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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 insurgent brands like Tony's Chocolonely, Oatly, Mutti, Vita Coco and Who Gives a Crap. 

Their investment - and their team - is helping to build some of the world's largest consumer brands. 

In this episode (recorded a few months back), I speak to Director Ben Black and I get some top advice for founders looking for funding.

But most importantly...we'll let you in on a secret: 

There are THREE NEW THINGS that investors are looking for in today's economic climate. These are not listed here, you’re going to have to listen to the show!

And as a bonus…you'll also learn:

1. At what point in time do you need to be showing profitability in your business plan?
2. What a consumer revolution is and why it matters
3. What Fiona means by 'understanding your consumers’ ‘inflation-friction’  and why it's KEY
4. What VCs actually DO to help founders other than offer money
5. How you know that you're not trying HARD enough....

I hope you enjoy this latest episode and learn as much as I did recording it!

Want to work with Fiona?
Email Fiona for a 1-1 session: [email protected]
See how Fiona can help develop your commercial and marketing teams internally: Fiona Fitz Consulting

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

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

If you work in the food industry, you need to start swotting up on this subject area:
 **Regenerative Agriculture**
 
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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. But uniquely, they are making delicious food grown in healthy soils widely available to the high street customer, whilst guaranteeing a stable price committed to the farmer who makes the transition to regenerative practices.

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. and on mob here

Get Fiona on your brand team 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

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

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

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.

Follow Brand Growth Heroes here on Instagram, Tiktok, Linkedin.
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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!