Aduna Superfoods: Building The Supplements Category 3.0

0:00We're creating demand for something that people don't currently know exists and it's an obscure African fruit in powdered form.

0:12Andrew Hunt:Aduna Superfoods is the most beautiful, UPF-free, whole food, plant-based supplement brand that delivered me an incredible box of really stunning products. I wasn't quite sure when we got the email into the inbox. I thought maybe that this was a brand that was too niche for the show. but no. Instagrammable packaging, absolutely rooted in wellness, but not only just wellness and supplementation to growing areas. Also superfoods, whole foods, UPF free, no additives and regenerative farming. So when I read about this, when I tasted the products, I decided I needed to get them on the show because so many of you out there are looking at trying to, you know, make mainstream some relatively niche ingredients.

0:58Andrew Hunt:And this is a brand that has done that. And it has taken time. So let's unpick how they did it, how they're doing now, and go online and have a look at these products because they're really beautiful.

1:13Andrew Hunt:Andrew from Aduna Superfoods, welcome to Brand Growth Heroes. Hey Fiona, thanks so much for inviting me. I'm super excited to be on here. Listen, the first thing I've got to say is you sent myself and two of my team members the most enormous boxes of the most incredible products. And I don't say that lightly. Like your packaging is the most beautiful packaging of any supplements I have ever seen. And we've all been gorging ourselves on your superfoods. So if anyone out there listening straight away hasn't, if you're not watching this, if you're actually listening, A-D-U-N-A superfoods, it is incredible.

1:53Andrew Hunt:You've done an amazing job of your brand and your products. Tell us how you started this. Where is the business today? And then let's go back to how you started it. Thanks for the plug, Fiona. Much appreciated. We've been going for 14 years, actually. But it's really only in the last three years that we're starting to see some really, really exciting growth across our range of single ingredient superfood powders, blends, and also some supplements based on superfoods as well. So let's just talk about a couple of them. So there's loads of baobab, moringa. What else have you got in there? Cacao? Yeah, we're the ones that actually introduced baobab and moringa into the market back in 2014, 2012, we've been extremely selective about the ingredients that we launch.

2:51Yeah. And we have a new range coming out, which we're calling Superfood 2.0. And that's really about superfoods, which have the superior bioactive compounds, which is really what make superfoods so super.

3:09Andrew Hunt:Okay, well, we'll get to that. We'll get to that in a bit.

3:18Andrew Hunt:Welcome to Brand Growth Heroes, the leading podcast for the founders of Challenger grocery brands. I'm your host, Fiona Fitz. My 25 years at global giants such as Nestle and Challenger brands such as Goo Chocolate Puds, Chobani and Strong Roots, as well as coached to over 400 scaling brands, means I have the experience to ask the questions that truly matter and get you the insight that will inspire you to think differently and drive serious growth for your brand.

3:50Andrew Hunt:Tell everybody how you ended up bringing Baobab and then all the other ingredients to the UK. So I think to answer that, I need to go back into my personal history, really. Okay. Because I started off life in the advertising industry, helping to create and launch brands for big multinational companies but generally for products that I either didn't care about or actively disagreed with and that just felt you know that just didn't feel right and I had this is when I was 25 had something of an existential crisis and a complete breakdown for many reasons but I think a lack of real purpose in my everyday was one of the main ones and I ended up unemployed and clinically depressed for six months and I tried everything to get out of it ranging from antidepressants

4:52psychotherapy faith healing acupuncture yoga you name it and nothing made any difference and then one day I got this random phone call from a family friend who happens to be a farmer and he said look we've got this project in the gambia and we need help with marketing and i ended up going out there initially was supposed to be for six weeks ended up staying for four years running this social enterprise working with local farmers and i just got really inspired about the positive impact that business can have when it's well directed and well sourced meaning that that the more that we can buy as a business, the more cash is going into the hands of these very remote rural communities.

5:43Andrew Hunt:So tell us then, you said to me before we started this, before we pressed record, that the market wasn't necessarily ready. And that was another reason actually to get you on because lots of people want to bring niche ingredients to the marketplace, but then the consumer's not ready for it. And it was difficult to get it to land and you have lots of war stories. Make everybody feel good about all of the things that you did that you would do differently this time around and all of the frustrations over the, was it 15 years or seven? How long did you say you're out? 14 now, yeah. Come on, throw them at us because now we can look at how bloody gorgeous your packaging and your products are and we can say, okay, it's okay.

