Brand Growth Heroes: Recent Episodes
Fiona Fitz of Fiona Fitz Consulting
Brand Growth Heroes gets the inside track from founders who are driving the transformational growth of some wildly successful scaling brands in consumer goods categories around the world. This new series is supported by Strong Roots: simple, real food
ODDBOX is a D2C (Direct-to-Consumer) BCorp business with a bold vision: a world where all food grown is eaten.
Husband & wife team Deepak Ravindran and Emilie Vanpoperinghe founded the business 8 years ago, and have allowed their passion for sustainability to design their clever business model.
ODDBOX delivers boxes of fruit, vegetables, and other products that are at risk of waste to their 500,000 D2C customers. Working closely with growers and suppliers, they originally focused on produce that may not meet cosmetic specifications or size requirements set by retailers but is still perfectly good to eat.
In this episode, they share their journey from coming up with the idea for ODDBOX and testing it with 20 customers, to eventually growing the business to £32 million
You’ll learn :
- How they started their business packing ODDBOXes in a local church hall
- How they accessed the cash to fund their spectacular growth
- The importance of their relationships with growers, managing the supply chain and ensuring excellent customer experience
- Their plans for future growth, including their recently launched ODDSHOP and ODDBOX-branded consumer packaged products
- How they implemented geo-targeted marketing strategies, focusing on driving demand in the specific areas where they were delivering their boxes.
- Why traditional marketing methods like leaflet distribution through door-to-door worked well for them
- Their thoughts and experience of the effectiveness of influencer marketing but later found it to be successful in building awareness and trust.
Don't miss your favourite brands talk about how they grew their inspirational businesses!
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As the founder of Veganuary, Veg Capital, Vegan Fried Chick*n or VFC, and most recently a new venture capital fund called Sentient Ventures, Matthew Glover is a business activist and a serial founder whose initiatives have contributed significantly to the changes we are all experiencing in how we eat today.
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In this episode, Matthew shares how he left his career in double-glazing to fight animal cruelty; the exact steps he and his wife took to create the Veganuary movement and, arguably, how it has been the tipping point for the plant-based revolution in our eating habits and in the food industry today. He also tells us why he's made the decision to 'invest in growth up-front' in the VFC (Vegan Fried Chick*n) brand.
Finally, we learn about his venture capital businesses - Veg Capital and Sentient Ventures, including what they look for when evaluating new investments.
I hope you enjoy this latest episode and learn as much as I did recording it!
Get Fiona on your brand team here: The Growth Strategy Programme and Fiona Fitz Consulting
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Wildfarmed is a regenerative food brand bringing together farmers, food businesses and consumers to build the largest soil and biodiversity restoration programme on British arable land. Perhaps more excitingly, they are doing this while making delicious food grown in healthy soils widely available to the high street customer.
Fiona speaks to Edd Lees, who along with Andy Cato of Groove Armada and George Lamb, is one of the co-founders of this revolutionary new business.
Founded in 2018, Wildfarmed’s overriding premise is to 'fix the planet by fixing food'. Wildfarmed prioritises soil health and never uses pesticides, herbicides or fungicides, so the land is left rich for future harvests. This in turn ensures that any Wildfarmed loaf of bread will always be chemical-free and nutrient-dense. There are now 40 farmers growing under contract with Wildfarmed (with an ever-growing waitlist), representing a staggering 1% of British arable land.
Wildfarmed’s first ever bakery partner was Jolene in Newington Green, London and soon Pizza Pilgrims, HIDE, Twelve Triangles, all joined the movement. They’re now up to a total of nearly 230 customers who bake, cook and educate consumers through using Wildfarmed flour.
If you work in the food industry, how can you engage with regenerative farming practices?
Find out more about wildfarmed here.
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waterdrop® is the $100M insurgent beverage brand that may not yet be on your radar...at least if you're based in the U.K.
But you need to be all over it...here's why:
What is waterdrop®?
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waterdrop® is a 'microdrink' company that offers dissolvable cubes of flavour that you can carry with you and drop into tap water whenever you want a drink. Their flavour-cubes are plant-based, sugar-free, and even include vitamins, teas and energy. From a marketing strategy point of view, the cube becomes a carrier to deliver solutions to many different types of people, needs and occasions.
waterdrop®'s purpose is to make it easy for everyone to drink more tap water, more often. The ecosystem of products and 'water-tech' that the company is building in order to deliver on its purpose is so clever that your eyes will water. They are present in 14 countries, and have 25 waterdrop® stores across the world, including a presence in supermarkets and high street beauty stores, as well as concessions in shopping malls. Believe it or not, they are now the largest seller of drinkware in Europe...and they've just launched an intelligent water bottle cap so you can keep track of how much water you're drinking.
The business performance stats are astonishing too. In under 5 years, the company has turned over $100M, with over north of 100M drinks sold. They’ve recently raised a series B round of $60M, to invest in conquering the US market.
We talk to founder Martin Murray about why and how he started the company, the mistakes he made along the way…and something I know you’re going to love – how martin and his co-founders persuaded their co-manufacturers to pay for the machinery and trials they needed to make waterdrop cubes a reality.
What you'll learn in this episode:
- How Martin came up with the idea for waterdrop® while he was on an aeroplane with his mother
- Why it made NO sense for anyone to try and do what they did...
- How they got their co-manufacturer to pay for their R&D and machinery, each time they needed to scale.
- How they are aiming to help more people to drink more clean water, more easily.
- Why D2C was a blue ocean for beverages
- How to create massive barriers to entry to the market you've created
- Why you should never accept the status quo
Find out more about waterdrop® here.
Get Fiona on your brand team here: The Growth Strategy Programme and Fiona Fitz Consulting
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Scott McCulloch and his wife Karris started their vegan subscription box from the living room of their flat in 2013. Nine years later, The Vegan Kind Supermarket is a multi-million pound UK online vegan grocer, the first and largest of its kind.
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In this episode - our first with a grocery retailer - you'll learn:
- Why and how Scott and Karris started their vegan subscription box business - including the steps they took to find their first 50 subscribers
- How the business evolved to become the UK's biggest online exclusively-vegan supermarket
- The exact steps YOU need to take to get YOUR retail buyer's attention...
- Scott's view on what the vegan market/landscape will look like in 5 years' time (and it's radical...)
- How you're going to have to get ready to compete with significant private-label/retailer own-brand vegan ranges over the coming year or so...
- and why the time is right for him and his wife Karris to step back from running the day-to-day of their multi-million pound online supermarket.
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Follow The Vegan Kind Supermarket here.
Come to Fiona's workshop at Bread and Jam Festival in London 18/19 July 2022 here
Learn more about the opportunity to work with Fiona's here: The Growth Strategy Programme and Fiona Fitz Consulting
Don't miss further episodes!
