21 April 2020
National Tea Day with HumaniTea
With National Tea Day taking place on the 21 April, we caught up with Innovating for Growth: Mentoring alumna, Tina Chen, about her business HumaniTea, a tea beverage social enterprise that supports wellbeing and sustainability initiatives.
As a Taiwanese-American living in London, Tina was inspired by Taiwanese bubble tea and British tea drinking culture and decided to create the UK’s first plant-based tea lattes. Prior to launching HumaniTea, Tina worked as a Technology Consultant, performing project management activities for large-scale software implementations. After consulting for three years, she began her MBA journey at Imperial College Business School, where she honed in on innovation, social impact, and sustainability modules. Tina shares, “With my love for a quality cuppa and my desire to make a positive impact on society, I made a career switch from IT to just tea and incorporated HumaniTea in December 2018.”
Tina used the British Library’s Business & IP Centre (BIPC) to search for consumer research reports on the tea market, including Mintel and Euromonitor, which are available for free to Business & IP Centre users. “The market research reports provided me with valuable information about market size that would have taken me months and large amounts of money to gather if I only conducted primary research. Through secondary research, I learned about market trends for ready-to-drink tea, plant-based milks, and low-sugar soft drinks.”
In the UK, the soft drink sector is booming with sales valued at £15 billion. The flavoured milk drink and milk alternative sales are valued at £538 million, ready-to-drink (RTD) coffee sales are valued at £146 million, and RTD tea sales are valued at £23 million. Tina explains, “Consumers desire organic RTD tea with low sugar or health benefits. There is an expected increase in the range of RTD tea, like matcha and kombucha, as consumers search for heathier alternatives to RTD coffee and energy drinks. In fact, 1/3 of UK adults think cold tea is a good alternative to other soft drinks.”
As well as the health benefits (all her flavours Matcha, Earl Grey, and Rooibos, contain low sugar and calories, exclude preservatives, artificial flavours, or any additives), ethical sourcing and sustainability are at the heart of HumaniTea. Their teas come in paper bags from Fairtrade, organic farms, oat milk is used instead of dairy as oat milk is one of the most eco-friendly milks available and making one cup of tea requires less water usage and releases less CO2 emissions than making one cup of coffee.
Besides performing market research, Tina also attended several events at the BIPC, including the monthly Inventors’ Club special food edition. “During these events, I exchanged networks with fellow entrepreneurs and gained knowledge on intellectual property, especially trade mark protection.”
However, registering her intellectual property hasn’t been a straightforward process. Four months after filing for four trade marks in December 2018, Tina received a cease and desist letter from the soft drink producer Schweppes. Now in a cooling off period until late 2020, Tina has gone on to file for a fifth trade mark and has successfully crowdfunded over £10,000 through the NatWest x Crowdfunder Back Her Business Programme. This will allow Tina to scale-up manufacturing and pursue a rebrand with the newly filed trade mark, HumaniTea. “Showing humanity is displaying compassion and kindness towards others, so as a social enterprise, we felt the name HumaniTea really embodied our business selling tea lattes to make a positive impact on society and the environment.”
Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, HumaniTea lattes were available at Imperial College London and farmers’ markets, like Borough Market. “As we possessed an offline presence, new social distancing rules meant that we could no longer trade at our main points of sale. We are using this time wisely to develop our brand image with a professional designer and prepare for production with a contract manufacturing partner as we scale-up from commercial kitchen production.”
Tina continues to engage with consumers via the brand’s social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn). “In unprecedented times with unknown outcomes, I’m doing my best as Chief Tea Officer to form contingency plans and remain both realistic and optimistic at the same time. In 2020, we plan on manufacturing our vegan tea lattes in a factory and delivering all the pre-orders of our tea lattes and HumaniTea merchandise that we received through our crowdfunding campaign. We will continue our discussions with retailers and distributors and hope to bring our tea lattes to supermarkets, universities, office canteens, and online environments in the near future!”
Tina has also participated in the BIPC’s Innovating for Growth Mentoring Programme. “I was matched with a fantastic mentor Sam Duong, the CEO of Ming Foods, who helps guide and motivate me through his 16 years of experience in the food manufacturing industry. Through our mentoring relationship, I have gained so much knowledge on manufacturing, contracts, supply chain, sales, margins, cash flow models, and team management. Discussing with my mentor my company goals and desires for scaling-up my start-up, I feel confident about my business decisions with strong foundations in place. Sam challenges me to think beyond the present and prepare for the future, allowing me to grow and develop my entrepreneurial skills and focus on my goals. At one of our mentoring meetings, I visited Ming Foods state-of-the-art factory, where they produce duck pancakes and bao buns that are sold both domestically and internationally. I am inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit of Sam and the success of Ming Foods and have truly benefited from the Innovating for Growth Mentoring Programme. I aim to also grow HumaniTea and achieve UK-wide and international sales and bring the drink that’s good for humanity to our global community!”
To find out more about the Innovating for Growth: Mentoring Programme, visit our website. You can also book on to our free IP and business virtual one-to-ones with the BIPC reference team. Book your slot here.