6:22Andrew Hunt:We're not doing too badly. It did take them 14 years. I don't need to feel so crap about myself. yeah well I remember you know first of all trying to you know we do have a beautiful piece of packaging a great product um and trying to get it in initially to Whole Foods and Planet Organic and you know they said no um and then I found another buyer at Whole Foods who was probably sitting next to the one who said no who said okay that that's interesting but we put it to our store managers um they had a meeting of the store managers and they said look they all agreed that um nobody comes in asking for baobab and say they don't want it and we were like well of course nobody comes in asking for baobab because they don't even know it exists yeah that's why it's an innovative product and aren't we supposed to be in the game of innovative products so we had to work so hard we got a load of press um you know the the rule really with marketing is you don't do marketing unless you've got products on the shelf but we had to do the marketing just to get the listings okay and we would be sharing you know all of the developments we had with excitement from press and finally got into um planet organic and whole foods and having not come from this type of business before i thought if you put a beautiful product like that on the shelf in planet organic you know absolutely the heartland of this type of shopper is just going to fly off the shelves yeah and okay so tell us so in the first three months i think we sold 10 units and um my mum bought most of them okay and she was calling she was calling me up saying andrew i've been to planet organic in westboard grove where do you want me to go next i was no nice i was thinking this is this is not scalable Yeah.

8:22So, yeah, it was really a kind of existential situation because there was no rate of sale. The store assistants didn't know what it was, let alone the customers. So we recruited 10 interns and we started a sampling campaign really inspired by let's create a trend. Let's create a trend in London which can ripple worldwide and cause this market for Baobab.

8:57Andrew Hunt:Okay, so how did you do it? So we had 10 interns every day from 10am till 4pm camped in the Whole Foods and Planet Organic stores with the Baobab fruit. We got the pitch down through iteration. would you like to try some baobab and people like what's what's that have you ever seen the lion king yes and then you're into a conversation okay because you need some point of reference yeah of course it is yeah so through that sampling intensive sampling of three months we took it from being you know at risk of the list to being the best-selling superfood in Planet Organic and Whole Foods. No. Yes. And then we got quotes from the buyers.

9:50We asked them, can you give us a quote to confirm that it is, you know, the fastest growing and best selling superfood? They gave it to us. And then we took that to Holland the Barrett and said, look, this is the best selling, fastest growing superfood. You need to be in this. And of course, that is a very good pitch. Yeah. So they said yes. And we launched with them Baobab and Moringa at the same time. Both of them were kind of first into the market.

10:23Andrew Hunt:If I was an emerging challenger brand in the space and I was thinking, OK, I need to give it. How much is that going to cost me and what would the return be? You know, I mean, what did you see after the three months in terms of being the best selling? Where were sales starting to get to in terms of units? so or volume yeah i mean to be honest we would not even have been getting a return on investment on the transport costs and the because we were obviously paying like expenses um and travel oh yeah okay and we wouldn't be getting a cash return on that um because um you would have to generate a lot just to get a return on that so really what we were getting was traction in the market that we could then progress to the next level of Holland the Barrett.

11:14And that's where you would get the return on investment. And I'm sure that would be very similar for a lot of brands today.

11:23Andrew Hunt:At what point did you change the hierarchy of messaging between the Aduna brand and the Baobab? And at what point did you start getting a range in place rather than just focusing on one superfood that is difficult for people to understand? Well, when we started, we were extremely ingredient oriented and impact first as well. And so really our whole thesis of our business or theory of change was around what we call demand creation. um so i mean it is essentially marketing um but with we're creating demand for something that people don't currently know exists and it's an obscure african fruit in powdered form yeah so it wouldn't be the first format or product you might choose if you were looking to you know do a kind of massive scale up business.

12:23So it was a lot of education. And I would say that, you know, in the first eight years, we focused so much on education and demand creation. And the impact side scaled massively and hence our investors were happy and are happy because they're aligned with our mission social impact investors but we really hit a glass ceiling in terms of you know the scalability the commercial scalability of the business because we were in too much of a niche and you know not just in a niche but with ingredients that were somewhat obscure at the time so we re-strategized and this is around yeah 2022 after for the second time restructuring and almost ceasing to exist.