Click the subscribe or 'bell' button beside Brand Growth Heroes on your podcast app to make sure you get the latest from Brand Growth Heroes podcast.
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Follow Brand Growth Heroes on Instagram, Tiktok, Linkedin.
Serial founder and bestselling author Mike Stevens talks to Fiona about his new book 'The Direct-To-Consumer Playbook', and shares his learnings from 20 years in consumer packaged goods - and from being one of the first challenger food brands to sell directly to consumers.
Hear how Mike and his co-founder built a successful DTC business with Peppersmith; why he sold the business; how and why he went about writing his best-selling business book; the secrets to winning at DTC straight from the mouths of the most successful founders and brands in this space...and finally, what Mike would do differently, knowing what he knows now.
What you'll learn :
- When DTC is right for your business - and when it ISN'T.
- What you NEED to figure out to make DTC work financially for your business
- The importance of talking to your consumers on the phone or in-person every week
- What Mike means by 'Having a Brand that Can Tell the Story'
- Why multi-channel is often crucial to winning
- What successful challenger brands are DOING DIFFERENTLY and what YOU can take from their strategies and implement in your own business...NOW.
- What Mike would do differently with all this knowledge and experience under his belt.
Find Mike's book here.
Meet Mike at Bread and Jam Fest here
Come to Fiona's workshop at Bread and Jam Fest here
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The Cheeky Panda is on a mission to transform the type of paper products we all use across Household, Beauty, and Baby products. By using surplus bamboo instead of trees as their raw material, The Cheeky Panda makes products that are kinder to your skin as well as to the planet. In this episode, founders Chris and Julie tell us how and why they set up the business, and how they’ve grown it to £17M in sales in only 6 years, with relatively little external funding.
Find out more about The Cheeky Panda - and try some!
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Discover more about Fiona Fitz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fionafitz/
Discover more about the show: https://www.brandgrowthheroes.com/
Like what you hear & want to work with Fiona, and join a network of hundreds of scaling CPG brands?
Discover her programmes for the founders of consumer/grocery brands below:
- For the founders of SCALING grocery brands: The Growth Strategy Programme: The only online Business Accelerator for scaling consumer packaged goods brands. Read the testimonials here: https://www.fionafitzconsulting.com/courses/brand-growth-strategy-programme
- For EARLY-STAGE brands, try Brand Growth Bootcamp Masterclass Membership - Fiona's classes & group for founders of early-stage startup consumer brands https://fionafitzconsulting.mykajabi.com/offers/eRBTBioC/checkout
Thanks to Strong Roots for supporting series 5 of Brand Growth Heroes.
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How do you build a £20M multi-channel business in just 18 months?
Wild deodorant is the sustainable, natural deodorant that smells good and looks great, delivered straight to your door. Founded by childhood friends Freddy Ward and Charlie Bowes-Lyons only 18 months ago, Wild has sold £20M worth of their deodorant in as many months. How did they do that? Fiona gets a masterclass in building a DtoC business from Freddy Ward. Don't miss this one!
Find out more about Wild Deodorant https://www.wearewild.com/
Follow Wild on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/wildrefill/
Discover more about Fiona Fitz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fionafitz/
Discover more about the show: https://www.brandgrowthheroes.com/
Want to work with Fiona?
Scaling brands:
Join The Growth Strategy Programme: The only online Business Accelerator for scaling consumer packaged goods brands. Read the testimonials here: https://www.fionafitzconsulting.com/courses/brand-growth-strategy-programme
Start-up brands:
Join Brand Growth Bootcamp Masterclass Membership - A monthly masterclass from Fiona for just £49 ...as well as access to her community of founders of early-stage startup consumer brands https://fionafitzconsulting.mykajabi.com/offers/eRBTBioC/checkout
Thanks to Strong Roots for supporting Series 5 of Brand Growth Heroes.
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In the 'No & Low' alcohol category, Seedlip is arguably the original poster child of insurgent brands. Started on a garden table in 2016, it quickly became the world's No 1 distilled non-alcoholic brand. It now sells across 49 countries and has an undisclosed market sales value in the £10s of millions of pounds.
In this episode, founder Ben Branson talks to Fiona about how he developed one of the ultimate disruptive brands; why he got into bed with Big Co (Diageo) so early on; and he talks us through the disruptive way he approaches building culture, people, roles and teams.
They also chat about robot chefs, about how there are 47,000 plant-based ingredients available out there...and Ben tells us about some big, exciting plans for Seedlip coming down the line.
Find out more about Seedlip - and try some! https://www.seedlipdrinks.com/en-us/
Follow Seedlip on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/seedlipdrinks/
Discover more about Fiona Fitz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fionafitz/
Discover more about the show: https://www.brandgrowthheroes.com/
Want to work with Fiona? Discover her programmes for the founders of consumer/grocery brands below:
The Growth Strategy Programme: The only online Business Accelerator for scaling consumer packaged goods brands. Read the testimonials here: https://www.fionafitzconsulting.com/courses/brand-growth-strategy-programme
Brand Growth Bootcamp Masterclass Membership - Fiona's group for founders of early-stage startup consumer brands https://fionafitzconsulting.mykajabi.com/offers/eRBTBioC/checkout
Thanks to Strong Roots for supporting series 5 of Brand Growth Heroes.
★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Sam Dennigan gives Fiona the latest news from Strong Roots HQ, explaining the backstory to their new TV ad; why they've sold a minority stake in the business to McCain Foods; and together Fiona & Sam announce a big piece of shared news: not only is Strong Roots sponsoring Brand Growth Heroes Series 5, but Sam also announces that he is offering a bursary for 2 founders to join The Growth Strategy Programme, Brand Growth Heroes' online business accelerator for the founders of scaling CPG brands.
Brand Growth Heroes catches up with Sam and Strong Roots every 6 months or so. So if you want to follow the growth journey of an insurgent CPG brand in real-time, then check out Strong Root's other interviews on back episodes of Brand Growth Heroes: There's one in Sept 2021, May 2020 and June 2019.
If you're the founder of a scaling consumer goods brand and you'd like to work with Fiona to drive growth for your business, check out The Growth Strategy Programme at https://www.fionafitzconsulting.com/courses/brand-growth-strategy-programme
If it's too early for The Growth Strategy Programme, why not consider joining Brand Growth Bootcamp - Masterclass Membership group.
See you there!
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Hunter and Gather is a cross-category food AND supplement brand that's already achieving a gross sales value of nearly £6 million pounds.
In this episode, clever and passionate founders Amy Moring and Jeff Webster offer us a world-class case study on consumer targeting: if you can pinpoint a group of people who have a specific, higher-order need rooted in health, and you offer them a solution that satisfies this need in a far superior way to alternatives, the rules that the food industry has slavishly followed for 40-50 years can be broken.
