A father and son run business is set to launch its products into a leading supermarket chain this week.
Hethersett-based One Planet Pizza, which creates vegan frozen pizzas, has agreed a deal with Asda which will see its pizzas sold in 74 stores across the country.
The company, which was founded in 2016 by Mike Hill and his son Joe Hill manufacture all its pizzas in Norfolk using sustainable methods and ingredients.
Joe said that it had been their "mission" to break into the UK supermarket sector.
He said: "That's where as a food brand you achieve your growth and become a household brand and, hopefully, once you get one of them you then take them out to the other supermarkets and they all start taking you seriously as a brand.
"We've done a lot of work the last year building up our team, working on the brand and aligning all our messages and also developing our products and making sure they're as good as can be.
"We've been finding better cheese, better sauce better bases etc, and by the end of last year we finally got Asda on board and now we're getting geared up and just sent out our first order which is our biggest ever order. It is very exciting and a big challenge in itself."
One Planet Pizza has supplied 9,600 pizzas to the supermarket and another batch of the same amount has already been ordered.
Mr Hill added: "Our vegan pizzas made in Norfolk have been sent to Asda and they're getting ready to launch on Thursday April 14 and, amazingly they took our full range of flavours of frozen pizzas into 74 stores across the whole country, but you can also get them anywhere in the UK through their online shop as well.
"They’re launching it as part of their new mission to be a more sustainable company so they're focusing on their nurture pillars, as they call them, and they revolve around people, planet, health and sustainability.
"So they want to get more sustainable, more plant based brands on board, help support family brands, companies based in the UK and manufactures based in the UK and it just so happens that we tick a lot of those boxes and the idea is that they support us with this launch over the next three months and then we’re ready to go into more stores nationwide.
"There’s definitely a lot of work to do over the next three months to prove ourselves to hit the rate of sales and to get our brand out there and get people trying the pizzas and falling in love with the brand."
Since launching their business six years ago, father and son have grown their team to six senior members of staff as well as 10 kitchen staff and they are currently recruiting for more production operatives to work in their kitchen.
Mr Hill said that the idea for the company came about when they noticed a gap in the market for "proper healthy alternatives to meat and diary frozen pizzas".
Since then the business has grown in part through raising money via equity crowdfunding which allows people to invest in the firm from as little as £15.
Early this year it raised £240,000 this way, some of which was from local investors which will be used to help the brand grow further.
Mr Hill added: "A big chunk of that money, possibly about a quarter even a third of that, is going to be used on driving brand awareness so that people know who we are but also supporting Asda in store and out of home."
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