2019
CHAPTER ONE
A small shop in Brick Lane.
Two cousins, one rented unit, and a freezer full of doubts. Imran had spent
fifteen years in his father's butcher shop in Karachi. Yusuf had just finished
his food science degree at King's. They pooled their savings and opened on a
rainy October Saturday with a sign that read: "Halal meat. Done right."
The first month was quiet. By the third, queues had started forming on Friday afternoons.
People came for the chicken thighs and stayed for the conversation.
£3,200 first month revenue
2021
CHAPTER TWO
The first Welsh farm.
Two years in, we drove to a hill farm in Powys to meet Dafydd Pritchard.
He'd been raising lambs on the same land his grandfather had. We didn't sign
a contract that day — we shook hands over tea in his kitchen.
That handshake is still the relationship today. Twelve farms in twelve different
valleys, each one chosen the same way: meeting the farmer first, the animal second.
2023
CHAPTER THREE
The chilled box that travels.
The hardest thing about expanding beyond London was protecting the meat in transit.
We spent eight months testing insulated packaging, ice-pack ratios, and route planning
with a delivery company in Birmingham who told us we were "thinking like restaurants, not retailers."
He was right. We started shipping nationwide that autumn. The boxes still arrive
at 2–4°C, every time, anywhere in the UK.
98.4% arrive perfectly chilled
2026
CHAPTER FOUR · TODAY
Where we are now.
Twelve thousand families across the UK now have Nova in their fridge.
We've added beef, chicken, goat, and fish to the lamb we started with. Eight people
in our Brick Lane shop, twelve farms, one master butcher with twenty-two years on the block.
But the promise is the same as it was that rainy October Saturday: do it properly,
every time. We're not the cheapest. We're not the biggest. We're the ones who
give a damn about every cut.
22 yrs master butcher experience