We talk half-truths from big food, charging £14 for a jar of mayonnaise, lost ancestral wisdom, and why Hunter & Gather is NOT a vegan brand.
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TRIP is the UK's best-selling CBD drinks company. Since its launch in 2019, UK consumers have spent literally millions of pounds on TRIP's delicious CBD infused canned drinks, as well as on their dinky little dropper bottles of CBD oils.
Fiona speaks to co-founder Olivia Ferdi about leaving her law career to step into the unknown, about how she and her husband have created a mainstream category out of something that had tremendous barriers to purchase up until now, and we learn how the TRIP team have had to drive demand in the old fashioned way through experience and word of mouth rather than through paid advertising.
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Nice describes itself as a 'Future Wine Company'. This modern, accessible brand offers wine in cans AND in boxes, so that you can have a great glass of wine wherever you are... without having to buy or open a whole bottle.
Founders Lucy Wright and Jeremy May talk to Fiona about their massive multi-channel growth since launch, about the consumer and trade customer frictions that they're solving, about how they approached their recent round of funding and finally about the importance they place on people and culture.
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Over the past 20 months, Little Moons has become a national obsession. Although the company was founded in 2010, the brand has only recently brought transformational growth to the nation's favourite frozen category, and now sells tens of millions of pounds of their delicious mochi ice cream across all major supermarkets and foodservice channels... and employs over 300 people.
We talk to sister and brother founders Vivian and Howard Wong about their manufacturing journey; how food service was the right channel for them to build their business initially, and about the business impact of 320 million views on TikTok.
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Tribe is the UK's leading plant-based performance brand, offering a range of bars, active oats and shakes that are super tasty and appeal to more than just serious fitness fanatics.
But more importantly, Tribe is an Impact organisation that began in 2013 with a community long-distance 'Run for Love' to set up the first home for trafficked children in the UK. The product range was launched only after the community had already found a life of it's own, and sales gained serious traction at the beginning of lockdown. With the brand doubling in size, it's now about to hit £6 million in retail sales value at the end of this year.
Tribe really is more than your average challenger brand. It's an ecosystem that includes their food business + their charitable organisation 'The Tribe Freedom Foundation' + the active community the founders have built since their very first run for love in 2013.
I think Tribe has all the makings of a future mega-brand. Why?
- It appeals to a potentially very large market of active people who want to enjoy their food, while making modern choices around nutrition, and ensuring their choices also help people & planet.
- It shows up with a clear and consistent point of view. It started with a social mission, ergo the mission at the centre of the brand is authentic.
- It's visually appealing and has lots of stand-out on-shelf in the categories it's in.
- It's a cross-category brand with a consistent value proposition.
- It's plant-based....but delicious.
This is one to watch.
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Bio&Me offers consumers a range of granolas, porridges mueslis and yoghurts, all of which are allowed to carry the claim 'Good for your Gut'. In this episode:
- Dr. Megan and Jon tell us why Megan started Bio&Me instead of working with some well-known Big Food brands
- The science behind why Bio&Me was the first to be allowed to say that their products are 'Good for your Gut'
- How business is going now, and where it's going to next!
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Dr. Will Breakey is the Co-founder of Dr Will's natural condiments brand.
In this episode you'll hear:
- How Dr Will's is taking on Big Food in the Ketchup & Mayo aisle
- What it's like being a real doctor and the founder of a food company
- About the brand's recent successes on social platforms like TikTok and LinkedIn
- Why did they choose to have a virtual team
- And their recent crowdfunding, that resulted in nearly 800 new investors.
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In this episode, Fiona speaks to Aneisha Soobroyen, founder of the gorgeous pet food brand Scrumbles, food for cats and dogs that's good for their gut AND good for the planet.
Hear how 'pretty poos' are driving category growth, how Scrumbles competes in the highly competitive pet food category against global players, what it's like to work with your husband... and why they decided to raise funds early on in their growth journey.
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Strong Roots has strong plans to hit £100 million in sales over the next few years.
In this third episode together, the founder Sam Dennigan and I discuss HOW they're going to do this.
So if you want to hear what big-ticket innovation really means, how Sam and his team are approaching international expansion in both the USA and Europe, how their foray into Dark Kitchens in New York City is going AND why they've brought their creative agency in-house - and how that works - then don't miss this!
https://www.strongroots.com/usa/
https://www.instagram.com/strongrootsusa/
https://www.facebook.com/strongrootsirl
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You may not know their names yet, but you certainly know the first of their €50M brands.
Niall McGrath and Tom Gannon are legends in the Irish Consumer Goods industry, but in all fairness, they should actually be named and recognised as Consumer Goods brand-legends globally.
The Founders of Fulfil Nutrition protein bars, they built this business to €60M in the 2 years after launch, and ranking in the Top 5 brands in Ireland.
How did they do this? They are proud to have taken a systematic, strategic approach to brand building, an almost geeky dedication to The 4Ps and Byron Sharp's rules for Brand Growth. Listen and weep at just how systematic serious success might need to be!
Cali Cali Foods
Instagram Cali Cali
Fulfil Nutrition
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Natasha Bowes, the founder of innovative Kefir company Biotiful Dairy, shares the spellbinding business story behind the brand's success. It's a story that highlights the dedication, hard work, and obsessional focus on product quality that's necessary to become a brand leader in today's competitive marketplace. With a portfolio of 7 ranges and market retail sales value of around £30M, this is a brand we're going to see a lot more of in the future.
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Minor Figures is the secret success story and insurgent brand that I really wasn't all that aware of before now.
At its origin, Minor Figures is a coffee business that was started in 2013 by barista friends Jonathan Chiu, Stuart Forsyth and Will Rixon. But although its original home was in the food service channel, in recent years a tremendous amount of growth has come from the Oatmilk category in Grocery Retail.
The business now has retail sales of around £30M, employs 71 people across 3 offices, and is selling in over 25 countries across the globe..
Fiona speaks to Commercial Director Ben Vear, who along with his team has been behind much of this transformational growth.
instagram: https://www.instagram.com/minorfigures/
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/minorfigures
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Fiona talks to Alex Smith, the founder of innovative Strategy Consultancy Basic Arts.
A TedEx veteran, Alex has got some really interesting and different ideas around how a brand can create uncontested market space, how we should all avoid the current trend of 'Blanding', and how Brand Purpose has been hijacked.
I came across Alex's Ted talk when I was deepening my understanding of Blue Ocean strategy or how to compete in uncontested market spaces, and you can find it here.