13:28And we re-strategized and we realized that we need to be more commercial in our thinking, more needs-based in how we're communicating to customers. Why should you use these products? you know and you know maybe the the product can contain a lot of Baobab in it but the customer doesn't necessarily need to know that it's Baobab what it needs to know is that you know this is a product that I need in my life every day.

14:07Andrew Hunt:Hey just a quick word about Brand Growth Hero's partner Jolson. So look as a founder you've got loads on your plate fundraising, shareholders, co-founders, co-manufacturing, product, NPD, you name it. Scaling is really complex and the legal side of scaling can be really complex too. Who your legal partner is really matters because it's not something we can afford to get wrong. That's why I work with Jelson. Jelson have worked with brands like Little Moons, Trip, Two Chicks, Graze, Costa Malika and they've even advised the innocent founders on their sale to Coca-Cola and they still work with them today at Jam Jar.

14:40Andrew Hunt:And for me it's not just that they're brilliant at what they do, but they're also really good people. They care about founders, they care about doing things properly, and that really matters. And they're also one of the few law firms that's both B Corp certified and a member of 1 % for the planet. Recently, I asked managing partner Paul Chappie, why does a scaling brand need a corporate lawyer? So you definitely need someone that's going to have your back, that is going to be looking at those pitfalls that may be coming in the future, preferably someone that knows the industry, because having that context is really important when negotiating, be that commercial agreements or funding arrangements.

15:22And at the end of the day, you really need to have someone that you can trust and obviously can negotiate hard when they need to.

15:30Andrew Hunt:You're not going to believe this, but Jolson is actually offering a free legal consultation to any founders who listen to Brand Growth Heroes podcast, and I would definitely take them up on it. You'll find a link to book now directly here in the show notes below, or just drop a comment underneath the episode and I will connect you with them directly. And now let's get back to the show.

15:55Andrew Hunt:Well, can I say that's what I loved about it was when it arrived, I just felt it was beautiful on the outside of the packaging. And even the names, you know, Radiance and Good Gut or whatever, I felt like it's going to make me beautiful on the inside and on my skin, you know, rather than, oh, I'm having baobab powder in a smoothie. It was just brilliant. That's all I needed to know and that it looks so great in my cupboards. I mean, it really does. So did that hurt kind of slightly moving away from the single minded focus on the ingredients? Because I know that people find that very difficult.

16:32um no because we haven't abandoned our ingredients and I think the the phase that we we did although there are so many lessons learned you know I probably wouldn't do it the same way if I was starting again but I also think that with entrepreneurship you know you need to have often and you know is characterized by people who have ideas that you would never do if you more experience because they're just not viable, you know, by common logic.

17:01Andrew Hunt:No. But it's the passion for what you're doing that makes it viable. And so I think that first phase was crucial. And, you know, what we're known for as a brand, even though, you know, we may not yet be a household name within our customer base, we're known for our integrity, for our impact, for our quality of sourcing and we've created all of that um you know really ahead of the massive boom in healthy powders and so there are so many new market entrants every week with superfoods electrolytes mushroom powders collagen you name it creatine healthy powders which 10 years ago people were not really in the habit of integrating powders into their daily life and now they are and so we've got you know one of the original brands yes we've got an established um brand that's still got its integrity um and we've expanded um we took a different approach um which was saying, well, we don't need to continue to introduce unknown superfoods to market.

18:24And actually now, with 10 years of impact sourcing experience, let's now look at the fastest growing, best selling superfoods in the market and then see how we can apply the Aduna lens to those through superior sourcing, superior quality bioactive compounds for example turmeric powder which is a two million pound category on amazon two million a month um that's a that's that's huge but most of what's out there is culinary level product and you know even when it's packaged as superfoods because the reason why you would take turmeric in the first place um is for the curcumin content you know yeah um so that's very good for arthritis and joint health and so if you're consuming a turmeric product but it's not high in curcumin then you're kind of wasting your time so that's where the and i think that's where the market is going as people increase their consciousness uh get more educated about um as you said not just purity but quality of ingredients

19:39Andrew Hunt:Can you describe these remote rural communities and what you were doing out there with this project and how that turned into what you did first when you came back to the UK? Sure. And I think the main thing that these are subsistence level communities in rural Africa. So they're pretty much unchanged by a lot of what's happened in the rest of the world over the last 200 years. So they're living on parcels of land, growing what they need to survive. There's no employment. So there's a need for income generation. And what I was doing in Gambia, it's now what we're doing with Aduna, which is creating a market and connecting these rural communities with the consumer, with the health conscious consumer.

