Charlie Bigham’s names new Marketing Director

Charlie Bigham’s has bolstered its senior team with the appointment of a new marketing director to support the ongoing growth of the business.

Kerry Collinge has joined the fast-growing company with over 20 years’ marketing experience in the food and drink sector. Kerry previously served as marketing director at healthy snack brand Nine Foods and has also worked in senior marketing positions for food and drink brands including Cadbury’s, Ab InBev and Carlsberg.

She will be responsible for leading the strategic direction of Charlie Bigham’s marketing efforts and building on the brand’s long-established reputation by raising consumer and trade awareness of its food innovation pipeline. Her main focus will be to recruit more consumers to the widely-available premium food brand through inventive creative campaigns, shopper trials and successful communication of the company’s values and flavoursome meals portfolio.

The announcement comes as Charlie Bigham’s launches a new ‘World of Grains’ product range featuring seven new exciting and contemporary dishes based on popular world flavours like chicken katsu curry and salmon teriyaki. The launch also coincided with the brand’s first nationwide out-of-home advertising campaign which features fun, tongue-in-cheek headlines urging consumers to put an end to disappointing evening meals and takeaways.

Kerry Collinge, marketing director at Charlie Bigham’s, comments: “Charlie Bigham’s unwavering commitment to delivering delicious, highly-convenient dishes with a homemade feel lies at the core of why the brand has seen such rapid growth amongst shoppers in recent years. And I am focused on getting even more people to know the brand; as soon as they taste how delicious the food is, they will never go back. Charlie Bigham’s isn’t just about amazing food, it’s about giving consumers back valuable time. I’m enthused about the opportunity to extend the brand’s reach even further, offering that guiltless gift of time and experience to even more food-lovers.”

Patrick Cairns, CEO at Charlie Bigham’s, adds:  “Charlie Bigham’s is a real challenger brand and is getting shoppers to reassess prepared meals. Strategic marketing campaigns that can educate consumers about our fresh, quality meals made with the same care and attention as a home-cooked alternative will help to drive retail sales and recruit new consumers to the brand. We’re delighted to welcome Kerry to our burgeoning team at a very exciting time for the business.”

Kerry’s appointment follows a period of accelerated growth for the pre-prepared luxury food brand, which saw its retail sales value increase to £68m in 2017, with sales up 15% over the last year.

The senior marketing appointment comes as part of a sizeable recruitment for the business which has also seen Rob Farr (head of procurement), Mark Bagwell (operations director) Rupert Wilday (head of food) and Mark Howgego (commercial director) join the company in the last year.