Alex has a a great weekly newsletter and an email-based short-course that will stretch your strategic brain, which you can sign up for here
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At the start of this episode we advertise The Growth Strategy Programme. Here’s the link to sign up for a discovery call and
Recruiting NOW for June/July Cohort:
https://www.fionafitzconsulting.com/courses/brand-growth-strategy
How do you grow a branded beverage business that is described by the The Grocer magazine as the brand that the traditional category brand leaders now have to challenge?
Dash Water is a delicious range of canned infused sparkling water without any sugar or sweetener, made with wonky fruit and veg and thereby saving hundreds of tons of food waste every year!
Founded in 2017 by Alex Wright and Jack Scott, both originally from farming backgrounds, Dash's retail sales are tracking at around £10M, and the brand boasts the leading market share in its category (37%).
Dash is now available in 5,000 stores across the EU. In the UK you can find Dash at Sainsbury's, British Airways, Boots, Ocado and Amazon.
In this episode we talk about the importance of sustainability at the core of their business, about how Alex and Jack invested a lot of time and shoe-leather driving brand awareness and trial from the ground up, as well exploring their very recent launch into the Soda Water market.
Dash instagram https://www.instagram.com/dashdrinks/
Brand Growth Heroes instagram https://www.instagram.com/brandgrowthheroespodcast/
Podcast website: Brand Growth Heroes
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In this episode, we we talk about how Rich Goldsmith and his team have built an entire category and a strong omni-channel business, the importance of creating the ideal end-to end consumer experience and of course, and as always, the different phases of growth of the business and the all important question of funding and investment.
This is one of my favourite interviews so far, so I hope you enjoy it and learn as much as I did doing it!
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In 2016, Tenzing was the first Natural Energy drink to be launched on to the UK market, and for the past few years, it has been the LEADING Energy drink in terms of growth, and is now turning over between £5-6M in UK retail sales.
It's founder, Huib van Buckel has an illustrious career in Energy Drinks, including 8 years at Red Bull, where he was Head of Marketing for Holland, UK and Europe. So there is TONS we can learn from him.
In this video and audio episode you'll learn:
- How Huib explored the market opportunity for his idea of a plant-based, naturally-sourced energy drink, with 60% less sugar.
- How he came up with the name and the concept for Tenzing (circa 4.40 youtube)
- What "Chipping away at Growth" means to Huib and why it works (circa 11.39)
- Huib's philosphy on teams & managing people, and what it's like to work at Tenzing, where you can choose your own boss (circa 30mins)
- Why Huib doesn't buy many of the marketing myths that are peddled by some of the big name Marketing gurus like Mark Ritson or Simon Sinek (39mins)
Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkZzsoJx3-OtZ_zRViEG3CA
Brand Growth Heroes Website: https://www.brandgrowthheroes.com/
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Not happy with the alcohol free beers on the market, Luke Boase spent 741 days in research, travelled over 7,500 miles and brewed nearly 60,000 litres of beer before he came up with what he calls the definitive alcohol free lager, which he called Lucky Saint. The multi award winning 0.5% pilsner launched in the On-trade in October 2013... And after only a year, Lucky Saint. was listed in over 1500 venues, including over 30 Michelin star restaurants and casual dining institutions like Dish Room, the Ivy Collection and Honest Burgers. It was also the first alcohol free lager to launch on draught in January 2020 and 50 pubs and bars across London.
Learn how Luke and his Managing Director Emma Heal (ex innocent, Graze) pivoted their out-of-home business model right at the start of the pandemic, to drive #transformationalgrowth.
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If you’re thinking about building the kind of food business that creates its very own category, where it continues to win for years to come, then you need to listen to this episode where we interview Cullen Allen, co-founder of Ireland’s original insurgent food brand, Cully & Sully.
In this interview, you’re going to learn what an obsession with product really means; the common mistakes that Cullen has seen prove fatal for many scaling food brands over the past 20 years; and what it’s like to love going to bed with your investor every day.
Launched in 2004, Cully and Sully soups, broths and pies are still market leaders in Ireland, but also racing up the ladder as the challenger brand in UK Chilled Soup, where their delicious range of soups is available in over 5000 stores nationwide. (Tesco, Co-op, Asda).
https://cullyandsully.com/our-meals
The pea soup Cully mentions during the interview:
tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/268045486
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Hello everyone! In celebration of hitting 10.5K downloads, welcome to the first UPDATE episode of Brand Growth Heroes podcast, where I'm going to spend just 5 minutes or so telling you what you can expect over the coming months. I'm really excited to share some big launch news right at the end, so don't go anywhere just yet!
First of all, I can't believe that it's nearly 18 months since the first BGH episode. What started out as a way of updating my suitcase of brand growth case studies, BGH has now become way bigger than I ever intended it to, with over 50 5star ratings in different iTunes stores across the world. This might be still small in the world of podcasts, but it's helping me to realise MY brand purpose, which is to create lightbulb moments for leaders of scaling brands, in order to smooth their path to profitable, transformational growth.
So, thanks so much to all of you who have listened, subscribed, reviewed it on iTunes and written to me to say just how much you're learning from the interviews. I'm learning a huge amount from too, and for that I'm truly grateful to all of our super guests. Big shout out particularly to James McMaster of Huel for taking the risk of being my first interviewee, that could have gone either way, so thank you James.
Another shout out to Ivan Juric at Octopod productions (https://octopod.productions/), the best sound editor in the world, Gyp Buggane here at Ballagroove recording studios (https://studio.ballagroove.com/)- the best recording studio in the world you guys have both been a huge help both technically and with moral support.
We've just begun recording series 3, in which alongside more insurgent food and beverage brands, we're going to dip in and out of learning about scaling personal care brands such as soap, feminine care and the future of toothpaste. This month and next we are recording episodes with Lucky Saint beer and as well as another Masterclass with Mark Mulhern from Brand Performance Labs in New York, this time on what Performance Marketing is and why you need to understand it.
I've been spending lots of time preparing for a big talk I'm giving to the grocery industry in Austria tomorrow, as well as working on some exciting new developments that I'll share with you at the end of this update.
The week before last was a massive week where I was helping out at our favourite Food and Beverage start up festival, Bread and Jam 2.0.
I loved meeting many of our UK and Europe-based listeners, and got the chance to chat to you when we worked together at my workshop on ‘Crafting a Compelling Value Proposition’. At this, we went through how you can make sure you’re offering something of real value to your target consumer or customer, based on solid consumer insight. We looked at WHAT a value proposition is, what YOUR value proposition is, WHY you need to define it, why it needs to be based on CONSUMER INSIGHT and HOW to go about it working through.
Thanks to so many of you who wrote to me on LinkedIn after the workshop, it was great to get to meet you and I'm glad it was useful for you.