14 February 2020
The rise of flexitarians and veggie butchers
The Vegan industry is booming. Many people are changing their diet for any number of reasons from diet and health to environmental factors. According to a recent Mintel report (which is free to access in the Business & IP Centre) a rise in flexitarians has aided the success of the meat-free market, especially amongst the younger consumers.
The report shows 34% of meat eaters are reported to have reduced their consumption in the last six months, giving a recent boost in sales of meat-free foods (UK Meat-Free Foods Market Report 2018/19).
With Veganuary having recently ended, I thought what better time to present my findings on this dynamic market and continue the conversation. Having recently acquired a new role within the Business & IP Centre, I was keen to get right into it and creating an industry guide that highlights useful databases, publications and websites on key industries seemed the best way about it. I chose the vegan, vegetarian and free-from market after seeing a demand for it whilst on the reference desk and was surprised that there wasn’t already an industry guide created on this topic. It was one of the biggest emerging markets and it seemed a great idea until I ventured forth and realised why there wasn’t an industry guide on it already.
I started with the Cobra database looking for Business Opportunity Profiles (BOP) that would be useful for anyone looking to start, run or manage a small business. This is a useful database that holds hundreds of how-to guides, reports, factsheets and even small business ideas to get you started, which you can also access for free in the BIPC. But there were no leads there specifically for vegan start-up businesses. I did however manage to find a BOP on Dieticians and Green Grocers and a Mini- Business Opportunity Profile (MBP) on the Vegetarian/Vegan Restaurant and Vegetable box scheme. Not as much as I would have liked, but it was a start. The Small Business Help Books, located by the entrance of the BIPC, proved even harder, only finding general titles on How to run a sandwich and coffee shop and Starting your own Speciality Food Business and Jonathan Self’s book Good Money, which was an account of the authors own experience of a successful ethical business start-up. Maybe the market research statistics would prove more fruitful...
The EMIS Database which offers company information and sector research on the top emerging markets proved the most effective with reports on the Global Dairy Alternative Products Market (2019-2024), Global Meat Substitute Market (2018-2025) and Global Gluten-Free Food Market (2018-2025). You can access all of these reports for free in the BIPC. Additionally, Mintel a widely used market intelligence agency on consumer and lifestyle markets provided a broad range of useful consumer trends reports such as Attitudes towards Healthy Eating, Lifestyles of a Generation and Free-from Foods. But I wanted to find more alternative product reports on the UK market.
Global Data’s Veggie Butchers report although not a recent report, could provide vital insight into meat alternatives (sausages, kebabs, mince etc.). I knew ‘niche’ industries would be difficult and I was happy to find useful content within the broader realm of veganism, vegetarian and free-from foods. But I was determined to dig as deep as I could and using various key word variations I was able to discover useful reports to add – I was especially excited to find a report titled Veganism on the Upswing on EMIS, and Passport proved very useful with reports on Vegetarianism and Other Meat-Restricted Diets and excitedly a report titled A new vegetarian boom is in the making. It seemed I was able to extract key reports that would prove useful for anyone wanting to venture into this industry and I was very happy that the Vegan, Vegetarian and Meat alternative space in terms of market research was on the rise and I look forward to seeing this go from niche to mainstream in the near future.
Meron Kassa, Business and IP Reference Specialist at the Business & IP Centre London
Meron has worked at the British Library for over six years, working in several other reading rooms including Maps and Manuscripts, Asia and Africa and Rare Books and Music before landing a role within the British Library’s Business & IP Centre last year as a new member of the team, where she delivers reference work and will soon be delivering 1-2-1 business advice clinics, as well as workshops and webinars on a regular basis.
20 November 2019
A Day in the Life of… Rupert Holloway, founder of Conker Spirit
After giving up his day job as a Chartered Quantity Surveyor, Rupert Holloway, decided to set out on a new career path which he was passionate about, after some good, bad and ugly ideas, Conker Spirit was born.
What is the day in the life of an ‘entrepreneur’? for want of a better word – and I wish there was. Well, I can tell you he's restless, feverously ambitious and has a sense of entitlement to anything he puts his mind to. It begs the question, then, as to how this is balanced with life outside the business, namely (in my case) a happy wife and kids…
Despite this sometimes overbearing drive for achievement, I’ve somehow managed to shun the stereotype of working every waking hour of the day – being the part-time father, the absent husband…I hope this opinion is shared by my wife! I do have my weekends and the majority of my evenings are spent chilling with my wife, Emily, on the sofa.
I’ve mused over how I’ve managed to pull off this magic trick, and I think I can put it down to two main factors: by building a great team at Conker so that the fundamental functions of the business don’t solely rely on me; and by building my life and work around each other – they are not at odds, and most of the time not at war.
This work-life balance stuff really fascinates me. After all, it was one of the main drivers for ditching my day job to build my own business. Back then, six years ago, I wanted to even-up the stakes.
Today there is a less brutal split between my two worlds of ‘work’ and ‘life’, and also in the person I am in the office and at home. I’m no longer ‘bipolar’ in my persona. When I was a Quantity Surveyor, I remember the feeling of literally switching to 'Surveyor' Rupert as the lift doors opened on the sixth floor of that Southampton office building. Now, because I do what I genuinely love and nothing is forced, work and life seem less at odds with each other.
