By Jo Cooksey
Pete Sheppard, owner of RedbankCo in Manchester’s Green Quarter, has developed a concept aimed at start up food professionals who want to showcase their food but without the all the hassle and costs associated of setting up.
Originally a photography studio and bar consultancy during the week, RedbankCo also became a weekend bar, café and event space 4 years ago. It has a fifty cover capacity, which is the perfect number for a pop-up occasion. When running as a café RedbankCo serves a very popular menu covering breakfast, lunch and dinner with favourites such as a full English breakfast through to pizzas cooked in their own oven. Plus popular quiz nights.
The new concept named The Pop-up Incubator will provide all of the operational support for a pop-up event, from a professionally set up kitchen to a fully serviced bar, offering local craft beers, cocktails and spirits and including all crockery for the event. Providing all this leaves the pop-up operator to concentrate on the food and the customer experience.
Pete, who has developed the concept, explains further, “I wanted to keep it simple, all food sales go to the pop-up food operator. I don’t think it is fair to ask for a cut of their margin like they do at markets and fairs, or a fee upfront. If they are successful, we are successful. We don’t charge any additional fees for them to run a pop-up night. I want to able to host a wide range of pop-up creatives, therefore I don’t want any barriers for them to want to work with us. We want to take the stress out of the whole process.”
RedbankCo are also partnering with the foodie digital agency, Artisan Digital whose vision is to support food & drink businesses who are in their first 5 years of life. They can provide support to pop-ups to help market and promote their events successfully to ensure full tables. They also offer services such as branding, content marketing, website design, social media marketing, event management and email marketing.
As Andrew Kirkcaldy, owner of Artisan Digital explains further, “I am really excited by our partnership with RedbankCo, to be able to help young foodie startup’s, strikes at the core as to why I set-up Artisan Digital. Too many great foodie businesses don’t realise their full potential, especially at this grass roots level. I believe a big part of the reason is due to the lack of focus on marketing themselves to the right audience in the right way.”
RedbankCo is already used as a venue by some of the most exciting pop-ups such as, Holy Crab, MIMOD’s Kitchen, Bite Club, The Blue Caribou Canteen and The Spice Club and Pete has the ambition to grow the Pop-up Incubator, so that eventually there is an event every night of the week.
For find out more about what the incubator and what pop-up events are coming up, please visit https://www.redbank.co/events
