News Focus
Community
power
From butcher to his first million
- Ari Feferkorn shows how
communities can help to build
successful events
A
ri Feferkorn, MD of Jtrade is close
to making his first million after
he decided to launch an event for the
Jewish community two years ago. The
28-year-old, who moved to London
from New York nine years ago, started
out as a butcher at a kosher meat plant.
He said: “I started out on the
minimum wage, working long hours
and doing hard, physical work. After
a year I was promoted to factory
manager and two years later I was
offered a job at a construction
company. Within two years I opened
my residential construction business.”
Feferkorn became increasingly aware
that building his business within a
community paid in dividends. He adds:
“70 per cent of my business came from
my community and all of the suppliers
and installers were too. Everyone I
worked with everyone from architects
to solicitors, decorators to scaffolders,
so I decided why not produce an
exhibition called JTrade for the entire
community.”
Feferkorn doesn’t do small, he went
straight to the Business Design Centre:
“People thought I was crazy taking
such a big risk trying to fill a large
venue. Everyone kept telling me it’s
never going to work but I ignored the
voices and decided to go for it.
“I started advertising in local Jewish
papers and teamed up with a fantastic
local ad agency. We had a lot of buzz
around the event, but no signups
14 — February
and I was starting get get incredibly
nervous. I was determined to make it
work, so I started to speak to Jewish
community leaders across the uk, to
spread the word, and I spoke at local
synagogues. I also went to a lot of
networking events reaching out to
people, and slowly the hall started to
fill up.”
He managed to get 180 stands, 3,500
visitors and they were shortlisted for
an EN Award. In 2019, he decided to
expand into ExCeL and secured 280
stands and £600,000 turnover. This
year, he’s targeting 380 stands, 6,000
visitors and £1m turnover.
Feferkorn believes community
events can only grow either though
social platforms or by location. He
adds: “What I have learned it that
community is like family, when you
need a plumber or someone else, who
do you use? Friends or family right?
And we are a very big family with 100
thousand people and it’s very easy to
connect”
JTrade secured a 75 per cent rebook
onsite with glowing testimonials from
exhibition companies that said the
event has a ‘personal touch’.
What next?
“We are launching kTrade, a kosher
food show at ExCeL London this
May, the brainchild of our MD David
Lubelsky, whose family has been in
the food business for over 30 years.
We are bringing together thousands
kosher brands from around the world,
with companies from USA, Europe,
Israel and South Africa.” EN