Word of mouth: the man who made pork scratchings Awfully Posh Tom Lock had always chosen pork scratchings over crisps to nibble on while enjoying a pint in a pub. Then two years ago it struck him that while "posh" crisps were invariably on offer, there was never a premium option available of the pork snacks. "I would go into a pub and they'd have Tyrrells crisps and Kettle Chips, but only grimy pork scratchings," he says. That's the reason I started my company - I like pork scratchings, and there was a gap in the market. In 2011 Lock, now 23, launched Awfully Posh. "The name is tongue in cheek," he says. We have taken a lowbrow snack and tried to put a posh twist on it. But it is difficult to make pork scratchings truly posh. Lock uses "good-quality ingredients": Red Tractor assured pork rind from all over Britain - "we only use the belly and shank" - and Anglesey sea salt, and his product contains no additives (there is no rusk filler, either, so Awfully Posh is also gluten- and dairy-free). The rind is twice fried, making it technically "pork crackling." "I never understood why pork-scratching manufacturers added flavour enhancers such as MSG," Lock says. When you roast a pork joint at home and season it only with sea salt, that produces the best crackling. When I approached manufacturers to talk about Awfully Posh, it seemed there was no reason to add extras. We are the first people to add sea salt and nothing else to a pork snack. Lock was living with his parents in Tonbridge, Kent (he now shares a flat with friends in Tunbridge Wells), when the first shipment of Awfully Posh was delivered from his manufacturers in Tamworth, Staffordshire. "I ordered 5,000 bags and they came in plain silver packets," he says. I had stickers printed at a local printing company and had to stick two on every bag myself, one on the front and one on the back. I then loaded up my car and went around all my local pubs offering them on a sale-or-return basis. Every pub - 20 initially - sold its entire batch and wanted more. At the time Lock was working for an educational resources company ("selling toys, but you are not allowed to call them toys") to schools and nurseries. He initially worked flexitime. "My boss was very supportive," he says. But after a few months I had about 100 pubs ordering on a regular basis. It was at this point that he quit his job to concentrate full-time on his business. Lock started with £10,000 of his own money and found two angel investors, who each put £25,000 into Awfully Posh. The company remains essentially a one-man band (although Lock uses an accountancy firm and works with a sales agency). He now sells up to 100,000 bags of pork scratchings each month - to pubs and cash-and-carry wholesalers, as well as Harrods, Harvey Nichols and 200 Waitrose stores - and predicts that Awfully Posh will turn over £250,000 in the next 12 months. After six months selling the original sea salt flavour (which won a Gold Great Taste award in 2011), in early 2012 Lock launched its Scorchingly Hot chilli flavour. "I am now investigating the possibility of doing things such as beef jerky and beef biltong," he says. It is tough establishing a business, but there couldn't be a better time for me to do this: I'm young, not married and have no children. And snack companies continue to do well, even in a recession. Snacks are not something people cut off the list of things to buy when they are trying to save money. Awfully Posh Anglesey Sea Salt Pork Crackling and Scorchingly Hot Pork Crackling, both 89p for 40g, are available in the Free From aisle at Waitrose