This is a story of hard graft, guts and good old dash of Mancunian grit but always to get the best job done, fairly and with the customer in mind. It is also a tale that talks to triumphs (of innovation), tears (mainly from onion chopping) and even the odd tantrum (we all have our bad days). 

If you don’t know Manchester, you might not know it is one of Britain’s great creative hubs. Think New Order, the Stone Roses, even Oasis if you must. Being creative is in the blood there but that is only half the battle won. Execution is always the big brother of any clever idea and this brand is a testament to that mantra. Three passionate, purposeful pioneers are the brainchildren of Loving Foods - Adam & Faye Goldwater and Faye’s brother, Mendel Domnitz. Each of them came across food fermentation because of some quite serious health issues. Each were resolved with diet changes using fermented foods, even when specialists, in Adam’s case, were waving a “steroids for life” prescription.

Let’s go back to the beginning. In 2007, Mendel trained as a nutritional therapist and started to ferment almost anything he could. Working in a local health shop, he soon developed an expert reputation in this somewhat forgotten field, consulting for customers. Batching up his own products, Mendel became a walking fermentation encyclopedia and quickly educated Adam and Faye on Kombucha, Kimchi and other productions. 

Just a family affair until 2016, Faye and Mendel hit the farmer’s market circuit with products selling like hot cakes. The penny dropped. There was a real business here. Adam applied some hardnosed business acumen, a website build and an online offering that soon supercharged sales.  Like all game changing ventures, remember  Google, you need a garden shed. Foundations were dug, next construction, then the food regulators and almost overnight the team had ten products ready to go, Sauerkraut, Kimchi and Kombucha. That was June 29th, 2016. With new health stores taking products, on-line orders streaming in, half the house soon became a packing area. Adam’s beloved motorbike was sold and the parking space converted into a huge walk-in cold room. Business was booming.

From the very start, Loving Foods has stuck to its principles and purpose - creating the very best products, and best flavours for the best value. That means fully organic, premium ingredients, glass jars (because plastic leeches chemicals) and a critical 3-4 week fermentation time - in Italian stainless steel. Longer fermentation fuses deeper flavours, soften textures, and delivers more complex, live bacteria, so far better for gut-health. 

Some competitors cut corners, ferment for days not weeks, and sure, make more money. Those compromises mean you might not be, well, loving their foods quite as much. As a customer, it might surprise you to know, a decade in, Loving Foods have yet to raise their prices, despite inflation biting hard, instead becoming more efficient in production and supply chains. Soon, health store sales were multiplying fast, and online supercharged by Amazon, more staff joined and the shed was upgraded for larger premises. Scaling was a necessity but with new equipment costing tens of thousands, Mendel magically conjured up alternatives such as a gigantic 20kW kettle, built-from-scratch with a complex control panel, and later a counter pressure 8 line bottling machine. These innovations saved a fortune, showing pure will can have its way.

Self funded to the last penny, investors take note. Growth has always been double digits year on year and once Shopify was locked in and the likes of Suma and other health wholesalers partnered up, the model consolidated. In 2019, the business was selling 60,000 units of fermented veggies and by 2024 that number was well over 230,000. 

Life can sometimes turn on a pinhead and in 2022, Adam and Faye moved their family to Portugal. Still absolutely running the business, founder pressure was eased by talented, committed managers and team, now based at new premises in Eccles, some 7000 square feet (and a tad bigger than the 20 x 50 ft shed). In a move that almost broke Adam, constantly producing, moving heavy equipment and setting up, was logistical hell but necessary as new white label orders piled up, testing capacity again.

These days, players like Abel and Cole, Suma, Green City, Organic North and Essential are all part of a complex distribution network. Products fly off the shelf across the UK and are sold in Portugal, Belgium, Hungary and Dubai, with online sales driving growth and tidy margins. Recently, the founders have pondered a New York play, so watch that space. 

This year, Loving Foods turns ten, and in that decade it’s been quite a journey marked by creativity, challenges, seismic change, as well as rock solid successes, scaling and some manic, maverick innovations. Above all, certain rules and principles have remained unbreakable and never ever compromised. Organic. Unpasteurised. Flavour first. Glass. The 28 day fermentation and the fairest price. Looking back, one theme has stayed at the heart of the proposition - a simple, pure and near perfect love of foods - loved into a jar, loved into packaging and, we always hope, loved by our customers.