What’s more, my work life and home life feel like one and the same. Emily works part-time in the busiess and has quickly become integral to every decision and problem we solve. As a result, Conker is our (4th) baby. It really is a wonderful thing and I feel very lucky. I know that having ‘the wife’ in the office would fill some with wide-eyed dread, but for me, I miss her the days she's not there.
While my work-life balance is perhaps more even-keeled than the archetypal entrepreneur life might suggest, the real battle comes with being ‘present’ in the now. My mind is often full of the next Conker conundrum I’ve got to solve, rather than living what is going on in the room. It’s a challenge sometimes to remain 'present' and focused on the moment with the family, rather than deliberating the next major decision to be made.
Having made some drastic decisions six years ago to follow my heart in my career, I’ve realised that life is as complicated as you make it. There are days that can be very complicated indeed – more complicated, I think, than we are biologically and mentally designed to cope with.
A couple of years ago we bought a house a one-minute walk from the Distillery and the local school, further aligning and synchronising my work-life dance. With three kids to distribute Monday to Friday, our mornings are completely car-free. The school run I had always feared is now a complete doddle.
But the real gem is that picking the kids up from school is just a 20-minute chunk out of my day. I know that many people don’t have the same luxury, and I try and take it whenever I can.
While this makes me feel pretty lucky, I don’t actually believe in ‘luck’, or rather that’s not what I’d call it. I believe ‘lucky’ people are simply more ‘available’ to take up new opportunities and exploit them. It’s not a divine intervention, rather a flexibility built into your life and mindset that allows you to make the most of the best option that presents itself to you.
We hang an awful lot of meaning, guilt and obligation to what has been, honouring past decisions and investments, rather than seeing each new opportunity or challenge objectively. Shunning these shackles of the past is the real skill of the entrepreneur, and of anyone choosing their next subject at school or changing their career path. The key is being free to adapt and evolve to a new situation, and not making life so complicated that you are not ‘available’ to grasp it.
You can hear more from Rupert from the Inspiring Entrepreneurs: Leaders in Luxe event recording on our YouTube channel, along with the founders and co-founders of Jennifer Chamandi, House of Hackney, The Jackal and ME+EM.
27 June 2019
Positive ageing: include seniors in the wellness revolution
Mintel is the world's leading market intelligence agency. For over 40 years, Mintel's expert analysis of the highest quality data and market research has directly impacted on client success. Here, Mintel takes a look at how the food, drink and wellness industries are encouraging people to age positively...
The "senior" demographic is a label often assigned to people of retirement age who may be slowing down or suffering from health problems. Due to the modern reality of longer lifespans, however, this group actually represents a very broad spectrum of the population. As lifespans reach 100 years and older, the perception of "seniors" as one cohesive group of consumers has become outdated.
Today, many people work and live longer while being wealthier, healthier, better-informed and more active than previous generations. This carries with it significant opportunities for food and drink companies to find new ways to target older consumers.
As the senior population continues to grow, it is crucial for brands to recognise the full potential of marketing to older adults and tailor campaigns accordingly. Challenging stereotypes of this age group is key, as is reflecting how products and services can be relevant to them specifically.
Food and drink products targeting seniors still limited in Europe
Despite a rise in the world's ageing population, "senior" claims in food and drink have so far seen limited use. From 2014 – 18, less than 1% of global food and drink launches targeted seniors (aged 55+) overtly with on-pack claims, according to Mintel Global New Products Database (GNPD). Japan and China dominate global food and drink launches that target seniors, reflecting a less stigmatised attitude toward ageing: Japan accounted for a third of launches with senior claims from 2014 – 18, followed by China with 30%. While Europe has seen a slight increase in products with senior claims from 2016 – 18, the few launches do not reflect the region's large share of older consumers. Formulations will need to increase as the United Nations predicts seniors will make up almost 35% of Europe's population by 2050.
Bakoma Senior Active Peach Flavored Drinking Yogurt (Poland): Leading Polish dairy company rolled out a senior-friendly yogurt range in March 2018. The yogurt and yogurt drinks are lactose-free and enriched with calcium and vitamin D.
Seamild Blood Maintenance Nutritious Oatmeal for Middle-Aged and Seniors (China): Functional cereals can target busy, health-conscious seniors. This hot cereal contains Australian oats, pumpkin, bitter buckwheat, spirulina, fiber and vitamin C.
Proactive approaches to health can come in many forms
Besides senior-specific claims, Mintel's 2019 Global Food & Drink Trend ‘Through the Ages’ predicts that general ‘healthy ageing’ will be the next extension for products that offer more holistic, proactive and ongoing wellness solutions.
For older demographics, this means products will not necessarily have to carry the sometimes-stigmatised "seniors only" positioning; meanwhile, brands will be able to rely on many of the same claims that appeal to younger consumers - thus resonating across all age groups. Areas to focus on include gut, bone and joint health, as well as ingredients that could improve cognitive health. Food and drink can serve as sources of essential nutrients for prevention and positive ageing, such as prebiotics for gut health, MCTs for brain function, lutein for eye health and collagen peptide for joints.