OK so finally I wanted to share some big news: Over the past 10 years, my own business has evolved from delivering traditional consultancy projects for consumer goods clients, to helping them upskill their teams to do this work themselves. This, I'm reliably informed, is called Capability Development, and that's squarely where I serve.. I do this through individual and group coaching of senior teams, but also by developing and delivering workshops and programmes to help clients develop their strategic thinking and people. Why am I telling you this? Because in January I'm launching a new online course arm to the business, under the sub-brand Brand Growth Blueprint.
We'll be delivering self-directed quick, deep-dive courses on topics such as Crafting a Compelling Value Proposition, How to Sharpen your Consumer Targeting, and How to Evaluate the Size of the Opportunity you're targeting.
But we're also launching a live, accompanied 6 week programme for founders/CEOs of successful scaling brands called The Growth Strategy Programme which will give you a bespoke framework, tools and support to make clear decisions about where you want to play and create the roadmap to growth that you, your team and your potential investors need. Starting mid-January, working with 10-15 founders of non competing brands, we look at how you can articulate your brand or business purpose define your vision and objectives for this business, one that works for ourselves, our family , our team, for the community and for the environment sharpen your definition of your consumer and customer targets, and decide which of their needs to target with our offer ensure our value proposition is clear and compelling - that it can win We also look at which geographies, customers and channels we going to focus our sales and marketing efforts? and what kind of activities should we invest in, as well as the team you’re going to need to accompany you. If you're the founder or CEO of a successful scaling brand, and you recognise that the time has come to start formalising your strategy, then register your interest on www.fionafitzconsulting.com/onlinecourses.
If you’re already sure you want to join the first cohort of this programme starting the week of Jan 11th, then drop me a note on Linkedin and I can sign you up directly!
That's it from me, watch out for our new episodes coming late November!
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So here’s a question for you:
Which grocery category of non-edible products do you shop making increasingly careful choices around the products’ ingredients, choosing your favourites based on something very akin to flavours, looking for additive free or organic options, and even buying different versions of the product to cater for different members of the household?
For me, there are quite a few parallels between how we shop Food & Beverage grocery categories, and how we shop the Personal Care categories. After all, the products in Personal Care are about how we take care of, nourish and draw experience from our bodies from the outside-in, whereas we buy Food and Beverage products to solve these needs from the inside-out.
Another really interesting parallel is that like Food and Bev. start-ups, skin and hair care brands also increasingly try to develop their products from natural kitchen-cupboard ingredients and have a brand purpose that is centred on being kind to nature. Another striking similarity is that these businesses often start at the kitchen table, getting proof of concept at farmers markets, before moving into retail.
What I find interesting about the Personal Care category is that it remains majorly dominated by the large global brands that our grandmothers and mothers would recognise: Head&Shoulders, Radox, Palmolive, Dove… or slightly more recently, all the “famous hairdresser” hair care brands that have launched since I was in my 20s.
And although there has been a real change on the fringes of the category for years, in the Whole Foods and the Holland& Barretts, why aren’t more of the local, natural, purpose-led brands not stealing share from big brands in the supermarkets?
I have decided to pepper this series with the odd interview with founders of insurgent brands across various Personal Care categories, to see if we can learn from their experiences in a different category, in a different stage of the unavoidable 21st century category overhaul we are seeing across the board.
I recently came across an inspiring emerging brand in Personal Care that started out on the kitchen table 12 years ago, but now has national listings across all the major grocery retailers and drugstore chains in the UK , has 30 employees and is currently seeing at at least £4M in market sales.
The Little Soap Company is a purpose driven, vegan, cruelty free, ethically produced, free-from brand with a range of soaps, solid shampoo and shaving bars that use organic ingredients that you’d easily recognise. It was the first- and is still the only – “free from” range on the supermarket shelves, and has just started what could be a revolution for the category – a range of solid shampoos and washes, to avoid packaging in plastic containers.
We also discuss whether it’s useful to talk about what it’s like being a female founder.
To start to start your journey in understanding how emerging brands can transform the Personal Care category, and what we can learn from their experience, LISTEN to our interview with award winning and inspirational Founder/CEO Emma Heathcote-James.
Hear how Emma’s vision is “to make pure soap the norm not the niche” and how as the first – and often only– “free from” range on the supermarket shelves, The Little Soap Company is at the forefront of some real category transformation.
www.thelittlesoapcompany.co.uk
Instagram: little_soap_co; eco_warrior_soap
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Across the Western world, the Carbonated Soft Drinks category is experiencing real transformation… thanks to the sugar backlash, the resulting sugar tax and the fight against plastic.
I recently heard that the majority of fizzy soft drinks sold in the supermarkets now contain no or low amounts of added sugar, which really surprised me. For a category that has been built on the white stuff for over 100 years, that’s a pretty big change.
It goes without saying that it has been a difficult few years for some of the big global soft drink brands, but the other side of that coin is that there are plenty of exciting emerging brands taking advantage of the move towards Healthier and Natural. They and creating new category sub segments some real #transformational growth. Think real fruit sodas, no added sugar seltzers, and even the more niche Kombuchas, kefir waters, sparkling coconut waters….
If you live in the UK, you probably recognise the very cool British soft drinks brand Dalston’s soda, whose mission is to put real ingredients back at the heart of soft drinks.
I think their range of highly distinctive, brightly coloured metallic cans with the big standout D for Dalstons on the front is a future brand icon – just the right mix of cool yet accessible to the mass market. Together with great drinks made with real fruit, low sugar, local ingredients and even distilled botanicals for serious amount of great flavour, Dalston’s is one to watch.
Dan Broughton, CEO Dalstons
I spoke to Dan Broughton, CEO and Co-Founder to find out how he and his team is setting the brand up for success.
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The case study in Category transformation that is on everyone’s lips right now is Oatly.
But did you know that Oatly has been around for 30 years in the Dairy Alternatives Category?
It’s only really in the past 5 years that something has changed massively, at least in the UK market.
In 2016, Oatly’s UK revenue was around £6M, but this year they are looking at hitting around £75M!
If you want to know how they did this, then you’re in luck! We spoke to Ishen Paran, UK Country Manager who told us about the 5 levers that he and the Oatly UK team have pulled to drive this incredible growth…
oatmilk #oatly #transformationalgrowth #brandgrowthheroes #plantbased
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Mark Mulhern is a Brand Performance Coach with a spectacular CV in brand advertising and through-the-line Marketing investment. He’s worked agency-side for the past 20+ years managing advertising accounts worth £100M of pounds and dollars, for clients such as Mars, Unilever, McDonalds, Amazon, Virgin and Sainsbury’s.
If you’ve listened to the first few episodes of Series 1 of Brand Growth Heroes, you’ll know that one of the New 4Ps of Transformational Growth is PROCESS – how insurgent brands define and attack challenges differently to incumbent or less successful brands.
