REVOLUTIONISING the UK’s snack industry just isn’t enough for former England Sevens and Gloucester Rugby player Charlie Simpson Daniel as he moves to tackle the drinks industry sugar crisis with his latest York-based venture.

The former University of York student has seen his dried meat business Kings become the UK’s number one beef jerky and biltong brand after tapping into a market for protein rich snacks.

As production increases at the Moor Monkton manufacturing facility to accommodate a new product range launch, Charlie is continuing on his mission to deliver the next generation offerings for the food and drink industry with his new business Revolution Waves.

The self confessed start-up enthusiast has teamed up with friends, England Sevens Olympic silver medalist Dan Norton, and former international cricketer Phil Raikes to bring to market a new zero sugar, low calorie drinks range.

Headquartered at York Science Park, Revolution was officially launched in September last year and has already secured a regional listing with supermarket giant Tesco supplying 32 stores in Yorkshire, which sees ten per cent of every sale donated to NHS charities.

Charlie said: “The journey I have been on with Kings has been incredible but I did love that start up phase.

“I decided that I wanted to incorporate into my next business venture the idea of having a business that’s about more than just making profit. That belief system was born into Revolution Waves.

“The NHS was very much at the centre of that in light of the sugar epidemic. It’s a real unpleasant industry which is impacting upon NHS services, and the drinks sector plays its part in the blame.

Drawing on Phil’s soft drinks industry experience from working with Coca Cola, and attracting an early investor who had previously supported Kings, Charlie and his team set about designing the brand and working with focus groups to fine tune the plans.

Charlie said: “It has been really well received. Schools especially have embraced it and we now work with around ten schools in Yorkshire, and that’s expanding every week.

“Major retail is another key market. Tesco has been amazing, they are very much at the forefront in terms of zero sugar.

“Our aim is to go national with Tesco, and at the moment we’re hitting the targets needed for that, so if we keep that up we could be on the shelves in October.

“It’s very refreshing to be back in that startup environment.”

Charlie is hoping to repeat the success he has enjoyed with Kings, which he launched in 2012 with his brothers Mark and James from a small manufacturing facility near Malton, before a buy out by New World Foods in November 2014, with Charlie retaining a directorship.

After qaudrupling sales since its launch, and growing to supply the “big four” supermarket chains, as well as other high street retailers including Boots, WH Smith, Waitrose, Aldi,The Co-operative and Iceland among others, production is once again stepping up at Kings with the launch of a new range of chicken-based products, while its original beef and pork snacks continue to increase in popularity, with almost 200 pallets of biltong produced last month alone.

The move into chicken marks a first for the UK chilled snacks industry as Kings continues to grow beyond health and nutrition categorisation and in to general snacking.

Charlie said: “We’ve launched the UK’s first free range chicken snack and have already secured a contract to supply WH Smiths, and will soon be in Asda as well as a trial in Tesco.

“It’s so new as a product and an offering. We see it as a huge area for us to grow in to.

“A lot of the chicken snack products out there at the moment are low quality. We are offering the first free range chicken snack, using 100 per cent British chicken breast. We’re looking to push further what Kings is about - this idea of the next generation of snacking.

“We’re scaling up production at the factory, we’ve added a third Biltong chamber, increasing capacity by 35 per cent, which has bought us a bit of time but we are looking at how we can further expand our manufacturing capabilities.”