20:32um so the main way that we do that um is through baobab um the african tree of life uh which by the way is the first planting uh sorry the first flowering plant um of planet earth and predates mankind and these trees grow entirely wild um and they're scattered aren't

20:58Andrew Hunt:they the funny looking ones the beautiful ones that you often see in people's posters yeah their bedroom when you're often called the upside down tree um made famous by the lion king as well um that's the tree that Rafiki the monkey and he's got that little fruit um people can remember that um and that's the baobab tree and it um it provides fruit during what's known as the hungry season which is the seven month long dry season um and so these fruits were essentially going to waste and now kind of having been commercialised, generating income at the most needful time for thousands of women. What does the fruit look like and does it just fall on the ground?

21:47I'm glad you asked.

21:48Andrew Hunt:Oh my God, it's massive. It's absolutely massive. This is a small one, actually. Jesus, if that's a small one, I'd hate to see what a big one looks like. Is that a tattoo on it? I know that's something that my 10-year-old son drew. I think it was a button to make it go into space or something like that. Okay, so that's the outside of it. Hold it up again. Hold it up high. Okay, and then what does it look like on the inside? So inside, this is what's unique about the baobab fruit, is it dries naturally on the branch. So when you harvest it, we can crack it open, and inside it looks a bit like calcified segments of grapefruit.

22:31So it's already dry and we just extract, separate the seeds from the pulp and the powder is the product. So that is 100%, you know, pure, natural, ancient, nutritious, full of prebiotic fibre as well, which has really been behind the scaling because obviously gut health, the microbiome. buy-in.

23:00Andrew Hunt:Okay, you think that's why it's been so, okay, so let's get to, so you're there. How do you then transition from being there for four years to building the business? Well, I left the Gambia inspired to scale what we were doing. And I did an MBA at Oxford, where they have the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, because I wanted to create an impact business. And I met my co-founder, Nick, through a mutual passion for Baobab. The Baobab geeks. Absolutely. Yeah. So we didn't know each other before. We met through Baobab. We started brainstorming over a pint and we're like, this fruit deserves to be a global powerhouse.

23:56Andrew Hunt:If you're getting value and insight out of the conversations we have with the founders and business leaders on Brand Growth Heroes podcast, then please like, follow, subscribe wherever you're watching or listening to the podcast, whether that's iTunes or Spotify or YouTube, or whether you're connecting with us on LinkedIn or Instagram. It really matters. It matters that you click that button. It matters that you comment. It matters that you engage. We love hearing from you. So write a comment, write a review on iTunes. Tell us if it's making a difference to you. Tell us if you like it. Thank you so much.

24:27Andrew Hunt:How good is this fruit? So like without giving me too much of a sales pitch, like just give me the key points. Why is this a nutritional powerhouse? In certain parts of Africa, they call it the vitamin C tree. So if you taste it, it tastes almost just like raw vitamin C. Yeah. And but really the strong suit of baobab is the fiber it's almost 60 fiber and half of that is prebiotic okay and it comes with all of the natural compounds of an ancient fruit so in terms of the quality of the fiber it's you know you just you can't do better than it okay and it's it's being used in many many um innovative gut health products and now choosing baobab as you know a main ingredient i was about to ask you are you an ingredient supplier as well then?

25:24Yes we are. So you've got two sides to your

25:29Andrew Hunt:business then you've got the consumer branded side but you're also supplying ingredients. Correct. Okay now that's massive. That was really the idea was to use the brand to catalyse the ingredient to make it a trending ingredient because you need a brand to sponsor that. um and but then because we're the ones who created the value chain uh the product was not commercially available uh before we introduced it so we do also supply um you know a vast majority of the baobab in the uk and so do you almost europe and the states as well do you almost own that supply chain because you have got all of the farmers in you know is it a bit like Tony's Chuckle Only with the farmers in West Africa or Perfect Ted with the ceremonial grade matcha from Japan?

26:28In a certain way, yes. I mean, no one can own Baobab because it grows wild in 32 different countries. And I did have some interesting conversations with VCs in the early days who were like, can you patent it?