One of these challenges is managing the transition of how you approach your MARKETING INVESTMENT as a start-up, vs. how you think about it and deliver it as an emerging brand with a serious growth trajectory.
If you’ve been pootering along nicely with sampling and social media, but recognise that the time has come to get your head around what a more strategic approach looks like, then this episode is for you.
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How many of us eat chocolate or other cocoa-based products without realising – and this is deadly serious – that we could be unwittingly funding child labour and even child slavery in West Africa?
Almost a year ago, we interviewed Ben Greensmith, the UK country manager of Tony’s Chocolonely, and we heard how this amazing company is trying to change the cocoa industry and eradicate child labour and childhood slavery. If you’d like to listen to this episode, look for Series 1 Episode 8 (SE1Ep8) on your podcast player.
A month or so ago, I learned that the level of child labour in West African cocoa farms had actually increased over the past 10 years, which just really shocked and saddened me.
In this special catch-up episode, I asked Ben to bring us up to speed with the situation in West Africa, as well as share with us how Tony’s Chocolonely is doing in the U.K. market since its launch.
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S2EP12 Timestamps to follow.
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It’s tough times out there for many brands. Even for the lucky ones who are seeing an increase in sales due to the current situation, future plans are up in the air and investment in growth is on pause, with so much depending on how things pan out over the next few months.
We wanted to find out what’s happening in the world of investment & funding for brands with big growth plans: have most put their investment journeys on hold? What should you do if you were planning to raise money this year?
In this episode we’re talking to Yasha Estraikh, who’s an Associate Partner at Piper, the investment partner of choice for brands such as Propercorn, Mindful Chef and many more you’ll recognise. Yasha is in charge of Brand and Customer Research and Insight, and he helps brands keep their customer at the centre of everything they do.
I learnt SO much from this hour with Yasha – not only that most sources of investment are focusing on their current portfolios at the moment, but tons about how funding and investment for growing brands works in general. If you have ever really wanted to understand how it all works, you need to listen to this!
If you enjoy this episode, it would be really helpful if you REVIEW it on iTunes & SHARE it on your social media!
S2EP11 Timestamps to follow.
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Buymie was conceived when Founder Devan Hughes learned that the £9bn online retail grocery industry in UK & Irl, was loosing over £300M per year…and he reckoned it was therefore ripe for disruption.
Buymie is a mobile-first, on-demand grocery delivery platform enabling consumers to order any grocery or household item from local stores using their mobile device, and get them delivered in as little as 1 hour.
The Buymie platform connect customers, via the app, to a fully vetted and trained crowd sourced personal shopper network.
Listen to Devan share the inside track on the super-charged growth that Buymie has seen over the past 18 months, how they’ve just received £2.2M in funding, and how they are now the online delivery platform for Lidl Ireland!
An episode not to be missed!
Buymie.eu
Devan is the CEO and Co-Founder of Same day grocery e-commerce platform Buymie. Devan holds a degree in Finance from the National College of Ireland, and has worked in the start-up sector for most of his career. A guest lecturer in some of Europe’s best Business Schools, Devan is recognised as one of Europe’s foremost thought leaders in the fields of grocery e-commerce, platform economics and architecture.
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S2EP10 Timestamps to follow.
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In Episode 5of Series 1, we spoke to Sam Dennigan, founder of insurgent frozen brand STRONG ROOTS, which offers tasty plant-based food designed for busy lives.
Sam promised to come back on the show and update us on how their impending launch in the USA went…which he does in this episode.
Shortly after we recorded our update, Covid 19 hit, so we recorded a further section on how the current crisis has effected the Strong Roots business.
An episode not to be missed!
strongroots.com
Instagram: Strong Roots Irl Strong Roots UK Strong Roots USA
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S2EP9 Timestamps to follow.
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We’re going to spend the next few episodes exploring how growing Food & Bev. businesses are coping with the current crisis, the kind of help they need, and some of the resources available to help them.
In this episode we’re talking to Jason Gibb, one of the co-founders of Bread & Jam. Once an annual business festival for Food & Beverage entrepreneurs, now Bread & Jam is helping several hundred companies a week, joining them from as far away as Australia!
From evening workshops to morning socials, entrepreneurs can sign up for free and paid events that will build key skills, their industry network and their confidence.
Bread & Jam was borne from the success of Jason’s online community, The FoodHub, which is the biggest community of food & drink entrepreneurs in Europe
Jason also has his own plant-based food start-up, called Unruly Burger https://www.eatunruly.com/
Listen to Jason on why he started Bread & Jam, and how it works:
Bread & JamIf you enjoy this episode, it would be really helpful if you REVIEW it on iTunes & SHARE it on your social media!
S2EP8 Timestamps to follow.
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If you’ve listened to the first few episodes of Series 2 of Brand Growth Heroes, you probably know that one of the themes we are exploring is the BRAVE decisions that food & Bev founders sometimes have to make.
In this episode we’re talking to Paul Brown, CEO and Founder of BOL Foods, a fast growing chilled food brand that offers plant-based Dinner boxes, Veg Pots, Salad Jars and Soups to busy foodies, and is available in most retailers nationally across the UK.
*Covid 19 addition: Paul and I caught up again last week to record an update in which Paul takes us through how he and the team are getting through the Covid 19 crisis***
Paul launched BOL after 14 years at Innocent drinks, where he gained invaluable experience across roles from Field Sales, to Sales Controller, and finally as General Manager of Innocent Food in 2014.
He launched BOL in 2015…and what’s particularly fascinating about this story is the brave decision Paul made – for ethical reasons – that led to BOL becoming the first FMCG food brand IN THE WORLD to drop all meat, fish and dairy from their products …to become 100% plant based.
Listen to our interview earlier this month where Paul tells us about the learnings at innocent that have helped to drive growth at BOL, his super- brave decision to pivot his business model to 100% plant-based, and his thoughts and plans around plastic packaging….
https://www.bolfoods.com
https://www.instagram.com/bolfoods/ : @bolfoods
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S2EP4 Timestamps:
[00:28] – Introducing, Paul Brown, CEO and Founder of BOL foods; a fast growing chilled food brand offering 100% plant based options to busy foodies.
[01:55] – Introduction to BOL; what do they make and where can we find their products?
[02:33] – Why did Paul start the company back in 2015?
[03:23] – BOL is on a mission to inspire the world to eat more plants. Why is that and how has BOL’s mission evolved since its inception?
[04:19] – BOL has big ambitions and fast growth. How many people are there in the offices at BOL?
[05:04] – Paul has managing experience he brings with him after 14 years at Innocent. What else has he learned that he has been able to use while setting up BOL and driving growth?
