Some snack brands begin with market data.
Club Salami began with a grain silo, a farm in Hertfordshire, and a founder who had never planned to work in food at all.
Today, the brand is building something that feels unusually fresh in the meat snacking category: sliced salami designed for everyday eating, high in protein, under 100 calories, full of flavour, and packaged for life on the move.
It sits somewhere between premium charcuterie and functional snacking, offering consumers something many existing meat snacks struggle to deliver: real texture, strong flavour, and convenience without compromise.
But to understand why Club Salami feels different, it helps to start long before the first pack is sealed.
Before Club Salami, There Was a Farm, and a Complete Career Change
Part of what makes Club Salami so compelling is that it did not begin inside a food business.
Before entering the industry, founder Tony Charalambides spent 20 years in construction.
When he and his wife moved to their farm in Hertfordshire around eight years ago, the original plan was simple: create a new lifestyle and make use of the land. His wife built a livery yard for horses, while Tony looked at the old buildings across the property and started thinking about what they could become.
One building in particular changed everything.
A disused grain silo sitting on the farm gave him an unexpected idea.
“One day I was walking past this grain silo and I thought, I could smoke meat in there.”
That single moment led to the creation of The Greek Farmer, Tony’s first charcuterie brand. He converted the silo into a smokehouse, transformed old barns into a production facility, and taught himself an entirely new trade from scratch.
At the time, he knew almost nothing about charcuterie.
He travelled to Cyprus, studied traditional curing methods, explored spice blends, and learned how Mediterranean meat products were made at source. Slowly, he began building recipes inspired by those traditions but adapted for the British palate. The Greek Farmer quickly became known for artisan products with strong flavour identity, winning awards and building a loyal customer base. But success also revealed a limitation.
The products were premium, slow to produce, and designed for occasional indulgence rather than daily convenience. Tony could see there was room for something else.
Why Club Salami Needed to Exist
Club Salami was created to solve a very specific gap in the market.
Tony had always been interested in health and fitness. With a background in Taekwondo, gym culture, and active living, protein snacks had long been part of his own routine. But over time, many of the products he used to rely on no longer appealed to him.
Protein bars, powders, and dairy-heavy snacks increasingly felt difficult to tolerate, and ingredient lists often raised more questions than reassurance. At the same time, meat snacks already on the market did not fully convince him either. Jerky and biltong offered protein, but often at the expense of texture and enjoyment.
“It felt like there was something missing.”
That missing product became Club Salami: a snack with strong nutritional credentials, but made through a slower, more flavour-led process than most of the category.
The goal was simple: create something that could be eaten anywhere: after a workout, at a desk, on a train, in a vending machine, or as part of a quick lunch.
A Different Kind of Meat Snack
Club Salami is often compared to jerky or biltong, but the eating experience is fundamentally different.
Where many meat snacks are matured quickly over a few days, Club Salami takes between four and six weeks to produce. That slower aging process changes everything.
It creates a softer texture, a fuller mouthfeel, and a much more satisfying bite than the dry toughness consumers often associate with meat snacking.
“Because it’s salami, it’s been slowly aged and slowly matured, which gives it a much nicer mouth feel.”
That difference matters because texture is often what decides whether consumers return to a savoury protein snack or not.
Club Salami was built to feel more enjoyable, not simply functional. It offers protein, but it still feels indulgent enough to want again.
Built from Proven Recipes, Adapted for Everyday Retail
Club Salami did not start with entirely new recipes. Instead, Tony looked at what already worked.
Three of the strongest-performing salamis from The Greek Farmer became the foundation for the snack range. But each had to be adapted carefully to work commercially as a faster-moving, more accessible product.
Certain production elements were removed to make the product scalable and cost-effective.
Wine used in the original charcuterie range was replaced with water. Smoking was removed. Ingredient costs were simplified where possible without losing flavour identity.
What remained was the essence of the original recipes, but reworked for a broader audience.
Three Flavours, Designed to Appeal Without Overcomplicating the Launch
The launch range focuses on three distinct flavour profiles:
Garlic & Paprika
A broad-appeal flavour and likely the most immediate entry point for many customers. Balanced, familiar, and easy to understand.
Cumin & Cayenne
A warmer, deeper profile inspired by one of Tony’s strongest original spice blends, designed for consumers looking for something bolder.
Fennel & Oregano
More herb-led, aromatic, and distinctive — a flavour expected to perform particularly well with customers looking for something lighter and more Mediterranean.
Tony deliberately resisted launching too many variations too early.
