Want to Know More About Who We Are? Read On...

Quick Facts About Us

Location: Snetterton, Nr. Norwich, United Kingdom
Founded: October 2005
Size: small
Activities: import, wholesale and web retail of Spanish food and cooking products
Products: quality and value for money, no rubbish and no £30/litre gourmet olive oils
Customer service: where there is something (anything) we can do for you, we'll do it
Philosophy: non-corporate, modern, relaxed, honest & open, technology-driven

Quick History

In October 2005, we incorporated The Tapas Lunch Company Ltd on a hope and a prayer. There was no business plan or mission statements, little experience and little money. We had just come back from Spain, Jessica was working in a Spanish/Italian restaurant and I was 'finishing' my PhD. Back then we kept the samples we were selling from in our fridge at home. It was all very far from corporate.

The company was formed on the back of a passion for food, a love of Spain and a handfull of contacts who were going to provide us with some fantastic products: mostly small, artisan producers in and around Jessicas's native León.

The company was formed on the back of a passion for food

After a scouting trip to Spain in April 2006, the first pallets began to arrive at our 35 sq. foot lock up in Shalford (near Guildford, UK), the first website went up and Jon swapped his Hyundai for a transit.

We quickly moved from Shalford to Crawley where we installed our first cold room in a storage unit (perhaps the first and maybe the last to do so). Once that big white beast was up there wasn't much room for anything else, so we stocked up on chorizo and Manchego and little else. The web brought our first retail customers but space was tight, sales were slow and driving from Guildford to Crawley every day was tiring.

In late 2006, thing started moving and Jess gave up her day-job. We found and moved to our own warehouse in Merrow (just outside Guildford), built a proper website, widened our range and started selling to wholesale customers. 2007 saw retail and trade shows, a Saturday market in Guildford, a redesigned website, as well as the welcome addition to the team of John Hickey, our friendly National Sales Manager.

By early 2008, John and Jessi could cope no longer with the daily pick, pack and despatch as well as the administration and development of the company and the warehouse at Merrow was already looking small. Time to move on again.

The warehouse at Merrow was already looking small. Time to move on again

In July 2008 we joined forces with Eagle Express (courier, logistics and storage) and moved operations to their facility in Old Woking, providing us with three times more refrigerated storage space and a helping hand with the logistics.

In March 2009, in search of more space and a wider range of delivery options for our customers, we moved our warehouse platform to Snetterton near Norwich. We now enjoy double the amount of refrigerated space in our purpose-built cold store and almost unlimited ambient storage, along with the services of Johnston Logistics UK, experts in getting our products from us to you!

Quick Future

The website you're looking at now is part of our plan to expand the range of information we provide to our customers. A working day importing Spanish food brings a great deal of news, insight and interesting information that we would like to share with the UK Spanish food community - everything from recipes for great paella to explanations for the soaring price of saffron!

A working day importing Spanish food brings a great deal of news, insight and interesting information

We hope this information is of use to all and will continue to help fuel the incredible growth Spanish food is experiencing in the UK.

Other than that, we'd like to keep selling great products and will be happy to see the back of this recession (2009)!

Quick People

Jonathan Pincas,
Co-founder, Managing Director
Business development, e-commerce, marketing etc.

Jon has had to adapt his academic background the rigors of running a small company and likes to think he hasn't totally messed it up. Thank him for this website, the funky logo and most of the mind-numbing text you get from us. If you are selling foreign exchange, don't dare call him (or anyone here).

Jessica Perez,
Co-founder, Company Secretary
Imports and logistics, product sourcing, customer services, accounts etc.

Jessi has the unenviable responsibility of coordinating incoming pallets from 20 different suppliers in Spain and planning her life around Spanish public holidays and lunch hours. Most of the great stuff we sell was found by her in the first place.

John Hickey,
National Sales Manager
Sales and product demonstration to trade customers

John makes sure all our trade customers are getting the best products possible for their businesses. Next time to you eat out at a Spanish restaurant near you, you could well have him to thank! John is also a regular writer on our blog and information pages and provides our restaurant and deli features.

Vernon Grant,
Social Media Coordinator
Writing for Spanish Food UK, Twitter, Facebook

Writer, TV producer & author of a guidebook to the 100 best tapas bars in the Spanish city of Granada. He's produced food & travel programmes for UK broadcasters. He's written for newspapers and magazines in the UK and Spain. He's travelled all over Spain tasting tapas - all in the name of research, he insists.