Pacdon is run by James Arrowsmith (born in 1982), a pig farmer with a business degree, Peter Tonge, a trained chef, and Rob Melling. Their aim is to produce the best of what they missed from the UK using the finest Australian products. They started the hard way, converting a derelict dairy into a commercial kitchen and custom-building their own pork pie machine, as none was available in Australia.
Pacdon supplies pork pies, black pudding, pork sausages, haggis and other smallgoods to regional areas within a 250km radius of the farm and has recently started selling at Melbourne farmers markets. Pacdon currently makes 500 pork pies, 100kg of sausages, 50kg black pudding weekly.
The plan is to sell Australia-wide though James concedes that this will be tough given their distance from metropolitan markets. In year one/two they aim to tap into the large British expat population and gourmet foodie fans in Victoria then to distribute to Sydney and Brisbane in year two. Although ambitious, Pacdon believes the market potential is huge.
The high quality of their product does however distinguish Pacdon from other smallgoods manufacturers. The company sources its pigs direct from the farm, renders their own lard to make pastry and has plans in the pipeline to grow grain for pastry flour.
Pacdon were winners of the ‘Win a Marketing Makeover’ competition run in conjunction with Small Business September ’09.