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Over 65 years later, the Seymour Mead family are back in the food business with stewed!, a new range of gourmet stews, available in Waitrose, on Ocado.com and now being launched in selected Manchester branches of Sainsbury’s: a fitting return for a descendent of the so-called ‘Sainsbury’s of the North’.
By 1901, Thomas Seymour Mead’s empire had at least 28 stores, according to a receipt owned by Thomas’s great great grandson, Mark Seymour Mead, who is a co-director of stewed! with Alan Rosenthal. In reality, the number of stores was probably closer to 100.
Amazingly, the receipt was given to Mark by his wife for their paper wedding anniversary in 2003. “She phoned up a local historian to source photos of the shops,” he recalls, “and his wife mentioned she had this receipt, which for over 100 years had been used as a bookmark in her mother’s recipe book.”
It is now framed and hangs alongside an original T Seymour Mead’s cocoa advertisement, which, equally curiously, he discovered in a shop in Sydney, Australia. There is no escaping this heritage.
Yet before moving to Manchester ten years ago, Mark knew nothing of his illustrious history. He now lives with his wife Rachel and two daughters on Claremont Grove, Didsbury, ironically just minutes from one of Thomas’s original shops, now O’Neills, on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury Village.
"The name Seymour Mead was a bit of a mouthful,” he admits, “but it has been fascinating hearing local anecdotes, from my plumber who delivered their groceries by bicycle, to my wife's grandmother who used to buy her sweets there and still remembers the shop’s distinctive smell.”
Judging by the breathless success of stewed!’s expanding range of funky, internationally inspired, ready-made stews, those empire-building genes are strong.
"I was researching a food industry start-up idea when I stumbled across stewed!,” Mark explains. “The products were truly delicious, proving that convenience can taste great and needn't be full of rubbish.
“Within just two years, we have moved stewed! from a London farmers' market to the national high street, without compromising on quality, which I think Thomas would have been very proud of.”
stewed! is available from Sainsbury’s stores in Ashley Road, Hale, Piccadilly Station, Whitworth Street, Mosley Street, Quay Street, Deansgate and at ocado.com
website: www.steweduk.co.uk
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