Brands could also take inspiration from scientifically proven healthy eating patterns for a new wave of positive ageing claims. For example, the Mediterranean diet has shown potential to link with brain health claims in food, drink and supplements.
Asda Mackerel Fillets (UK): This skinless and boneless product is high in omega-3, which helps maintain normal function of the heart. Despite the correlation between nutrients in fish and heart health, less than 2% of products launched globally make related claims.
Adrien Gagnon Royal Jelly & Ginseng Ampoules (Canada): This supplement contains 2,000mg of maca and 200mg of ginseng to support cognitive function and reduce mental fatigue. Keeping brains healthy reduces a person's risk of cognitive decline with age.
Trimona Plain Bulgarian Yogurt (US): This product states that it is "a staple for health and longevity in Bulgaria for years" on the back of the pack, describing how it prevents ageing, rather than reacting to it.
Longer careers require energy and brain health
Longer lifespans are driving consumers to work full- or part-time beyond traditional retirement age. Turning 65 years old no longer means trading in the office keys for a set of golf clubs. Increasingly, seniors are opting to delay retirement and stay in the workforce because they want to, because they have to, or a bit of both. As adults work longer, products that provide energy, brain health and, in the era of computers and smartphones, eye health, will be needed.
Eye health is impacted by lifestyle, including eating habits. Good eye health can therefore be supported by consumption of food and drink with nutrients such as vitamins C and E, zinc, lutein, zeaxanthin and omega-3 fatty acids.
Meiji's Gold Advance Malt Flavored Milk (Thailand): The dairy drink contains ingredients to help with bone health, nervous system health, brain health and memory as well as vitamin A to help with eyesight.
Jenny Zegler, Associate Director - Mintel Food & Drink
With offices in London, Chicago, Belfast, Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai, Munich, New York, São Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto, Mintel has forged a unique reputation as a world-renowned business brand. You can access Mintel reports at the Business & IP Centre free of charge with a Reader Pass.
10 June 2019
Food Season at the Business & IP Centre
With the British Library’s Food Season coming to a close, we take a look back at the past few months and the events the Business & IP Centre has celebrated with, including panel talks, inventors’ club, speed mentoring, workshops and one-to-ones for budding foodie entrepreneurs, or those who wanted to grow their existing business.
The UK’s food and drinks sector going from strength to strength. In 2017, consumer spending in the sector exceeded £219 billion with food and drinks exports worth more than £22 million to the economy. With almost 7,000 micro, small and medium businesses active in the sector last year, there’s no shortage of brands eager to take a bite out of the market.
Expert Impact’s Profit with Purpose: The Tastemakers II heard how Rubies in the Rubble (Innovating for Growth: Scale-ups alumni), LEMONAID, The Dusty Knuckle Bakery and Ben & Jerry’s became successful social enterprises. Here’s a little taster of the evening…
Our own Inspiring Entrepreneurs: Recipes for Success followed with the founders and co-founders of Eat Natural, Riverford and Pip & Nut, moderated by food journalist Victoria Stewart. Here are some highlights from the Q&A, with questions from audiences both in London and around our National Network, as well as those watching via our live webcast.
With work/life balance being a main motivator for a lot of entrepreneurs (whether or not that ends up being the reality), finding a happy medium between business and non-work time can be challenging. Pip Murray, founder of Pip & Nut still struggles, even with products in over 5,000 stores in four and a half years, “The first couple of years I was like a headless chicken. It’s inevitable it [the business] will take over everything. Since building the team, it’s given me headspace to enjoy my weekends. There’s only so much you can keep going at that pace and something needs to give. I’m very much involved in everything. There’s still an element that sucks you in, but you just need regular breaks.”
Guy Singh-Watson, founder of Riverford, decided to make the company employee owned and he became one of 650 co-owners. Guy said, “I strongly believe in giving people as much autonomy about how their day goes, what they’re doing and how they do it. Giving them the ability to grow and get better at it. The third motivator is purpose. In agriculture, the work is very very demanding, and I think fewer and fewer people are going to want to do it and we have to make sure we keep the best ones.”
The panel of founders also highlighted the need to not being afraid of trying things, not waiting for perfection and just going for it. Praveen encourages, “If you have an idea, just go for it. You don’t know what’s going to happen until you speak to consumers. If you believe in it, you have to give it a go. We love failing – it happens all the time.”
The panel finished with their most rewarding moments in business…
- Riverford - the day we became employee owned 👥
- Pip & Nut - seeing our products on the supermarket shelves for the first time 🥜
- Eat Natural - getting the first crop of honey from our own beehives 🍯🐝
You can see all speakers’ videos and the Q&A on our YouTube channel, including questions on influencers, ethics, marketing and getting into supermarkets.
24 April 2019
A Week in the Life of... Hugh Duffie, co-founder of Sandows
Hugh is one of the co-founders of Sandows, who have been instrumental in introducing cold brew coffee to the UK since launching in 2014. Cold brew is a type of coffee drink, in much the same way as an espresso, cafetière or a flat white, and the process involves infusing ground coffee in cold water overnight. This long, slow method draws out an unexpectedly smooth and refreshing flavour that’s caffeine charged to boot.
