and an expanding distribution network including multiple retailers, its own retail units and direct-to-consumer channels, Vegan Sandwich Co has started to tap into this underserved market. “Vegan Sandwich Co is a demand-led business. The early demand for our products was much more than we could meet but rather than limiting ourselves by the geographic reach of our restaurants, we wanted to explore other routes to market as quickly as possible,” Sam explains.

The proof is in the pudding, or to be more exact, in the “bac*n” and “chick*n” alternative products that Sam and his team are producing. Their grab-and-go meat substitutes are now available in over a hundred leading retailers like Nourish, Fresh and select SuperValu stores. 

At the same time, Vegan Sandwich Co is also growing its own retail channel, opening up two further retail units in quick succession: one in Stephen’s Green shopping centre and one in the Swan shopping centre in Ranelagh. Operating an expanding range of retail stores brings a new set of challenges for the budding entrepreneur but Sam recognises the opportunity in a multi-pronged channel strategy.

“Our grab-and-go product range is unique in the market and offers the potential for a really scalable business model. Our retail stores offer another dimension to the business. They keep us in touch with our customers, helping us to build our brand awareness and deepen our understanding of what is happening within the vegan market,” says Pearson. Independent of the channel, the desire to seize the moment is palpable when you speak with Sam.

Targeting a £100,000 award

Commercial traction is a key focus for Vegan Sandwich Co but external validation through industry awards is also playing its part in building momentum for the fledgling brand. Earlier this summer, Uber Eats announced that Vegan Sandwich Co was the Irish finalist for their Restaurant of The Year awards. Vegan Sandwich Co is now competing with eight other finalists from across the UK and Ireland to win £100,000 in prize money. 

While the chance to win a prize fund of that size should not be undervalued, the real impact for Sam and his team is the public support that this reflects. This award is based on a public voting system, which highlights a groundswell of support for the business within its customer base. “Our customers are exceptionally loyal. We are a vegan-owned and run business with clear values that our customers appreciate and really buy into. Positive word of mouth has been a major factor in our growth to date,” says Pearson.

Funding challenges

When Sam talks about the growth figures within his business, the story is compelling. “We have grown to a team of 30 staff and to six-digit revenue figures in a very short period of time. We’re delighted that consumers are buying into what Vegan Sandwich Co stands for, but this type of momentum comes with its own set of problems”. 

Any business owner who has experienced a period of rapid expansion like this can relate to the pain points that generally stem from this kind of growth. Challenges linked to cash flow management and access to sufficient funding cannot be underestimated. 

In this context, Sam talks about a funding gap in Ireland that he sees for companies like his, especially for non-tech companies, that are “too big to be small, but too small to be big”. He talks about the need for more funding for consumer product-focused businesses that can support early-stage, brand-centred food and drinks start-ups like Vegan Sandwich Co along the path of sustained growth.

Some funds are starting to emerge in this space. The Redesdale Food Fund and its recent investment in Aisling Cullen’s Thanks Plants is one example. Investment houses like Biavest are also well placed to aggregate and deliver synergies in emerging niche consumer products.

In any case, when your vision is strong enough and is clearly backed by commercial traction, funding tends to find a way to flow into businesses like Vegan Sandwich Co and the wave has started to rise for Sam.

The next steps

Vegan Sandwich Co is currently working through a multi-million-euro seed stage investment, which will include both institutional and angel investors. This round of funding has the potential to take the business to the next stage of growth as the investment will go into brand building, recruitment of key personnel and the enhancement of production facilities. 

While there is a clear ambition to maximise the opportunity in the Irish market, conversations to expand into the UK are also underway. Listening to the journey that Sam has been on so far and looking at his path ahead, there may well be an attractive market in the vegan niche for Vegan Sandwich Co.