'Everything we deliver is a little bit of us' - This is how TikTok shop helped Wolverhampton brothers make £10,000 of sales on halal meat from high-quality family-run butchers
The brothers behind a family-run butchers and deli offering a high quality offering of halal meat have spoken about how utilising social media has helped put their brand out to a wider audience.
Manny and Adnaan Malik have worked to build an online following for Malik Butchers on Dunstall Road in Whitmore Reans in Wolverhampton since they started a new era for the Halal butchers in 2020.
The brothers had reopened Malik Butchers following a complete renovation of the premises, costing approximately £150,000, giving it a completely new, fresh look and feel with what they described as "finally reflecting and befitting its western style, artisan approach to Halal butchery".
The butcher's has become a place for high quality cuts of meat, sausages and higher end products, such as Saddle of Lamb, Tomahawk Steaks and Côte de Beouf, as well as becoming famous for its deli and outdoor burger hut, with sandwiches such as the Shredded Lamb, Steak 'N' Onion and the premium Wagyu Pastrami all bringing people from far and wide to sample their wares.
This includes the YouTube channel OnlyScrans, which visited Malik Butchers as part of a visit to Wolverhampton and said the food and the banter between the two brothers made the shop a must-visit location.
However, success has taken time and both Manny and Adnaan said that after an initial boom in business, there were plenty of difficult days, with business slow and doubts creeping in about whether their business could keep going or whether it was better to sell up and leave, but their hard work and patience began to pay off.
Manny said: "We started off with a lot of excitement, interaction and engagement with people who wanted to come and shop with us, and we had the initial boost from opening up during Covid because of being one of the places that people could go to.
"We then had that lull where, I would say for a good year and a half, we were struggling and we couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel, but Adnaan's business model was to just turn up, keep the shutters open for business, keep selling and promoting and through an accumulation of work online and using social media, we started to gain momentum.
"There were a few things which worked in our favour, such as appearing at Halal food festivals, which got us known nationally, then we created our own website and started delivering meat to people's doors, then the big thing was our active presence on social media, where we decided to be distinctively unique with how we approached it.
"We employed a bit of a bold social media content strategy that really helped us go viral a few times and that cemented our place in being very busy, popular and well-known and getting to the point now where we've got some huge expansion plans.
