Interview with Little Fish
Interview with Neill Ghosh from Little Fish in Liphook
"Little Fish is on a mission to bring exceptional sushi and pan-Asian cuisine to food lovers in rural communities. Our ever-evolving menu has been crafted by Michelin-trained, multi-award-winning chef, Neil Witney – mastermind behind some of the UK’s top pan-Asian restaurants.
Delicious sushi, sashimi and pan-Asian dishes are prepared freshly each day and available to order in advance for home delivery or collection from one of our pickup points. With sushi and pan-Asian food that is a cut above anything else you can find outside cosmopolitan cities; Little Fish is pushing back the boundaries of cuisine in your community."
What were you doing before this business?
There are two founders of Little Fish. Neil Witney is the brains behind the food. He is a Michelin-trained, exceptional chef. Prior to Little Fish, he has an impeccable background in food having launched and run some spectacular restaurants in the UK (notably E&O and Eight Over Eight in his role as executive chef for the Ricker Group) and abroad. When COVID hit, Neil started making sushi and pan-Asian food from his home in Farnham and did this for two years building up a strong local following and Little Fish builds on the great work he did with wife, Justine.
The ‘Other Neill’ is Neill Ghosh. He doesn’t have a background in food. For 11 years prior to co-founding Little Fish, he was part of the team running luxury travel company, Original Travel, where he looked after sales, customer service and operations.
So, Chef Neil does the food, and ‘Other Neill’ make sure customers are well served. A good combo!
How did you come up with the idea for your business?
Little Fish builds on the work that Neil Witney did through COVID. When the pandemic hit, Neil wondered what he could do. A post on Mother’s Day 2020 of his daughter holding a sushi platter he had made for his wife Justine, is where it all began. People started contacting Neil and Justine asking if they could order and they said yes! Over the next two years, the husband-and-wife duo worked non-stop as demand grew and grew. ‘Other Neill’ worked with them for the last year offering a collection point for the food outside his house in Kingsley Green, just outside Haslemere, every Friday. Demand grew continuously and as of July 2022, Little Fish was launched to serve more and more people in rural communities.
What made you choose Haslemere?
Well, Other Neill, lives just outside Haslemere, in Kingsley Green, and it was one of the main locations we operated in prior to launching Little Fish so it’s somewhere we already had a strong customer base, and it continues to be one of our best locations. The kitchen is based in Liphook, but we distribute via home delivery and via a range of partners such as farm shops and in Haslemere, where our partner is red.h.
If you buy in your products, how do you choose your suppliers? Do you have any strict requirements such as being local or environmentally friendly etc? How do you source your products?
We produce all our own products, and it is all done at the central kitchen in Liphook. We do of course have products that we use in our food that we source from suppliers. We try to stay local where possible but with lots of our food product, such as specialist Asian supplies, fish etc. it’s not possible to buy locally. However, we do only source our fish from ethical, sustainable suppliers as this is one of our key values.
What does a typical day look like for you?
Busy! We operate six days per week (Tue to Sun) and the kitchen starts working at 0600 as all our food is prepared freshly each day. For Chef Neil, the day is in the kitchen overseeing the operation and ensuring the quality of the product (he is also still ‘on the tools’ a lot). For ‘Other Neill’, the day starts with planning the schedule for the chefs and drivers and ensuring that the food is delivered to customer efficiently. As we are still a start-up and growing rapidly, a lot of the day is also spent developing the business in securing new partners, looking after existing partners and all of the many things that come with running a business.
Do you have staff and if so, how many?
Yes, excluding the two founders, we have five additional chefs, a couple of kitchen porters and four people in operations/driving, with more on the way. Getting better at delegating as we have good people in place and for the business to thrive, we need to delegate! It is definitely difficult when it’s your baby!
When looking for staff where do you advertise? Do you try to employ local staff?
All our staff are local. We go through our own networks, but most staff has come through Indeed which seems to be the best. We don’t have any specific age requirements for staff although when it comes to drivers, for insurance reasons, they need to have a certain amount of driving years under their belt so ends being an age restriction (we aren’t allowed to say that!).
Do you find most customers supportive?
Very supportive. We have a very loyal customer base already and most new customers are very supportive. We are lucky in that we aren’t selling a product people can buy online. Our competition locally is really only supermarket sushi which is a very different proposition to ours. We do, inevitably, have some customers who comment that our product is expensive and that is fine! We deal with them politely and explain why we believe we represent value, but we won’t be for everyone and we won’t try. That’s not meant to sound arrogant – we are always reviewing our prices but believe the quality of the offering justifies our pricing and we stand by that.
Do you have a lot of return customers?
Yes. We are only nine months old and already 60% of our customers each month are repeat customers. We tend to retain people when they find us.
What software do you use (e.g. Square, Shopify, Quickbooks etc) and would you recommend it?
We have a range of software partners as our business is heavily reliant on tech given the complicated logistics. Our main ordering platform is provided by Vita Mojo who work with leading brands like Leon, Gails and much more. We’ve had challenges as our business model is so different from traditional restaurants (mainly due to being a pre-order business) so I will decline to answer whether we’d recommend them just yet!
Do you have social media profiles and/or website? If so, do you manage this yourself or have an external agency do it for you? Do you use any tools you would recommend?
Yes, we have both. We manage in house and with a local agency. Not my domain so not much to add here! We do put a lot of time into our socials.
How do you market yourself and what challenges do you face? What have been the best marketing strategies for your business?
To date, it has largely been organic growth through word of mouth and marketing to our existing database via email and socials. We are now venturing into paid digital advertising (Google, FB and Insta) and have been experimenting with physical flyer drops and events. We worked with a branding consultant and have taken on an agency to build out a strong 12-month brand and marketing strategy which we are just starting to roll out as our main challenge is brand awareness in locations we haven’t operated in before. Too early to comment on what parts of the plan will work! Word of mouth will always be our strongest marketing tool.
What has been your biggest successes?
Being only eight months old, I would say launching the business and the rapid growth we have achieved so far! We have gone from launch to a team of 13 in just eight months so that’s not bad. And we are still alive!
What mistakes have you made (has been your biggest regrets) and what (how) would you do differently?
Always lots of mistakes. I think perhaps we were a little naïve in thinking that in locations outside our original operating area (i.e., where chef Neil operated in the two years prior to launching Little Fish – mainly Farnham and Haslemere and surrounds) customers would find out about us quickly and organically. We have realised that we need to invest much more heavily in marketing in these areas and in a better strategy to launch new locations/partners. We have a strong plan in place which is being implemented now. Perhaps we would have put more resource into planning a marketing strategy prior to launch but to be honest, everything has moved at such a pace that I am not sure we would have been able to do much differently even if we wanted to! It’s all about learning!
Do you have any future plans to enhance the business?
Yes! Our plan is to launch in more and more locations within a c.40-mile radius of Liphook so we can get our food our to more and more food lovers in rural communities. After that, we may look to other regions in the UK. So, big plans!
What support do you need, if any?
Lots! We need to secure funding, staff, customers…lots of support needed!
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