From 4am sandwiches to viral snacking sensation, CRIMPiT is building a community across the globe 

Most of us tend to eat the same meal variations on a rotational basis, constantly searching for new ideas to shake up our meal plans. That’s where CRIMPiT comes in; creating innovative kitchen gadgets that change how we think about everyday items like wraps, tortillas, and sandwiches, CRIMPiT is taking the UK and now Europe and the US by storm at just three years old! 

With extensive digital marketing experience, co-founders Mike Harper and Ian Critchlow have grown the business significantly over the last three years through a focus on social media. Mike joins us to elaborate on CRIMPiT’s journey so far. “We wanted to bring new ideas to the market, creating fun and exciting products that haven’t been seen before,” he opens. “The idea for our square CRIMPiT came from Ian making peanut butter and banana sandwiches at 4am for his son, who trained for swimming before college. Ian eventually invented a gadget to make his life easier and I came onboard to help promote the business from a commercial perspective. 

“Our ethos stems from an appreciation of different ways of enjoying meals and snacks, and we wanted to enable people to do things differently, whether as an adult experimenting with unique snacking, using leftovers, making a convenient meal, or getting children involved in the kitchen. By focusing on innovative concepts, we recognized there was no direct competition, and we could bring products to market and get patents, registered designs, and copyright on them.” 

Passion project to national sensation 

On the business side of things, Mike continues: “We launched around three years ago in the UK with just one product for the first 18 months, which was the CRIMPiT Sandwich Thin Sealer for thin sandwiches or low-calorie toasties. Retail has become a much more significant portion of the business as we’ve grown. We started online with just one percent retail in our first year, four percent in the second year, and retail then jumped to around 25 percent of the business in our third year.  

“Lakeland was the first retailer to get in touch with us, and I couldn’t believe they had reached out. Since then, we’ve got partnerships with Oliver Bonas, Robert Dyas, John Lewis, and we’ve just launched in Tesco and Waitrose, meaning we have a much larger distribution network and are stocked in over 1000 stores across the UK. We’re in the process of signing with Argos too, as we identified many customers searching for our products at Argos. We also successfully launched on QVC, one of the UK’s leading television shopping channels, with sales exceeding six times the channel’s predictions for new kitchen gadgets.  

“We’ve very recently launched in Europe and although it’s a positive move so far, we’re still taking time to understand what creatives and marketing work for this geography,” Mike explains. “We’re currently running some digital marketing campaigns and engaging in conversations about retail and television shopping, with the aim of being in retail stores within the next 12 months.  

“America is an exciting, yet challenging market for us; it’s a huge opportunity for growth and innovation. We’ve been trading in the US for around six months now and the business is certainly growing, but one of the challenges is navigating differing preferences across states, as some are more focused on healthy eating or specific cuisines. We’re planning to copy our UK marketing strategy and create a US community of ‘Crimpiteers’ but advertising is around 30-to-40 percent more expensive, so we’re simultaneously building retail relationships with niche kitchenware stores.” 

As social media has played a significant role in the company’s growth, we ask Mike more about this strategy. “We always knew that socials would be a great platform as our product is very visual and its use is easily explained through video,” he states. “However, one of the best things we ever decided to do was inviting people to join a Facebook community once they purchased from us. This has grown mostly organically to around 125,000 customers, or self-named Crimpiteers, in the UK, who upload photos, recipes, and top tips for using our gadgets. We also use influencer marketing, with many influencers reporting their videos of our products as one of their top three performing posts.

The power of people 

“This community is essentially our new product development and innovation arm, as our customers are constantly coming up with new ideas. It also allows us to gain information on when people tend to use our products and their favorite fillings, which not only influences product development but also shapes our marketing message.  

“We also have a customer service team overseeing the community, who report what our customers are asking for. Once we have an idea, we have in-house product designers to work on the design and we create models using a 3D printer. We also have a kitchen set up in the office to test products and make tweaks to the design before we send them to our partner to produce plastic injection molded samples.  

“In terms of influencers, we had several individuals in mind to target and one of our five-year goals was a post from Mrs Hinch, who posted a video of the product just three months after our launch,” Mike recalls. “When Mrs Hinch posted, we operationally broke; our website crashed in seven seconds, and we went from an average of 200 orders per day to 20,000 orders on the day she posted.  

“In our early days, we manufactured in China, but we quickly realized we were constantly chasing our tail for stock and struggling to get issues resolved. We decided to move manufacturing to the UK and establish a distribution network to ensure our infrastructure could cope with further growth. Currently, all our UK products are manufactured in the UK in Stockport, and products for the US market are made in Louisiana.” 

From speaking with Mike, it’s clear to see his passion and dedication for growing CRIMPiT across the UK, Europe, and the US. “This year we’ll continue to push expansion in the US, and as we adapt to this market in terms of resources, we’d like to open some retail doors there by the end of the year,” he says. “Product innovation is also key, and we have two new products launching in 2025, so look out for more details as the year goes on. We’re also building two more film studios to ensure consistent high-quality content production. 

“Further afield, I’d like to see CRIMPiT doing more of the same but hopefully on a much bigger scale,” Mike concludes. “We’ll not only continue bringing innovative products to market but also expand beyond our current markets and adapt to new trends and preferences.”  

www.crimpit.com