CAIRN ENERGY CHAIRMAN BREAKS BREAD IN SPANISH SUPERMARKETS
A RED-LETTER day for Sir Bill Gammell yesterday, as the fast-growing food brand backed by the Cairn Energy chairman announced expansion into its second international market.
Under a deal with French supermarket giant Carrefour, Genius Foods, the gluten-free grocery range in which Gammell is the largest single investor, will be available in the chain’s 350 Spanish stores by the end of March.
The brand was launched in 2009 by Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne, after she failed to find good quality gluten-free bread for her coeliac son, and Gammell, who is also gluten-intolerant, was the first to put up funds.
Since then, Genius has become the leading gluten-free brand in the UK, with a 53 per cent market share in the Free From bread category and ambitions to go global. Genius launched into North America last year through a joint venture with Glutino, and is now eyeing the rest of Europe as its next major area of growth.
Overseeing the investment is Gammell’s wife Janice, a fundraising consultant, while Roz Cuschieri, the former commercial director of bread-maker Warbutons, sits on the board as a director.
SARKOZY SIGNS ON
NOTHING like an election to focus the mind. So it was better late than never when Nicolas Sarkozy (below) yesterday made his debut on Twitter with two months to go until polling day.
Despite putting out just two tweets, by the end of the day the French president, who announced his intention to run for a second term last night on French TV channel TF1, had 47,000 followers… and counting.
“Hello everyone,” he opened. “Thank you to everyone who will kindly follow me,” signing off each post “NS” to reassure supporters the @NicolasSarkozy account is genuine.
Many rushed to retweet their support – including his ex-wife Cecilia Attias, who wrote magnanimously: “Good luck to Nicolas Sarkozy, who is starting his campaign today.” Angela Merkel, however, was less amused by the microblogging milestone.
“Twitter used to be the one place I was safe from @NicolasSarkozy,” she complained – although it was, of course, a fake account set up in the German chancellor’s name.
MEDIA EXECUTIVE
ANOTHER board-level appointment for Charles Gurassa.
The Capitalist hears the easyJet deputy chairman, last seen in robust discussions with the airline’s founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou over executive pay, has joined Parthenon Media Group as non-executive chairman.
Parthenon, which makes and distributes factual and children’s TV, has ambitions to become a global brand, so Gurassa’s City credibility is a bonus for the independent company, says CEO Carl Hall. “We believe Charles’s chairmanship of other leading media businesses will help us accelerate our expansion,” says Hall of the executive who formerly chaired Virgin Mobile, LoveFilm and Phones4U.
BOAT RACE
ALL ABOARD at Aberdeen Asset Management, which is supporting an eight-man team attempting to break the world record for the fastest row across the Atlantic.
The team includes Toby Wallace, an employee in Aberdeen’s Philadelphia office, who put on forty pounds to prepare for burning off 8,000 calories a day as the crew aim to complete the 3,000-mile crossing in less than 30 days. “I expect to be seasick, sleep-deprived, hallucinate and lose 20 per cent of my body weight,” said the 6’7’’ senior relationship manager cheerfully as he set off from Gran Canaria yesterday.
Wallace is supporting the Kirsten Scott Memorial Trust, set up in support of his colleague Kirsten who died of cancer last autumn aged 25. To donate, email carmensquillante@aol.com
HOME COOKING
IT WAS originally scheduled to open last November, but Mari Vanna, the first London restaurant from Russian hospitality operators Ginza Project, has finally opened its reservations line and is taking bookings from 1 March.
The 116 Knightsbridge restaurant, owned by Ginza’s founders Vadim Lapin and Dmitry Sergeyev with property developer Luca del Bono, is named after a mythical woman who welcomed diners into her home and fed them traditional Russian food.
The real-life Mari Vanna is chef Sasha Belkovich, who has been training his on-site team to cook authentic Russian cuisine – with influences from Georgia, Armenia and Uzbekistan – at the venue adorned with Russian bears, dolls and literature.