Expanding Spar c-store group Eat 17 has dipped its toe into the wholesale meat market with the signing of a south-east London retailer as its first customer.

Spar Brockley, which specialises in artisan products, will be taking stock of its first consignment from Eat 17 this Friday.

Eat 17 will restock and rotate the products that will be carried in one-and-a-half chillers.

Spar Brockley owner Peter Patel said Eat 17 would come every other day to restock and rotate the supply of meat that it would pre-pack for the shop.

Peter anticipated about 20 different lines. “We were using another butcher but we found sales had been dropping and dropping and they weren’t local. We wanted something more local so we thought Eat 17 would provide a good opportunity.”

The store already sells Eat 17’s Bacon Jam supplied through Blakemore’s Fine Foods division.

James Brundle, co-founder of Eat 17, which has three stores in Whitstable, Kent, and Hackney and Walthamstow, in east London, said his company was using the Brockley store as “a bit of a testbed” for possibly supplying other London convenience stores – not necessarily just Spars.

“We would be open to look at other retailers provided it’s a high quality retailer because our meat is higher quality and we do our own Eat 17 branding. We’ve got a huge range but we will have to get the balance right on what’s selling and what’s not,” he said.

Eat 17 butcher manager Jason Turner (pictured) said the company only offered free-range meats from small UK farms which he personally hand-picked for the good quality of the meat and high animal welfare.

Brockley would stock all cuts of chicken, beef, lamb, pork, hand-made gluten-free sausages and sausage rolls, Turner said.