[07:30] – The food industry is really hard, particularly the chilled foods sector. What are the things that stick out to Paul as particularly difficult to manage as a chilled supplier to a grocery retailer, that he was able to overcome more quickly because of his experience at Innocent?
[10:42] – What kind of roles are absolutely critical to have on the team to make a company like BOL successful? The business is split into five key functions; finance team, operations team, commercial teams, brand marketing team, and people team.
[13:58] – At what point in BOL’s trajectory did they decide to add more people? How do you make the leap from 5 to 20 people?
[16:08] – Paul explains how everybody in the company interviews the new people coming in.
[17:57] – One of the big draws for people interviewing for food companies is the free products that always find themselves around the office. Are the fridges in the offices at BOL filled with their products?
[20:15] – Paul talks about product innovation.
[21:27] – Initially BOL had meat, fish and dairy as part of their range. How did they make the brave decision to pivot to focus entirely on plant based ranges?
[24:46] – We often talk about a company’s mission coming from a place of authenticity. Paul’s mission came about because he believes there is a real need rather than because he thinks it is where the market is going.
[26:31] – Paul explains why phasing out the meat, fish and dairy slowly to reduce the risk didn’t feel right. He also talks about bringing up his kids with this new mindset about how they look at food.
[29:31] – What it means to be a really authentic mission driven company. Paul talks about his relationship with investors and shareholders.
[33:07] – BOL recently made the decision to launch their dinner boxes in 95% plant based packaging and are aiming for a 100%. How do they reconcile the plastic packaging in their business?
[36:21] – Paul explains how the lack of better options means they can’t take the same approach to the plastic packaging as they did with plant based food products and simply pivot away from it. What approach are they taking?
[38:14] – Finally, what is next for BOL? Paul talks big growth ambitions, increasing the range, and international ambitions.
*Covid 19 addition: Paul and I caught up again last week to record an update in which Paul takes us through how he and the team are getting through the Covid 19 crisis***
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We’re going to spend the next few episodes exploring how growing Food & Bev. businesses are coping with the current crisis, the kind of help they need, and some of the resources available to help them.
In this episode we’re talking to Jamie Mitchell, Founder All Together, an initiative offering CEO-CEO coaching, mentoring and business advice to companies affected by COVID 19.
Through All Together, Jamie has brought together a punchy panel of 60 well-known Chairpeople, CEOs and Investors, who are all offering their help on a voluntary basis. Advisors include Adam Balon and Jon Wright of Innocent Drinks, Xavier Vidal of Flying Tiger, Hema Patel and Jules Hydleman, to name but a few. See the almost complete list of advisors here
Jamie himself brings a wealth of experience to All Together, in his capacity as Non-Exec Chairman of Rare Restaurants and Keatz, and as Ex CEO of Tom Dixon, Daylesford Organic and Innocent Smoothies UK.
Listen to Jamie on why he started All Together and who and how they can help; and his thoughts on the 3 stages your company should plan for during the crisis.
alltogether.company
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S2EP6 Timestamps to follow.
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In this episode, we're talking to Tom Szaky, the 38 year old founder of Terra Cycle, the world’s leading company in the collection and reuse of the non-recyclable stuff we all throw away every day. Think turning Colgate toothpaste tubes into school playgrounds, or enabling P&G to offer money off coupons to consumers in return for their dirty pampers, which are then recycled into new materials.
You may have read that Terra Cycle has just launched a new company called LOOP, which aims to tackle packaging waste at its root cause and could potentially see us buying all of our favourite consumer packaged goods in branded durable and reusable containers, rather than the staple single-use packaging they are mostly in now.
For those of us who work with Consumer Packaged Goods, Loop is so far reaching that if it works, it will change everything from how you design, package and sell your products, all the way through to what your Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Operations and P&L will look like.
In this episode of Brand Growth Heroes, Tom goes into depth on how Loop offers CPG brands the opportunity to shift from single use disposable packaging forms to durable reusable forms, and what the benefits are for you as a brand, over and above the obvious and most important benefit of the reduction of your brand’s impact on the environment.
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LISTEN AND RATE THIS EPISODE ON ITUNES HERE
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and on STITCHER here
If you’ve listened to the first few episodes of Series 2 of Brand Growth Heroes, you probably know that one of the themes we are exploring is the BRAVE decisions that food & Bev founders sometimes have to make.
Creating Tansformational Growth depends on getting a lot of things right. And in the food industry, there are a hell of a lot of things that can trip you up. But the thing is, they are mostly things that don’t need to trip you up if you know about them in advance, if someone explains to you how something works, or points something out to you that has often gone wrong for them in the past.
Something I’ve done throughout my career is to have collected a bunch of seasoned food entrepreneurs who I have built lovely relationships with, and whom I can call out of the blue to ask them who the best distributor in Germany is for Chilled, what margin I should expect to give to Spar in Switzerland, or whether sampling in Carrefour is worth the investment.
One such person is Barney Mauleverer. Barney cut his teeth in the food and drink industry during the first 5 years of early stage Innocent Drinks. In his last role as European Manager he headed up a new international strategy at Innocent to scope out new opportunities in Europe. In 2006, Barney left innocent to seek a more entrepreneurial route of his own and set up Fresh Marketing with his school and uni mate Alex Matheson.
Fresh Marketing is an international business development consultancy and distributor. It was founded on spotting new innovations in food and drink that often emerge in the US and then head ‘East’. Product types include smoothies, premium crisps, cereal bars, flavoured popcorn and breakfast granola. Fresh Marketing has been involved in the overseas development and distribution of some of the UK’s fastest growing consumer food and drink brands including Innocent Drinks, Eat Natural, Burt’s Chips and more recently Candy Kittens, Deliciously Ella and a number of other high potential start-up brands. Fresh Marketing currently supplies over 40 international markets!
in 2013, Barney and Alex launched their own protein boosted breakfast brand FUEL10K. FUEL10K is now stocked across all the major UK retailers and many convenience and food service customers. Self-funded from the start and with a brilliant team of 19 FUEL10K turns over £12m at retail sales value.
Listen to Barney share his 20+ years experience on how to approach international business development, how he felt saying No to 2200 stores in the USA, how long his upcoming deal in Australia took to close and much, much more…
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Pippa Murray founded Pip & Nut in 2015, out of a passion for running and a love of nut-butter, but not finding exactly what she wanted on the market.
The range is now sold in more than 5000 stores and is the fastest growing nut butter in the UK. Last year, the company was named Fasttrack 100s "one to watch" and The Evening Standard has named Pippa as one of London's most influential people! Here's our interview from the end of December, where we discuss BCorp certification, innovation as a growth-driver and managing people when you've never done it before.
https://www.pipandnut.com/
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Giles Brook, renowned CEO, Entrepreneur and Investor has built up probably the most superb CV in the food and beverage industry, not to mention a supurbe portfolio of investments.
