Ocean Basket CEO Grace Harding eager to close the seafood market gap in the UK

It would take some kind of talent – and chutzpah – to sell ice to Eskimos, but a South African trying to sell fish and chips to the Brits takes that marketing cheek to a new level.

Grace Harding has both talent and chutzpah, an energy that would exhaust the Duracell Bunny, but also a way of dealing with challenges, including taking her household name restaurant, Ocean Basket, to the home of the quintessential British meal.

It’s a lot bigger than just fish and chips, though, says Harding about the new Ocean Basket in Bromley.

“We’re taking affordable, quality, generous portions of seafood to the Brits. There is a gap in the market. When it comes to seafood in the UK, you get fish and chips at one end of the spectrum and then upmarket restaurants – and nothing in between which offers an affordable, laid-back eating experience, Mediterranean-style…”

And, South Africans can do laid-back in ways which can sometimes disturb the starchy Brits.

Harding says that the Ocean Basket restaurants are not quiet places and that energy has opened the eyes of some of their English customers… as has the South African (and Mediterranean) method of dispatching prawns: “The UK consumer is used to a ‘fancy’ seafood experience. We are encouraging eating with your hands, peeling the juicy prawns and crunching on the shells. Quite a wild experience it seems.”

Slowly, the Brits are catching on to a Med experience in Bromley, as they did with Nando’s, another hugely successful South African food export which showed the UK consumer how to devour peri-peri chicken in a lively environment.

What has been interesting – and touching – for Harding and the SA staff who had been temporarily seconded to help start up UK operations, has been the incredible fan-like support from the South African expats.

“They were our first guests who welcomed us with open arms and so much nostalgia. Some even went back to hug our SA back of house specialists. They miss home and Ocean Basket reminds them of home…”

Harding clearly relishes the challenge the company’s UK invasion presents – and they have secured their second site, in Kingston – due to open late September 2022.

The US is also in her sights, she says. Is it empire building? No, no, no.

“We are a challenger brand and have aspirations to bring our spirit and distinctive offering to the world, bringing the concept to new audiences and, above all, by always looking to improve.”

Ocean Basket focuses on one protein (seafood) and that is the magic: “It keeps us distinctive, and we are always searching for different sustainable species to add to the menu.”

This push to succeed, one might surmise, could be due to her upbringing – after all, spending time in a Jewish children’s home in Johannesburg implies abandonment.

An orphan, perhaps. But she says the opposite is true. In her straightforward manner, Harding says she and her sister spent seven months in the institution when her mother was hospitalised with mental health problems and could not care for the girls.

“I visited her often and got to know that mental health issues are real and also that they are often misunderstood…”

From her mother, who was born in Egypt and who spoke a number of languages, she got her creativity and her need to work with people, she says. From her father, an immigrant from Lithuania, she got her entrepreneurial flair… as well as her ability to deal with the tough side of life.

“He was an amazing salesman – a real smous, if you like – but he also flew a bit close to the wind, which meant we were often visited by the sheriff of the court, wanting to repossess our stuff. That’s where I learned to negotiate.” She adds:

“The Ocean Basket founders and their mother, Liza Lazarides, have been the inspiration behind the brand and me. I feel at home heading up this incredible brand on their behalf.”

Before Ocean Basket, Harding ran her own employee engagement consultancy. She says: “In this world of tech, AI, Metaverse and systems, the need for people to make things happen is an even bigger focus. We are in the people business – we just happen to prepare and serve food. People skills are no longer the soft skills – they are the hardest skills ever.”

Harding also played a major role in setting up an independent body for the restaurant business in May 2020, pushing hard for the relaxation of the early Covid restrictions, but more so focusing on uplifting the sit-down restaurant industry.

She doesn’t believe the industry lost money: “It has not been lost in my eyes – it just did not come in. The past two years have been an incredible education for our industry and business. I see it as an investment in pausing, thinking, focusing and building even greater things.”

As a successful woman in business, Harding is often asked to speak in public… but sometimes she wonders if she is being typecast. Certainly, the senior men in the Ocean Basket business, she believes, “don’t look at me as Grace the woman, but as Grace the CEO.”

One thing that none of those who work with her can doubt is her passion for the brand.

Sitting down for lunch at the Ocean Basket in Rosebank, she proudly shows off dishes old and new, getting up every now and then to chat to staff.

It sounds like a cliché, but if the secret to happiness is doing what you love and loving what you do, then Grace Harding’s enthusiastic smile and laughter proves it.

But then, she’s up and away. People to meet, deals to do. Other places to conquer.