Chicken George is a high street food vendor with multiple locations around Hertfordshire & Bedfordshire. They have an eye-catching brand, a reputation for great service and incredible flavours worthy of their numerous awards.
Who we met
Chris, Director/ Head Honcho
Emily, Managing Director
Richard, Finance
Ollie, Director of food production and development
"The best in the game, large and in charge”
Founded in 1985, Chicken George is a family-run business, with current owner Chris taking the reins from dad Ray in 2016.
The company has grown from their original home in Luton to two restaurants, a production kitchen, two vans and a trailer. While scaling up their business, they faced a number of challenges when it came to finding the right supply partner. These included late deliveries, product inconsistency, and having someone who understood their needs and could support them during this growth. The consequences of these challenges would mean delays in their growth plans, alongside struggles to keep up with customer demand if shortages or supply issues continued. Put simply by the team, "suppliers couldn't keep up with our quick growth."
The beginnings of a great partnership
As big fans of the Chicken George brand, Collectiv Food reached out to see if there was anything we could help them with - and the beginning of a great partnership was formed.
Starting with poultry, pork and plant-based, Collectiv Food now supplies Chicken George across protein, bakery and frozen lines. We also helped to streamline Chicken George's ordering process with an app for placing orders, which was previously managed on an ad-hoc basis.
Working with Collectiv Food has helped "take the pressure off," says Ollie, Director of Food Production and Development. It's made running Chicken George "less stressful" and given us time back to spend on other areas, like "organising our own staff".
What stands out?
"The fact that CF looks after you, we don't feel like just a number," says Ollie, a reflection on the relationship built by Molly, Chicken George's dedicated account manager.
Some of the team's favourite things about Collectiv Food's service include consistency of products, deliveries being on time, and taking on any challenge we're given - for example a procurement project we worked on with Aviko in 2023 to source the perfect fries. Ollie and Emily also highlighted that when there is a problem, we always try and sort it out, and that "communication is brilliant."
When it came to festival season, Collectiv Food supported Chicken George by going the extra mile (literally!), making set up easy for all the events Chicken George traded at across the year.
"You make sure the delivery happens, even when it's going to a strange place, you make sure it gets to us." - Ollie, Director of Food Production and Development.
So, what’s in store for the future?
"World domination… and get Chris to answer his phone!" - Emily, Managing Director
