How a Manchester businessman quit working celebrity theatre events to make soup and sandwiches

With its vowel-less name and its promises of creating the ultimate Christmas sandwich, sndwch has made something of a splash since it appeared on the busy Manchester food and cafe scene.

But a chat with the business’ founder Alex Markham reveals the journey of the Burnley-born entrepreneur to running his current concern has not exactly been straightforward or involving the path you might expect.

That’s because Alex initially wanted to go into a career in broadcast engineering and gave up what many people might have thought of as a dream job helping to put on celebrity nights at theatres to come to Manchester and settle into making first soup and then sarnies. ManchesterWorld spoke to Alex to discuss his unusual route through the world of business and why he is now devoting his energies to offering Mancunians the best sandwiches possible.

How did Alex’s career start?

Alex’s original career aim was to go into broadcast engineering and he did work experience at the BBC in Manchester where it was suggested there would be work for him after he went to university to do his degree. He studied at King’s College London (KCL) but then found himself unsure of what his next move should be.

He said: “My career has been about following little threads that appear to me. It’s about being in the right place at the right time and speaking to the right people.”

He found himself chatting one night to a friend who worked at British Airways and it was mentioned that they were recruiting. Deciding to jump at a chance to see the world, he spent much of his time as cabin crew flying to Middle Eastern destinations including Beirut in Lebanon and Damascus in Syria, which made a huge impression on him.

He said: “It was such a totally different world. The food, the culture, the environment. It totally expanded my horizons, particularly the food.”

At that time he was living near Heathrow Airport and his landlord had a factory which made industrial rubber floor coverings. One evening over a cup of tea the question was put to Alex if he would be interested in setting up a company to import and sell the flooring in the UK.

“Me being me, I said: ‘Why not? Let’s give it a go,” Alex remembered. In nine years the business grew into a major player in the sector with around 650 different retailers stocking the products. But then came the big recession and financial crash which would ultimately spell disaster for the firm.

Alex said: “One of our big customers went bust owing us an absolute fortune. It knocked us for six. We tried to carry on trading but it was absolutely impossible. That was the lowest point of my career. We had family members working there, a guy who had knocked on the door the week we opened so had been with us from day one. Telling him we couldn’t employ him any more was horrible.”

How did Alex get back into broadcast engineering work?

That left Alex looking back at his original career aim of broadcast engineering, and he managed to find his way into the industry after speaking to someone who brought celebrities over to the UK for nights in theatres where they would discuss their lives and careers for their fans and answer people’s questions.

Alex provided lighting, sound technology, production for events allowing fans to find out more about the lives of the likes of Hulk Hogan, Whoopi Goldberg and Michael Douglas.

However, the precarity of the showbiz world soon started to be a problem and it was on a milestone birthday holiday in Portugal that he would stumble across a video online that would ultimately lead him into his current line of work.

He said: “I was absolutely in my element doing those theatre evenings but those gigs were so few and far between. I wasn’t really making a living.

“I went on holiday for my 40th birthday and was lying by the pool flicking through Facebook when I saw a video on how to use leftovers to make lunch for the next day. You got your ingredients, put them in the fridge then poured on boiling water and it was a fresh meal. I thought it was a good idea and something I could turn into a business.

“I made up some samples and gave them to my sister and her kids. They absolutely loved them. That was how I developed Soop.”

How did Alex create Soop and then sndwch?

Starting out creating recipes at his kitchen table in his Manchester home, Alex developed Soop by pushing the idea on social media, allowing people to place orders online and then heading out and about around Manchester on his bike to deliver the food to his first customers. He admits his two-wheeled, pedal-power service was “hard work, particularly in winter”.

Alex’s determination to get into food for a living drew on two experiences: his time in the Middle East as an airline employee and his mum’s home-cooking back in Burnley.

The business established a range of six flavours, with the foods having significant Asian influence, and they started to become much more commonplace in Manchester after Alex introduced them to the owner of Ancoats General Store, who loved the idea and helped to grow the distribution network.

The business grew quickly and in 2018 won six gold stars at the Great Taste Awards. Then, though, Covid hit in early 2020. For Alex this was a devastating blow as offices in Manchester city centre shut their doors and employees all retreated to working from home due to the pandemic.

Not long after lockdown started, though, Alex got another call from the Ancoats store group, this time to say that their sandwich supplier was one of the victims of the economic turmoil which the novel coronavirus brought.

Alex said: “He asked me if I could start making sandwiches, and as I had the kitchen space I said yes. I had moved into a commercial kitchen by this point and so sndwch was born.

“I’ve always been disappointed by the sandwiches in stores. They’re what I would call motorway service station or petrol forecourt sandwiches, and they’re a bit drab and uninspiring. People deserve better than that.

“I wanted to make the kind of sandwiches people would make at home, with nice bread and locally-sourced fillings. They would be fresh every morning and delivered that same day. We wanted to create sandwiches people would want to eat rather than them being a necessity.”

Sndwch quickly flourished and now has its lunch offerings on the shelves at a variety of stores in Manchester as well as having its own cafe at MediaCity UK in Salford.

Between Soop and Sndwch, though, came a brief lockdown business to provide people with roast dinners.

Alex said: “I was sat at home one day and really fancied a Sunday roast. My partner doesn’t eat a lot of read meat, I fancied roast beef and I didn’t want to make two different ones. I looked on Deliveroo and nobody did a roast.

“At this point the kitchen was sat there empty so we decided to start doing takeaway Sunday roasts. It went crazy. People absolutely loved it. The first Easter Sunday of lockdown there were four of us in the kitchen and we did 300 roasts. We had to change the paper for the receipts, it just kept spitting out orders.

“It was good fun but hard work. People still ask about the roasts now, but as things opened up again that went down while the sandwiches started to go up again.”

What is it like to run a food business in Manchester?

Alex says he is delighted to be part of the city’s food scene and is particularly grateful to the Store Group for its stalwart support for his businesses and products.

He said: “The whole food scene in Manchester is incredible. We have such an amazing resource on our doorstep. The support we have had has been incredible.

“Manchester is just one of those cities where people really respond to what you are doing and really want to use local suppliers and products, There’s also a great sense of community here, people love supporting independent businesses.”