Giles has been behind the growth of numerous insurgent brands – Innocent, Bear, Vita Coco, Pip and nut to name but a few. He is currently CEO of Vita Coco (for Europe Middle East and Africa) - which he launched over 10 years ago - and which is now turning over £40m in sales.
Although he is the highest-ranked individual in The Grocer’s ‘Food & Drink Power List outside of global and multi-national CEOs, he is also nice, as he takes time out of the office to mentor and guide entrepreneurs. Here’s our interview earlier this month where we talk about what Giles looks for when investing in a company, whether looking for investment upfront or driving organic growth should be the thing, and how it can be really hard for founders working in the food industry
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UGLY DRINKS was founded by best friends Hugh Thomas and Joe Benn in 2017. Coming from Vita Coco, they were concerned at the lack of healthy or unsweetened- options in the soda category for the average family. UGLY is a range of sparkling water that is flavoured but unsweetened, in brightly coloured, potentially iconic CAN, and is setting out to challenge the Ugly Truth behind Big Soda.
Ugly’s website positions it as “just a drink, no unobtainable lifestyles, no ridiculous promises”…and somewhat bravely (given the enormous competitors in this space) asks us to “Can the Other Cans”.
Listen to Hugh Thomas discuss the brave decisions he and his co-founder have made around brand and category positioning, naming & flavouring, setting up in the USA and funding/invesment and its role in driving growth!
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L'entretien originale avec Nicolas Chabanne (episode 9) en francais.
C'est Qui Le Patron est une marque alimenaire multi-catégorielle qui était créée et est gérée par des consommateurs francais, afin de garantir des prix équitables aux agriculteurs et aux producteurs. Elle a été lancée il y a 3 ans sur l'un des marchés d'épiceries les plus traditionnels, les plus inflexibles, les plus difficiles à négocier et les plus coûteux d'Europe - d'après ma modeste expérience. Et pourtant, en seulement 2,5 ans, elle a révolutionné de nombreuses catégories d’épiceries en France, a généré un chiffre d’affaires de plus de 120 millions d’euros, dispose d’un portefeuille de plus de 30 produits et sont déjà achetés par 11 millions de ménages français. Et voici la chose: tout cela a été fait sans investissement dans la publicité traditionelle, sans force de vente et avec très peu de négociations traditionnelles avec les acheteurs de la Grande Distribution.
Cet entretien souhaite explorer les facteurs à l'origine de cette croissance incroyable.
L'interview est également disponible en anglais, voir episode 9 de Brand Growth Heroes
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How do you grow a brand to €120M in sales in only 2.5 years, launching 30 products, and revolutionising more than a few grocery categories along the way? And how do you achieve household penetration of 11 million French households, with NO advertising, NO field sales, and very little traditional negotiation with grocery buyers? When you consider that this is happening in France - one of the most inflexible, difficult to negotiate and costly European retail grocery markets - and is coming to the UK, USA, Germany, Italy and more markets imminently, every company supplying a food & bev product into retail grocery better be ready with a response!
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How do you grow a Chocolate brand to €70m in Sales without ever spending a penny on advertising? How do you get into EVERY SINGLE Sainsbury's store in the UK at launch...and account for over 35% of Chocolate sales at Wholefoods UK within 16 weeks?
Listen to Ben Greensmith of Tony's Chocolonely tell us about THE most authentic and meaningful brand promise in Food and Bev - the serious attempt by Tony’s Chocolonely to change the Cocoa industry from the inside out, in order to eradicate childhood slavery and child labour in Cocoa producing countries.
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Who manages to create and build not 1 but 2 insurgent food brands that transform categories and what shoppers expect from their supermarket aisle? That's right, James Averdieck of The Coconut Collaberative and GU Chocolate Puds! Listen to James describe the drivers of the transformational growth he has experienced with both his businesses, from the importance of having people with Food Industry experience on his teams to being obsessed with product quality and great, quirky brands that resonate with consumers.
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Did you know that it's NOT a Coke or a Pepsi-owned brand that holds the title of the UKs best-selling functional drink, but an Irish brand called VITHIT! I really enjoyed talking to my old buddy and fellow-Irishman Gary Lavin, Founder of this super-charged, low calorie vitamin drinks range https://www.vithit.com. I’ve known Gary and followed VITHIT's progress for over 15 years, and
what really intrigues me about this story is that most of this growth has been unlocked over the 5 past years. I’m also really inspired by Gary’s sheer honesty about mistakes he thinks he made and the doggedness that has been necessary to get the business to where it’s at today. Listen to Gary take us though the drivers of this recent transformational growth, how he recognised them, and what he’d do differently if he had to start over.
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In this episode we talk to Sam Dennigan, Founder and CEO of the UK’s Fastest Growing Food Brand, Strong Roots. Strong Roots is a super-successful frozen food brand that offers plant-based, tasty, convenient and healthy food for everyone. Founded and launched in Ireland, it has delivered transformational growth in both Ireland and the UK, doubling its turnover each year and recently taking pole position as the UK's Fastest Growing Food & Beverage brand. Listen to Sam desecribe how his experience in his family’s food business has shaped Strong Roots’ success, on how everyone in the company needs to be a Sales person, and the importance of earning the respect of early adopters and being “found” or discovered by consumers.
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Fiona Fitz and Professor Dr Jan-Benedict Steenkamp, author, distinguished scholar and one of the world’s leading experts in the Consumer Packaged Goods industry, discuss what's worrying large Consumer Packaged Goods companies about driving organic growth. Professor Steenkamp suggests three things large CPG companies should be doing differently. http://www.brandgrowthheroes.com/2019/02/01/episode-4-interview-with-jan-benedict-steenkamp-leading-expert-consumer-goods-industries/
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James McMaster, CEO of insurgent brand Huel, describes his experience of driving transformational growth at 3 well-known global food brands. He talks about how mindset beats skill-set, the importance of choosing the right people, and how transformational brand can radically change both consumer and shopper behaviour. http://www.brandgrowthheroes.com/2019/01/03/episode-3-interview-with-james-mc-master-ceo-of-huel/
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Your host Fiona Fitzpatrick of Fiona Fitz Consulting introduces the New 4Ps of Transformational Growth in Consumer Goods Categories: People (or the kinds of people who work for the company), Process (or how the job to-be-done gets both defined and approached), Category Positioning (or where the brand positions itself relative to the competition) and finally, the Brand and Product Promise. http://www.brandgrowthheroes.com/2019/01/02/episode-2-introducing-the-new-4ps-of-transformational-growth/
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