After a gruelling experience on The Apprentice, one Cumbrian business is going from stength to strength.

Director and co-founder of The Cumbrian Sausage, Oliver Nohl-Oser has seized the limelight and the new found awareness of his brand to build a stronger foothold in the market.

Despite going out of the competition in just three weeks, the entrepreneur has seen an increase in awareness of his business as well as more companies looking to stock The Cumbrian Sausage’s products.

Mr Nohl-Oser was speaking to in-Cumbria as part of our “10 minutes with” series.

So, who is Oliver Nohl-Oser?

Basically in a nutshell, I work with a group of experienced butchers called Taste The Lakes who are based over in Maryport and we manufacture award-winning sausages and bacon.

Our products can be found in retailer in the UK including Ocado and 40 Tesco branches across the North West as well as exporting to Waitrose Dubai.

It’s growing slowly but surely, in the 11 years it’s been continually growing and we’re hoping to achieve a listing in 250 stores in Tesco by April.

We’ve had a lot of ups and downs, starting out in farmer’s markets showcasing Cumbrian markets

How did you start out in business?

We began initially in 2006, we were showcasing lots of other producers and supplying delis and in the capital and we found that delis weren’t ordering enough to make it worthwhile so we started supplying to restaurants who are more likely to order larger quantities.

Then we went onto farmer’s markets and it was 2011 we got our first supermarket listing in Waitrose in the North East.

We’re now trying to grow it and while it’s not easy, we’re keeping at it.

I was very interested in food, I initially studies land management at university and I do think we were slightly ahead of the game because in the last five years similar businesses have started being set up.

The business' Cumbrian links.

Being half from Cumbria, and with so much fantastic food that needed showcasing I thought it would be best to give it a go.

We’ve got a small office in Penrith, but we work remotely. We are looking at maybe taking a stake in one our supplier’s business’ who have about eight shops.

So that’s really good, and it’s really good to be giving back to Cumbria and supporting livelihoods up there.

Increased awareness of the brand

We have slightly reduced our pricing in Tesco, but we’ve seen a 30 per cent increase in sales just from The Apprentice.

We’re benchmarking against the Tesco Finest range and we’re still pulling in pre-Christmas levels of sales and this is traditionally a quieter time of year.

I seem to be getting a lot of interest across social media from people who have seen me on the show and want to know where they can find the sausages.

As I said, there’s a lot of things in the pipeline for this year and my wife and I, Lucy, and we’re getting a lot of paid appearances doing cookery demonstrations and that in itself will further increase the brand awareness of the country.

We’re not there yet, it’s going in the right direction.

How The Apprentice was edited

I think they portrayed me in a very good light, it could have been awful but it was well put together.

I was head to head with Alana in the week in which I was fired and she went on to win it. She’s quite a long way behind me in terms of where our businesses are so maybe I was looking at the task with a different view and that’s why I didn’t end up winning that task.

A lot of people said that I should have stayed, but I think it’s been great publicity and after speaking to Alana this week, she said that she would keep Lord Sugar informed as to where I am and where the busienss is.

I think we’ll just continue to go in the right directions and make a go of it.