“I always knew we had to keep the SKUs low.”
The intention was to give enough variety for consumers to find a favourite, without creating complexity before the brand had fully established itself.
A fourth SKU is already being explored: truffle, positioned as a more premium future addition.
Fourteen Months of Development to Reach the Right Nutritional Balance
Although the product appears simple, the development process was not.
Club Salami took around 14 months to refine.
The flavour direction came relatively quickly because the foundation already existed through The Greek Farmer. What took longer was achieving the right fat balance, lean ratio, and nutritional outcome.
Tony was determined that each pack should stay below the psychological 100-calorie threshold while still delivering strong protein content.
The final result landed where he wanted it:
- Under 100 calories per pack
- Around 13–14g protein
- 36g serving size
“We managed to get the calories below 100 calories, which was very important to me.”
That nutritional profile became central to the brand’s positioning because it allows Club Salami to compete not only against meat snacks, but also against protein bars and convenience snacks more broadly.
Recyclable Packaging That Had to Work as Hard as the Product
Recyclable Packaging was one of the most important parts of bringing Club Salami to life.
Unlike The Greek Farmer, where products are vacuum packed, Club Salami needed a format designed specifically for convenience.
Vacuum packing compresses slices, causes oils to move to the surface, and often makes meat difficult to separate cleanly.
That would not work for a modern snack product.
Tony needed packaging that kept slices dry, protected quality, and made the product easy to enjoy straight from the pack.
Gas flushing became essential.
The pack had to maintain freshness, preserve appearance, and deliver a better user experience than traditional formats.
“To have a snacking brand, you needed something that was convenient.”
The final pack also helped avoid one of Tony’s biggest concerns: greasy fingers.
For a product designed to be eaten at desks, in gyms, or while travelling, that detail mattered more than many consumers would realise.
A Soft Launch That Changed Important Decisions
Before committing fully to launch, Tony sent samples to around 1,000 existing customers from The Greek Farmer database.
The exercise was costly, but invaluable.
It answered several practical questions immediately.
One of the biggest involved the resealable zipper originally included in early packaging.
Consumer feedback was clear: the pack was too small to need it.
Removing the zipper reduced cost, simplified packing, and improved machine efficiency.
The same process also shaped naming decisions.
Some early flavour names felt creative internally, but customers did not understand them.
That feedback led Tony to move toward clearer, flavour-first naming.
“I knew these things had to be removed, but I wanted confirmation from the people who were actually going to eat it.”
The feedback on visual identity was overwhelmingly positive.
Consumers described the packs as bold, fun, and highly visible on shelf.
Early Pricing Decisions Guided by Real Customer Feedback
The same sample campaign also helped set pricing.
The original target retail price was £3 per pack.
But customer responses showed hesitation at that level.
A significant majority said they would buy at £2.50, but not necessarily at £3.
That small difference shaped the final decision.
Tony moved the target retail price to £2.50, giving Club Salami a stronger competitive position without weakening the premium feel.
Strong Early Signals Before Full Launch
Even before the official retail launch, Club Salami started generating unusual attention.
A LinkedIn post about the brand became Tony’s strongest-performing post to date and triggered direct inbound interest from wholesalers.
“It was the most views and comments I’ve ever had from a LinkedIn post.”
That attention quickly translated into conversations with buyers and retail partners.
The business also secured its first vending machine contract before launch, confirming one of Tony’s earliest assumptions: the format fits perfectly into spaces where savoury protein options are currently limited.
Built to Scale Beyond the Farm
One of the biggest strategic differences between Club Salami and The Greek Farmer is scalability.
The Greek Farmer remains deeply artisanal and tied to highly specific production methods.
Club Salami was designed differently.
It keeps strong flavour identity and product quality, but uses a format that can eventually be co-manufactured more easily and expanded internationally.
That flexibility matters because Tony sees the brand as much more than a UK niche product.
“I can see within ten years it going globally.”
For him, Club Salami is not simply a second food business.
It is the brand with the clearest path to becoming something much larger.
Bold, Nutritious, Tasty
When asked to describe Club Salami in three words, Tony answered simply:
Bold. Nutritious. Tasty.
It is difficult to improve on that summary.
Because at its core, Club Salami does exactly what many successful food brands aim for: it makes something practical feel exciting, and something nutritious feel genuinely enjoyable.
And in a crowded snack market, that combination is rare.
Speed. Quality. Flexibility. It’s time to expect more from your packaging.
Talk to our team and discover how ePac can help you grow without compromise.