Hellbent wins first SPAR business in Scotland

Hellbent, the Belfast-based producer of Northern Irish beef blended with spicy South African spices, is now supplying its distinctive sausages, meatballs and burgers, to more than 50 SPAR supermarkets in Scotland.

The company, owned by Louis Ludik and Schalk van der Merwe, has won its first business with SPAR Scotland operated by main franchise operator C J Lang, one of the country’s largest independent companies. SPAR is the largest symbol group in Scotland.

The listing for Hellbent in SPAR stores follows the Northern Ireland company’s success last year in winning first business with Aldi-Scotland and sales to Planet Plenty in London.

As with the business with Aldi-Scotland, Hellbent’s agreement with CJ Lang/ SPAR was facilitated by Invest Northern Ireland which hosted a ‘meet the buyer’ event, introducing the team at Hellbent with buyers in SPAR.

Louis Ludik says: “Winning business with many SPAR supermarkets in Scotland, the country’s biggest grocery network, significantly strengthens our position in this immensely important marketplace in Britain.”

“We were delighted to have been involved with Invest NI in the event which led to the introduction to the CJ Lang buyer and the opportunity it provided for sampling our sausages, meatballs and burgers.”

“We followed up the initial sampling and eventually secured this very encouraging development for the business we are focused on expanding outside Northern Ireland,” he adds.

Welcoming the deal, John Hood, Invest NI’s Director of Food & Drink said: “Our strong working partnership with Hellbent over the last three years is supporting the company to thrive. In response to COVID-19, we introduced a virtual approach to support Northern Ireland companies to continue to sell where possible and look to new ways to secure business in GB and RoI. Our latest virtual meet the buyer event has clearly reaped significant benefits for Hellbent. It’s great to see this work pay off and we look forward to continuing to work closely with Hellbent as it grows its business further.” 

Hellbent, in addition to its developing business in Great Britain, has achieved success in the Irish Republic with Aldi Ireland. Customers in Northern Ireland include Sainsbury’s, Tesco and EUROSPAR supermarkets.

Hellbent was established in March 2018 to develop a range of meat products including South African style boerewors beef sausages, burgers and meat balls. The company sources its meats from Corries farm and retail business near Newtownards.