Charlie Bigham

Having decided life was too short to be a management consultant forever, 28 year-old Charlie Bigham and his then girlfriend (now wife) Claire, chucked in their jobs, bought a camper van and headed east. Swapping working life in London for the streets of the Middle East and India fed Charlie’s passion for food and spices and inspired him to set up his own food company, the Charlie Bigham’s brand of posh ready meals.

On his return from his travels in 1996, Charlie started experimenting in his West London kitchen before founding ‘Charlie Bigham’s’ with an aim of creating really delicious, high quality handmade dishes to cook at home. Charlie quickly noticed that it was not just his great tasting food that appealed to friends and early customers. Ever busier lives and the competing demands of careers, kids and day-to-day chores meant that his customers were saying that there were fewer opportunities to fit in time to sit down and enjoy a proper meal with their partners. With 19 delicious dishes for two now on offer (ranging from favourites like Lasagne and Steak & Ale Pie, to the slightly more exotic Thai Green Chicken Curry or an adventurous Moroccan Chicken Tagine) the posh ready-meal brand aims to give couples the chance to steal back some time together and enjoy an uncompromising and delicious fresh handmade dinner for two at home.

Seventeen years after founding the business, the Charlie Bigham’s brand is still the fastest growing ready-meal brand in the UK, growing more than 70% year-on-year. In April, Charlie Bigham's has ongoing strong sales in Waitrose, Sainsbury's and Ocado. The brand now has retail sales of over £20 million per year and over 200 employees based at its West London production kitchens.

This year, Charlie Bigham's will add three delicious new dishes to their range. Having enjoyed extraordinary growth over the past 18 months, the business is set to move onto bigger and better things with a recently developed multi-million pound kitchen and more new recipes in the pipeline. The future looks bright for Charlie and for those that want more out of a ready meal than the ping of a microwave.