Australian-born Hugh moved to the UK at 18 and started working in restaurants, where he trained to be a barista and bartender. He left to specialise in coffee and met Luke Suddards at TAP Coffee in Wardour Street, where he developed the roasting and café management skills that have served him well at Sandows, which the pair started in 2014, initially working from an Islington café’s basement.
Sandows ambition is to make great cold brew something you can find everywhere and Hugh sees Sandows as a creative expression of the pair’s vision for great coffee - trying to take care of quality with humility, whilst engaging people with distinctive design and simple explanations.
Sandows produce a range of products from premium glass bottles in the style of whisky flasks that sit in specialist cafés, luxury retailers and members clubs, to cans that sell in more mainstream retailers. Hugh is an alumni of our Innovating for Growth: Scale-ups programme and will be a speaker at the upcoming Thinking Outside The Pots talk, so we asked him to tell us about a week in the life of running Sandows…
Most weeks are pretty different and it can be fluid which I like, but here’s an example of the kind of thing I normally do. My morning routine is probably the only really consistent part of my day and though I used to cycle every day, I actually find my (pretty short) commute really helps clear my head and set me up for better focus. I’m very much the kind of person who hits snooze half a dozen times - have to admit I’m not really a morning person, it’s no wonder coffee is a big part of my life. I usually wake up and deal with anything urgent email-wise whilst still in the comfort of my bed. I get up and take a shower and head to the Overground for about a 30 minute door-to-door trip which will usually feature listening to a podcast or some music, working through a long read or firing off a few memes to friends in one of the WhatsApp or Instagram groups I’m in. I just about always stop off at Lanark Coffee on Hackney Road for a chat and a coffee. This year I’ve been trying to keep my intake to just two coffees a day, usually before midday, whereas previously I’ve had virtually no limit and found myself feeling very wired/weird after my 6/7th coffee.
Monday I get in to our office, part of a small ‘village’ of adapted shipping containers by the canal in Hackney, and set myself up for the day. Recently that’s meant some cereal and a brain function nootropic and then it’s straight into it. Mostly chasing up recent leads, preparing for calls or email pitches for potential new customers, or thinking about marketing and what we need to be executing on this week.
Tuesday I tend to schedule meetings for Tuesday/Wednesday so I can try and get ahead on the Monday and have a bit of room to give sales another push later in the week. At the moment there’s a lot of work trying to balance day-to-day execution with piecing together our long term plan in the form of a pitch deck, aiming to show potential investors that we have a clear plan for growth whilst also demonstrating that we have delivered on plans previously.
Wednesday Likelihood is that I will have a meeting or two booked and given our office is in a shipping container leaving it a bit exposed for conversations, I’ll sometimes arrange to meet elsewhere to avoid disrupting everyone. These meetings could be with mentors, wholesalers, freelancers we work with, investors, potential investors or even sometimes Luke when we need to walk around some of our stockists, take stock of where we’re at visually and talk through our plans as we walk.
Thursday As we approach the end of the week I’m always checking in on current cash flow, sales for the week and progress towards our monthly goal and usually chasing those leads again from Monday. I don’t like emailing people a load of times and hassling them so I try to keep my tone really jovial and if we’ve met and had a laugh together (always my goal) I’ll throw in a joke or meme to try and elicit a response. Thursdays are a big day for launches and industry events and we straddle both coffee and alcohol industries across our various products (for example our Espresso Martini Mix is stocked by a lot of bars and we work with many alcohol brands to promote it) so often times I’ll find myself representing the brand after the working day finishes, meeting people and explaining what we do and seeking out new opportunities. I guess as a founder your work is so associated with your identity (life) and your lifestyle is so dictated by your work, so for me the answer is to ensure I’m enjoying work and life. That means working with people I get on with, not taking life too seriously and trying to share my enthusiasm for what I do. My whole philosophy is a bit like that question ‘how do you eat an elephant?’ where the answer is ‘one bite at a time’. I just try to move things forward every day and accept that it ebbs and flows and be grateful that I have the opportunity to control my own lifestyle so much and express myself through my work every day.
Friday Fridays we put our heads together as a team and go over the week’s activity, re-align on everything that’s happened and ensure production and sales are in sync. On a monthly basis Luke and I will need to put together an investor update for our lead investors and we present the data (financial performance), talk through successes and failures, team news, share the content that has been shaping our thinking and confirm our plan for the month/s ahead. We finish up with a few drinks and generally wind down with perhaps fun food Friday or some Friday tunes or both if we’re lucky. I’ll usually leave the team once we head our separate ways and meet with friends and have a few drinks. Given my family are in Australia, I look to my best friends to fill that place in my life and so investing in those relationships is really important to me.
Weekend For a long time (nearly three years) Luke and I worked seven days a week and it was a case of fitting work into every waking hour to push the brand along. We reached the point of burnout and for the most part, Luke and I now avoid work on the weekends to take that time to decompress, gather our thoughts and really establish some balance and get inspired by doing new things. I love going to the cinema or exhibitions at the Design Museum for example, but I can be lazier sometimes and end up just watching Arsenal play and then stay at the pub for the other football games on that day. I love dropping in to our stockists on the weekend and seeing people experiencing our brand, but I guess I acknowledge that building a beverage brand is about quality interactions as much as quantity and that getting that right means patience and stamina over a prolonged period.
