Chimac case study: Building distribution for an Irish food brand in UK speciality retail
Brand overview
Chimac is an Irish food brand producing a range of Korean-inspired sauces designed to bring bold, restaurant-quality flavours to home cooking. The brand originally built a strong reputation through restaurants and direct-to-consumer channels before expanding into retail.
As Chimac began scaling internationally, the UK speciality retail sector was identified as a key growth opportunity, particularly across:
• Farm shops
• Delicatessens
• Food halls
• Premium independent retailers
To support this expansion, Chimac partnered with Gourmet Partners & Brand Builders, a UK consultancy specialising in helping food and drink brands enter and grow within the UK speciality retail market.
View the Chimac product range.
You can also read our article introducing the Chimac Korean-Inspired Sauces
The challenge
When Chimac began working with Gourmet Partners, the brand had strong consumer appeal but needed support to build awareness and distribution within the UK retail sector.
Key challenges included:
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Limited awareness among UK independent retailers
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No dedicated brand support and field sales presence visiting stores across the UK
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The need to develop relationships with relevant UK food distributors
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Limited direct feedback from speciality retail buyers
The goal of the programme was to build retail visibility, distributor partnerships and a scalable route-to-market within UK speciality retail.
Programme overview
Gourmet Partners deployed its Brand Builders field sales programme, introducing the Chimac range directly to buyers across the UK speciality retail sector.
Learn more about our Brand Builders programme
Retailers visited included:
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farm shops
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delicatessens
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food halls
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health food stores
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butchers with premium retail sections
During store visits our Brand Support Managers:
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introduced the brand to buyers
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presented the product range
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provided product samples where appropriate
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collected retailer feedback
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recorded competitor brands and pricing
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identified distributors used by the retailers
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assessed opportunities using our internal Brand Builders opportunity scoring system
This structured approach allows us to gather real-world market insights while actively building retail relationships for the brand.
Retail activity
Across the first phase of the programme, the Gourmet Partners team completed the following store visits:
Total recorded visits across these reports:
373 retailer store visits
These visits focused primarily on independent retailers within the UK speciality food sector, including farm shops, delis and food halls.
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October 2025 – 102 stores visited
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November 2025 – 103 stores visited
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January 2026 – 87 stores visited
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February 2026 – 81 stores visited
Across the programme we have seen consistently strong engagement from retailers, with a significant proportion of buyers scoring the brand 3, 4 or 5.
This indicates a strong level of interest from the speciality retail sector and creates a growing pipeline of potential listings and repeat orders.
Importantly, many retailers choose to place orders through their existing distributors, meaning sales often occur after the initial store visit once products become available through wholesale channels.
Score 5
Order placed or confirmed listing
Score 4
Strong interest, likely listing opportunity
Score 3
Positive engagement and follow-up opportunity
Retailer engagement and opportunity pipeline
A key strength of the Brand Builders programme is our structured opportunity scoring system, which tracks retailer interest and potential sales opportunities.
Scores are recorded as follows:
Retailer feedback
Retailer engagement during the programme has been very positive, with many buyers expressing interest in the Chimac brand and range.
Feedback collected during store visits frequently highlighted:
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strong and unique flavour profiles
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distinctive branding and shelf presence
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growing consumer interest in Korean cuisine
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appeal to food enthusiasts and adventurous home cooks
Retailer feedback also provided useful insights around pricing sensitivity and range selection, helping guide the brand’s ongoing retail strategy.
Distributor development
A key part of the Gourmet Partners approach is identifying which distributors retailers already buy from.
During store visits we record the wholesaler relationships used by retailers. This intelligence helps identify the most relevant distributors to approach when expanding a brand’s route-to-market.
During the programme we secured two new distributor listings for Chimac: The Bay Tree and The Gorgeous Food Company
These distributors are now able to present the Chimac range to their retail customers across the UK.
In addition, the brand has been presented to several other distributors as part of ongoing expansion work, including: Holley’s Fine Foods, Johnson Bros (Northern Ireland), Shire Foods of East Anglia
Chimac's current distributors
Programme outcomes
Key outcomes from the first phase of the programme include:
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370+ retailer store visits completed
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Strong buyer engagement across UK speciality retail
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New distributor partnerships secured
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A growing pipeline of retail opportunities
The programme has helped increase Chimac’s visibility across the UK farm shop, deli and speciality retail sector, while building a strong foundation for continued distribution growth.
Client testimonial
“As an Irish business expanding into the UK, having Gourmet Partners & Brand Builders as our boots on the ground has been a game changer. In just six months, they have helped us secure new distributor partnerships, build new retail relationships, and strengthen connections with existing customers. They’ve also given us valuable visibility into what’s really happening on the shop floor.
The team are proactive, highly responsive, and incredibly generous with their time and feedback — consistently going the extra mile.” Sofie Rooney, Chimac
Looking to grow your food brand in the UK?
At Gourmet Partners, we help ambitious food and drink brands grow across UK speciality retail. Our services include:
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UK market entry strategy
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distributor introductions
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field-based brand building
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retail buyer engagement
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speciality retail growth support
If you are looking to expand your brand into UK farm shops, delis and speciality retailers, we would love to help.
