A Little Bit of History

Steve Pearce, the company’s managing director and an experienced butcher, founded the company with his wife, Liz in 1989 and began hand producing high quality cooked hams and other meats for distribution across the Brighton area.

It wasn’t long before customers were asking Southover to supply a wider range of speciality foods such as locally produced cheeses, savoury pastries, cakes and soups as well as the cooked meats that the company was now well known for.  Demand was such that it took the company out from Brighton and into the Home Counties.  Southover had become a specialist food supplier and set itself on a course that would take it across the country and back.

Since the beginning Southover has been known for its locally sourced USP’s, such as Southover Cooked Meats, Kate’s Cakes and Higgidy Pies.  The popularity of these and many other names led Southover to national success.  Awards soon followed and they’ve been coming in ever since.  The company now has a string of sought after industry commendations for products and service.

This isn’t the whole picture, though.  Southover has taken great care to address broader concerns with equal diligence and enthusiasm.  Animal welfare is a key issue in the food industry as is the reduction of carbon emissions.  These factors have forced a lot of companies to make some hard decisions, but luckily for us it hasn’t been too difficult.

We’ve always sourced locally, we use free range products whenever we can and we make sure that products with natural ingredients are just what they claim to be.  Being green suits being local and it suits us just fine.