01 April 2019
A week in the life of... Frankie Fox, co-founder and Head of Innovation for The Foraging Fox
To celebrate the British Library's Food Season, this month's Week in the life of... follows Frankie Fox, the co-founder and Head of Innovation for The Foraging Fox, a multi award winning producer of all natural condiments sold across the UK, Germany, The Netherlands and North America. Frankie is an alumni of our Innovating for Growth: Scale-ups programme.
Monday
Starts with feeding the chickens and then the school run, dropping off the kids before racing into London to an office in Shoreditch for a feasibility exercise with an external consultant on some particular NPD (new product development) we have been looking at. This involves looking at the whole of market in our major territories for a class of products where we have gathered data ourselves and from our major importers. We look at the products themselves, whether they can be made within our brand values, potential manufacturers for these products, price point, competition, distribution and most importantly the size of the market, potential market share we could gain. It certainly feels a far cry from where it all began with our Original Beetroot Ketchup which started as a kitchen project with the children to teach them to cook with a surplus of beetroot and apples. We spent three years in the family kitchen developing this product, testing it out on family and friends. During which time I took pictures of all the condiments shelves in all my favourite stores looking for a market opportunity for our all natural flavoured ketchup. Once I was convinced there was an opportunity we worked on branding the branding and finally by booking a small producers stand at a trade show with a box of handmade samples to get proof of concept that there was actually a market before launching the company in earnest.
There are always emails to catch up on. My co-founder and a member of team are exhibiting at a trade show in New York and so it’s nice to hear how it’s going and I need to catch up with the manufacturers and suppliers on upcoming production runs for our existing product ranges, and calls with the rest of the team on various different ongoing day to day business. However, I need to dash back as it’s parents evening for my youngest and I make it to her school just in time to meet my husband before sitting down with her teacher.
Tuesday
I start the day by dropping the kids at school, early doors as usual and go for a quick run through Hatfield Forest on my way back. It’s hard to fit exercise in around work and family commitments, so I like to make it part of my daily routine as much as possible. Running is time efficient and I like to be outdoors as much as I can as it really helps to clear my mind for the day. On a purely spiritual level, starting your day in an ancient forest puts everything into perspective!
I am working in the kitchen today on NPD (new product development) on adding products to an existing range and ideas for a new range altogether. This means a lot of time spent on research and time spent in the kitchen developing recipes by trial and error. I put music on whilst I work in the kitchen, and get all the ingredients and utensils out and plan what I am going to do. It pays to be really organised at this stage, and I fastidiously note down and to keep track of any changes I make with each version of any recipe. This is the favourite part of my job. At the moment I’m learning about a new type of preservation process, which is absolutely fascinating and I have spent hours on YouTube and looking at and trialing various recipes and ideas. I always feel a huge sense of excitement whenever I initiate a new range idea. The process from product inception to the shelf of a supermarket can be a long drawn out and painstaking process which is very involved and you need to invest a lot of time throughout the process so you need a lot of energy and passion for the product to take it through to market. When I am happy with a kitchen recipe for a product and have done the basic costings and understood price points by doing a feasibility exercise I will source and take the recipe to a manufacturer where we will work on manufacturing costings and their kitchen recipe to replicate my kitchen recipe. We have a confidentiality agreement in place with anyone we work with (read more about Trade Secrets in this Irn Bru case study). This next stage can go on for months, one product had so many countless kitchen version from the factory that weren’t quite right I started to feel so despondent that this product would never reach the shelf. It did, and I am really glad that we were so thorough and patient with this stage of development. When you are happy with their kitchen trial, then it can go on to the factory trial stage, which is a smaller scale version of full scale production the factory itself. This is when you may find you will need to tweak the recipe and method again to suit the machines, cooking and the factory processes. It’s always trial and error at each and every stage with larger volumes at stake but we are always learning.
I clear the kitchen, fill the fridge and shelves with my samples, file my notes, shower and get into my evening wear as I am attending an awards ceremony tonight. However, my daughter is competing in her first swimming gala after school today so I need to be there for that first as it’s on my way. I look rather overdressed standing at the poolside cheering my daughter and her school on in a bright red cocktail dress and heels - but she was amazing and so were her whole team so I am bursting with pride and have no time to be self-conscious as I have a train to catch! The event is the Chef’s Choice Awards at The Shard in London, it’s a Food Service Catering Awards event to celebrate the best products in the catering industry. We have created a new food service format for our range of All Natural Beetroot Ketchups to reach a new audience of customers - to date our offerings have only been available in a retail glass format. We decided to enter the awards to support the launch in this market, raise awareness for the products and the brand with wholesalers and food service customers and ultimately boost sales! Our OOH (Out of Home) salesperson is also attending the event with me to ensure we make the most of the event, speak to all the right people and get and convert these leads into sales. It’s a fun evening and we strike up conversations with other suppliers and wholesalers. To our absolute joy we win the Condiment Category and amazement we win the overall Product of the Year! I’m grinning ear to ear on the train home, everyone is asleep when I get home and so I leave the award out on the kitchen table for my husband the kids to see in the morning and we can celebrate over cereal.
