Merchant Gourmet boss: Boring products offer big opportunities

Richard Peake is the managing director of food company Merchant Gourmet. It specialises in ready-to-eat, plant-based foods like pulses, grains and lentils, which come in plastic pouches.

Peake joined the Mars graduate scheme and then worked his way up several companies that specialise in household goods, including Method, which makes Ecover cleaning products, and Lily's Kitchen, which makes pet food. He took up his leadership role at Merchant Gourmet in 2020.

Throughout his career, Peake has focused on what's known in the industry as "begrudged" consumer items. These, he says, are essential items that live out of sight at home, often tucked away at the back of the cupboard.

"Dusty, old, tired categories, they're actually the ones I find most fascinating! That's where there's more room to do exciting things," says Peake.

There will always be enduring demand for these staple products too, he points out.

His aim is to reimagine them so they stand out on the supermarket shelves and appeal to the consumer, so branding and marketing is very important to him.

People instinctively think of lentils and pulses as something boring, admits Peake.

"It's quite surprising for people looking for pulses and grains on the supermarket shelves to suddenly come across a splash of colour – that's what we always try and do."

Peake has also repositioned Merchant Gourmet to put more focus on its plant-based credentials (even though the product can be used in dishes with meat). This has also helped to elevate the brand, which is found in most supermarkets.

Merchant Gourmet was founded in 1994 by brothers Mark and Oliver Leatham. Their market stall sold high-end food ingredients sourced from around the world that they sold to restaurants and pubs. The Merchant Gourmet brand was started to sell the same products through general retailers like supermarkets. It remains the sole supplier of Puy lentils in the UK, grown in Le-Puy-en-Velay in the South of France.

When Peake joined Merchant Gourmet in 2020, it had annual revenues of £20m. The company says revenues will be more than £30m this year. It expanded into the French supermarket Monoprix last year and intends to launch in more territories, as well as continuing to experiment with its product offerings.