BEYOND THE BRAND

This episode of Beyond the Brand looks at three big questions food and drink brands are facing right now. What do weight loss drugs mean for what people eat? How do you change a brand people already love without losing them? And what happens when you run a brand you didn’t build?

A lot of the industry sees GLP-1 as a threat. Fewer snacks, smaller baskets, less booze. But for some brands, the shift could work in their favour, as long as they handle it carefully.

To talk it through, Adam is joined by Julia Kessler, CEO of Fiid, a B Corp plant-based food brand from Dublin making high protein, high fibre meals that are ready in 90 seconds. Julia spent 12 years in tech supply chain at BlackBerry and QuickBooks, then co-founded spicy soft drink brand Nix and Kix, which sold around 30 million units and was stocked in Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons.

In this honest, practical conversation, Julia explains why she sees GLP-1 as good news, how she rebranded Fiid within six months without losing loyal shoppers, and why time spent in supermarket aisles still shapes the decisions she makes.

In This Episode

• Why GLP-1 is driven by consumers, not regulation, and why that means it will stick
• How one person on the drug can change what a whole household eats
• Why Fiid chose not to put “GLP-1 friendly” on pack
• Dropping “vegan” from the pack and leading with protein, fibre and veg instead
• Changing packs and recipes at the same time, and why she kept the name
• How promos, sampling and in-store displays protected shoppers at launch, and how rate of sale doubled
• Going from founder to hired CEO, and making decisions with less emotional attachment
• Watching shoppers in the aisle, and why “pink is a flavour”

Key Takeaways

🔹 GLP-1 is a change led by consumers, so it’s here to stay🔹 You can design for a trend without putting it on the label🔹 Shoppers shop with their eyes first, so every pack needs to stand out on shelf🔹 A relaunch needs trial behind it, not just a new pack🔹 For a new or different product, getting it into people’s hands is the biggest driver🔹 Only launch NPD if it can do as well as your best seller

Resources & Links

Find Fiid in store or online https://www.eatfiid.com/Connect with Julia on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/innovationflow/
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Twenty years into a marketing career built across six countries and 40-plus brands, staying relevant has meant reinventing more than once, not settling into one version of the job.

In this episode, Angeliki Kazantzidi, Head of Marketing Northern Europe at Kenvue, joins Adam to talk through what that reinvention has looked like, from a chemistry degree and an SAP consulting job to leading some of the biggest names in skincare and self-care.

Guest bio

Angeliki Kazantzidi is Head of Marketing Northern Europe at Kenvue, leading 6 countries and more than 40 brands including Neutrogena, Aveeno, Listerine and Calpol. Her career spans over 20 years across consumer health, FMCG, and B2B, with roles in Greece, Switzerland, Spain, and now the UK.

Any competitor can cite the same ingredient study you cite.

Looking credible has gotten cheap, and the science page, the citations, and the claims that used to set a brand apart are now within reach of anyone with a product and a browser.

What's left is the evidence you own about your own finished product, and that's what Sarah Booth has built Ancient + Brave around.

Sarah is Chief Brand and Creative Officer at Ancient + Brave, the wellness brand that grew more than 1,400% in 2 years and holds the highest B Corp score of any UK supplement company.

Before this, she led brand strategy at ASOS and ran brand and marketing at Ovo Energy. She started in zoology, which turns out to matter for how she runs a wellness brand.

Sarah and Adam get into the difference between evidence about an ingredient, which everyone in your category can point to, and evidence about your product, which only you hold.

In the episode:

→ Why nobody outside your business will ever fund a study on your actual product
→ The Nike test for whether the evidence you're citing is really yours
→ How Ancient + Brave's clinical trial surfaced a benefit they weren't looking for
→ What open customer feedback tells you that lab testing can't
→ Why owned evidence gets more valuable as your category fills with new entrants

If you've watched a newer brand launch with claims that sound just like yours, this one's about what you can build that they can't lift.

Beyond the Brand is brought to you by Sampl—smarter product trials, measurable from request to review to sale.

Peony Li built Jude by serving the customer that almost everyone else in women's health overlooks: older women.

She and Adam talk through how she built around them, from imagery that shows older women with dignity to a 30,000-strong community that now shapes the brand and gave Jude its first-ever employee.

The conversation covers growing a brand when ad platforms restrict the words you need to reach people, and why genuine care for a customer is the one thing a competitor cannot copy.

Peony is the founder and CEO of Jude, the women's health brand now stocked in around 2,000 UK stores. Before launching it, she spent 3 years investing at Founders Factory.

Max Henderson started Hotpod Yoga in 2013 with his childhood friend Nick, despite neither of them being yoga people at the time. Today, Hotpod Yoga is Europe's largest yoga business in 3 countries with over 500,000 customers.

Most of those customers arrived sceptical about yoga, or were put off by it altogether. So Hotpod stopped leading with yoga and started selling the experience around it: the pod, the heat, the scent, the music, a space that shuts the outside world out.

The yoga happens once you're already in the room.

In this episode, Max and Adam get into how he built a brand that looks nothing like its category, why looking radically different did the heavy lifting on changing perception, how referrals turn sceptical first-timers into regulars, and what he learned from a 4-year rebrand and 18 months of barely trading through COVID.

There's also a sharp section on using partnerships to stay culturally relevant.

If you're trying to win customers who've already decided your category isn't for them, this one's worth your time.

From social to shelf without a pitch

Hannah Samano left Unilever at the height of the direct-to-consumer boom to build something from nothing. She's now founder and CEO of Unfabled, a women's health and supplements brand that has gone from a pure D2C launch to 730+ Boots stores, Holland & Barrett online and 61 Sainsbury's stores, without ever pitching for that first retail deal.