Wednesday
Drop kids into school, a quick run and then catch up with my emails and calls the team about the awards ceremony and decide who we need to follow up with and how. We put together a press release with quotes from the judges to send to relevant media contacts and potential leads. Interview with The Grocer magazine for their piece on the win.
Thursday
Drop kids early and dash into London to meet the team in White City, the day is spent in and out of internal meetings. My co-founder and I tend to start the day with a management meeting, then we have a whole team meeting which gives us an update on what everyone is working on. Then we have a specific sales and production planning meeting afterwards to discuss sales figures and stock levels in all territories to manage stock and plan productions.
Friday
Back in the Shoreditch office to do an in-depth taste testing session and follow up on the Monday NPD (new product development) meeting. Our monthly Board call to discuss work in progress and priorities. No day is the same and as a founder of a start-up business I have done every role at some point from bookkeeping, packing boxes, trade shows to in-store sampling sessions, so you care passionately about every single detail of the business even if you now have team members doing these functions. I always want to be there to support them in any way I can. It may be Friday but you never really clock off but it’s nice to look forward to spending the weekend in the garden, digging over the vegetable beds with the chickens pecking for worms - chitting potatoes and planting strawberries plants in the polytunnel with the kids and planting new raspberry canes in the fruit cage. Back to where it all started in the garden with the kids. Spring is my favourite time of the year, full of potential and endless possibilities.
17 January 2017
Local Data Company shows coffee shops on a high
Pubs are down while coffee shops are up according to a fascinating article on the BBC website today, Coffee shops on the march as pubs decline, town centre data shows.
They have analysed information from the Local Data Company to show the number of town centre bars, pubs and night clubs fell by about 2,000 between 2011-16. While cafes, fast food outlets and restaurants increased by 6,000.
We have access to this data and much more in Business & IP Centre in London through our subscription to Local Data Online.
You can use Local Data Online to give you data and insights for locations, business types and companies across the country. It has a searchable map tool which lets you select a specific area and examine the overall retail make-up.
You can identify local businesses and check the geographical spread of an industry or company. You can also find addresses and contact details for individual shops, lists of available vacant units, and a demographic profile of the area.
You can search for a specific location, company and/or retail category, and information is displayed on easy-to-read maps and diagrams. Extra information for locations includes vacancy rates, the mix of independent shops vs. chains, crime statistics, average earnings and house prices.
So, if you want to find out where your new local coffee shops are, or which pubs have recently closed their doors. Just come along to the Centre and we can show you how use it.
Written by Neil Infield @ninfield
22 December 2016
Why entering awards are good for you and your small business
As a busy business owner you need to find ways to promote what you do with maximum impact. You know the value of your business or service and can shout about it from the top of your lungs all day long. But what’s even more impactful is when other people do it for you. Along with using testimonials on your website and social media from customers you can also enter awards. Win a business award and you’ll create a buzz around your business, enhance your brand and have your story shared in the press. But you have to be in it to win it! Keep track of your networks for news about when their award programmes are running and think of all the of strings to your bow when considering which categories give you and your business the best chance of success.
One awards programme coming up for female business founders is the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Awards - regarded as the Oscars for female entrepreneurs and business leaders. Set up in 1972 as a tribute to their own female founder, Madame Clicquot, the awards continue to champion the success of women worldwide who share the same enterprising spirit, courage and determination to succeed.
As well as their Business Woman of the Year Award, they are looking for strong nominations to apply for their Social Purpose Award (businesswomen championing social purpose beyond their core business case) and New Generation (under 35 year old) awards. Nominations close on 30 December 2016.
A recent winner of the Veuve Clicquot New Generation award was Jenny Dawson Costa, founder and CEO of relish range Rubies in the Rubble, and graduate of our Business & IP Centre’s ‘Growth Club’. Earlier this year Jenny shared with us how the business began:
“The idea for Rubies in the Rubble came after a very early morning visit to a wholesale fruit and veg market on my bike one frosty day in November 2010. I fell in love with the market - such a diverse range of people living by night and sleeping by day; a world of farmers, wholesalers, restaurant owners and market sellers trading anything from durians to brussel sprouts.
But just along from the bustle of the traders were the piles of unwanted fruit and veg - mange tout from Kenya, mangos from the Philippines, tomatoes from Turkey, cranberries for California which bypassed the bustle of traders and headed straight for the bin! And what really saddened me was that much of these, though potentially with a short shelf life, were perfectly edible!
It got me thinking about the impossibility of matching supply and demand when you have unpredictable weather, unpredictable humans and supermarkets that provide everything in plentiful piles throughout the year.
I then buried myself in researching food waste and realising its scale and implications – both environmentally and financially. However, it was a simple fact that compelled me to act: we are wasting 1/3 of all the food we produce, whilst 1bn people go to bed hungry. I’m not saying I know the solution but there are improvements that we can make to the current system.
