Brand Growth Heroes

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 Follow Brand Growth Heroes on Instagram , Tiktok , Linkedin CPG Founders: Want to know the secret *three NEW must-haves* that investors are insisting on in the current economic climate? Verlinvest is the investment company behind your favourite insurg...

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. ( Follow Brand Growth Heroes on Instagram , Tiktok , Linkedin ) In this episode, Matthew...

If you work in the food industry, you need to start swotting up on this subject area:  **Regenerative Agriculture**   ( Follow Brand Growth Heroes on Instagram , Tiktok , Linkedin ) 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. But uniquely, they are making de...

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®? ( Follow Brand Growth Heroes on Instagram , Tiktok , Linkedin ) 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...

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.   Follow Brand Growth Heroes here on Instagram , Tiktok , Linkedin . In this episode - our first with a grocery retailer - you'll learn: - Why and how Sco...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 Strate...

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...

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 o...

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, a...

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...

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 a...

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...

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...

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...

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 A...

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...

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 b...

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...

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 s...

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? Das...

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 enj...