In this episode Hannah tells Adam how Boots messaged them a month after their first supplement line went live, why she's grown revenue 10x in two years with six full-time people, and how a D2C-native brand ends up with an advantage on a supermarket shelf that bigger players don't have.

It's a practical conversation for anyone in FMCG weighing up the crossover between digital and retail. What actually transfers, what doesn't, and why Hannah reckons retail "feels less rickety" than D2C.

In this episode

• Why she walked away from Unilever's D2C push, and what from that playbook still earns its keep
• Taking a six-person team to 10x revenue, and the communication maths behind staying lean
• What Unfabled keeps in-house (growth, IP, product development) versus what it briefs out
• "Retail chose us": the Boots Ignite story and the jump from 50 to 737 stores
• Using community data to win on shelf, and bringing personalisation to the shelf edge
• Repositioning creatine for women, away from the gym-bro association it has carried for decades
• Selling everyday health next to the bread and milk, and building trust in two seconds
• What has shifted in women's health, and the $1 trillion number that changed the funding conversation

Chapters01:36 . Hannah's path: Unilever, Nairobi and a focus on female health03:31 . Leaving Unilever at the peak of the D2C bubble06:37 . What transfers from a corporate playbook to a startup12:17 . The case for a deliberately lean team15:41 . Building the systems that let a small team move fast16:39 . What stays in-house and what gets briefed out18:54 . "Retail chose us": the Boots Ignite story23:17 . Unfabled Labs, community data and the shelf-edge advantage26:14 . Repositioning creatine for women29:17 . Winning trust in two seconds on a Sainsbury's shelf32:38 . D2C versus retail, and why retail feels less rickety35:29 . South by Southwest, and momentum as a startup's currency37:14 . What's changed in women's health, and the $1 trillion shift39:13 . Where to find Hannah and Unfabled

About Hannah and UnfabledHannah Samano is the founder and CEO of Unfabled, a women's health and supplements brand she started in 2021 after struggling to find products that worked for her own hormonal health. Before that she spent several years at Unilever, including a spell at Unilever Ventures and on the team that built its first in-house D2C personal care brand.

Unfabled: unfabled.co, and on Instagram and TikTokHannah: Hannah Samano on LinkedIn

Listen and subscribeBeyond The Brand is a bi-weekly podcast and newsletter for marketers learning from the people shaping the future of brands. New episodes on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Substack and LinkedIn.

You can get water from a tap for free. So why does anyone pay for a bottle? And why do some people pay more for one bottle over another?

Michele Ricci is Head of Global Marketing for Nestlé Pure Life and local brands. He has spent 15 years working on Nesquik, San Pellegrino, and Buxton, in some of the most commoditised categories on the shelf.

In this episode, Michele talks through how he moved Nesquik from a sugary kids' powder into a lower-sugar, fortified breakfast brand, and why Nestlé retargeted parents instead of doubling down on children.

He explains the renaming of San Pellegrino's range from "sparkling fruit beverages" to "Italian sparkling drinks", and how that single naming decision opened up new opportunities, a more premium shelf, and a stronger Italian story.

He also covers the Buxton x Mind "Sweat and Tears" platform, the London Marathon takeover, and the launch of Inspired by Buxton Peak, a new functional water now rolling out in UK retailers.

In this episode:

• Why premium is a language and an experience, with price doing less of the work than people assume
• How to shift a 30-year brand perception without losing the loyal base
• Why low-funnel experience and sampling now belong at the centre of brand building
• How a brand purpose only sticks when it connects to a real human tension

A useful listen for any marketer working with a brand in a category where the customer sees the product as interchangeable.

85% of Heinz's in-house content hits or beats the engagement rates their external agencies deliver. Karen Owen, Chief Growth Officer for Europe and Pacific at Kraft Heinz, built the team behind that.

In this episode, she talks through the architecture of The Kitchen, Heinz's content studio now running across 4 continents, how it operates alongside external agencies rather than replacing them, and what it takes to keep a brand that has existed for 157 years part of cultural conversations while they're still happening.

Karen Owen on LinkedIn

In this episode, luxury marketing expert Michael Edelmann (CMO, 111SKIN. Ex. Dr. Barbara Sturm, Business of Fashion, Gucci) talks about what it takes to build a brand universe that people genuinely want to belong to, and why that matters for anyone managing a brand in FMCG.

He explains how 111SKIN rebuilt its loyalty programme around belonging after realising that points and discounts were driving repeat purchases without creating any real community.

That shift shaped everything from how they approach partnerships to how they think about influence.

Michael walks through the Repairs Van activation, which landed because it was tied to a story, and how they amplified it digitally to reach customers who were nowhere near London.

He also talks about why founder-led storytelling works when the founder has genuine, daily authority in their field.

If you're a brand manager sitting between quarterly performance targets and long-term brand building, this episode gives you a practical framework for making the case that community compounds.

Michael Edelmann on LinkedIn

In this episode, Caroline Pay (Ex. Headspace, Mother, BBH, Grey) discusses the creative layer that sits between a brief and the work that comes back, and why, in her experience, it is almost always missing.

The brief lands with a designer. The thinking that should happen in between — the strategic and conceptual work that turns a problem into something distinctive — gets skipped.

The result is work that looks like everything else, teams that can't move fast without losing quality, and brands that never quite compound.

Caroline spent 20 years at agencies including Mother and BBH before becoming CCO at Headspace, where she built a brand system tight enough to hold its own against Disney, Netflix, Nike, and Spotify.

She draws on that experience to explain what the missing layer is, how to build it, and why hiring a designer and calling it a creative team isn't the same.

This episode is for every senior marketer who suspects their creative process is the problem but hasn't been able to name why.

Caroline Pay on LinkedIn