And then it came to me: a premium food brand making delicious products from fruit and vegetables that would otherwise be discarded.”
We’re huge fans of the Rubies relish and continue to work with Jenny to grow the company. If your own story is just as powerful then think about applying for the New Generation or Social Purpose award 2017.
At our next ‘Inspiring Entrepreneurs: Internet Icons’ event, on Tuesday 7 February, you will have the chance to listen to and meet the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award winner Woman of the Year for 2016, Sarah Wood, who’s marketing agency Unruly has been behind fantastic campaigns such as the Compare the Market’s meerkat adverts.
The event will see Sarah share her story alongside three other inspiring entrepreneurs; founders of SpareRoom, Bloom & Wild and Deliciously Ella. You can join us in the British Library or watch from home with our free of charge webcast. You’ll also have the opportunity to question the panel about how you find the right awards to apply to and ask for tips on how to win.
If you are a female founder and fit the mould for the New Generation or Social Impact Awards then here are some useful tips for submitting a 5 star application:
- Give yourself enough time to answer the questions to the best of your ability and to shine a light on your achievements
- Don’t be shy! Be sure to give a compelling reason within each answer for why you and your business deserve to be the winner
- Be honest. However tempting to inflate the details be truthful and so avoid potential PR problems later on
- Have attention to detail – have you answered all the questions fully, within the word limit and hitting all the key criteria?
Good luck with your applications and maybe you'll be the next winner of the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Awards.
15 August 2016
Waste not, want not. The business of turning discarded food into delicious chutney
We caught up with Jenny Dawson Costa, founder and CEO, of relish range Rubies in the Rubble. But Rubies is much more than just a range of yummy relishes – the business is built on sustainable values turning surplus fruit and veg into something tasty rather than wasting it. Their range of relishes is inspired by home-cooked recipes they started making in their kitchen. Now they’re stocked in major retailers throughout the UK and the business continues to grow day-by-day.
When was Rubies in the Rubble set up and what was it that inspired the business?
The idea for Rubies in the Rubble came after a very early morning visit to a wholesale fruit and veg market on my bike one frosty day in November 2010.
I fell in love with the market - such a diverse range of people living by night and sleeping by day; a world of farmers, wholesalers, restaurant owners and market sellers trading anything from durians to brussel sprouts.
But just along from the bustle of the traders were the piles of unwanted fruit and veg - mange tout from Kenya, mangos from the Philippines, tomatoes from Turkey, cranberries for California which bypassed the bustle of traders and headed straight for the bin! And what really saddened me was that much of these, though potentially with a short shelf life, were perfectly edible!
It got me thinking about the impossibility of matching supply and demand when you have unpredictable weather, unpredictable humans and supermarkets that provide everything in plentiful piles throughout the year.
I then buried myself in researching food waste and realising its scale and implications – both environmentally and financially. However, it was a simple fact that compelled me to act: we are wasting 1/3 of all the food we produce, whilst 1bn people go to bed hungry. I’m not saying I know the solution but there are improvements that we can make to the current system.
And then it came to me: a premium food brand making delicious products from fruit and vegetables that would otherwise be discarded.
What challenges have you faced along the way?
There seems to be a never-ending array of new challenges each day which keeps life interesting!
Initially the challenges were mainly around educating people about why waste or surplus existed and the need to value our supply chain. However, our greatest challenges now are around scaling up our production and winning new customers.
What has been the business’s biggest achievement so far?
The most exciting was being on the BBC News. They sent a car just 5 mins after calling me about the interview. I was in a hoody, looking pretty much the worse for wear, with no knowledge of the news story but off I went and had an amazing live interview on food waste in the UK.
But my proudest moment was a letter from the Queen. I’m a big fan of hers so I wrote to her asking what her favourite chutney was as I wanted to make her one for the Jubilee. She probably thought I was 10 years old, but wrote back with a lovely letter saying she couldn’t tell me her favourites but would love to try my chutney - so I sent her the range and she loved them!
What one piece of advice would you give to any business owners struggling to take their business to the next level?
I would advise them to really test their business out on a small scale first. Talk to lots of people, know how you are going to make your product and get it into the hands of the consumer to see where the challenges might lie.
Then, when you know there is a market for your product and how you are going to make it, just go for it whole-heartedly – give it your best shot and hope for the best.
How has the Innovating for Growth programme helped you?
It was great to have some time out from the day-to-day business and focus on the big picture and plan for growth. Reminding us that you can’t do everything at once and you need to concentrate on getting what you’re currently doing right before moving on to the next thing.
Finally, what’s next on the horizon for Rubies in the Rubble?
We’re really excited for the future and our next steps. We have been focused on making sure we nail it before we scale it for the last 3 years at Rubies and we are now confident that we have a valued brand and robust plan to really go for it. We are now developing new products with the hope of becoming an umbrella brand of great tasting foods made with the same ethos.
Watch this space!
Apply now for over £10,000 worth of business advice
Are you a start-up looking to scale up, like Rubies? Innovating for Growth is a fully funded three-month programme to help you turn your growth idea into a reality.
Covering everything from intellectual property to reaching new markets and branding, we'll guide you through every step of the way to help your business achieve its growth ambitions.
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