From £14M -> $100M: How TRIP is Building a Truly Global Brand

0:00Mental wellbeing is the number one health issue actually now in the UK that people are looking to address. It's overtaken obesity and cancer as the UK's number one health concern.

0:13Welcome back to Brand Growth Heroes. Today, I'm absolutely thrilled to have Olivia Ferdi, CEO and co-founder of Trip, join us once again. Since she was last on Brand Growth Heroes, Trip has skyrocketed in sales from around 14 million a year to$100 million in projected sales this year. We talk about their recent raise, we talk about their huge expansion into the USA, about motherhood and about all of the secret superpowers you too can uncover. So let's dive in. Don't forget to click and follow and subscribe and share with a fellow founder. Looking forward to sharing this one with you.

0:53Olivia Ferdy from Trip. Welcome back to Brand Growth Heroes. Hello. How are you? I'm great. How are you? It's so good to see you. You too. And I cannot believe it's been since the last time we had you on the show, it was 2022. And Trip was turning over, I think, about 14 million. You're doing 14 million in sales. And now you are going to be turning over 100 million this year. Dollars, yeah. Dollars. It's set for 200 million dollars at the end of next year. So how many people are working for you in Trip that have helped you get to this place today? We have about 70 people in London and then we've got a team in the US that are spread out between LA, Denver, a few other places and one in Paris, but growing in the US.

1:38Do you spend a lot of time traveling? Not recently. My little one is six months old, so I actually haven't been over there for a few months now, but looking forward to my next trip. I just don't know how you do it. It's really incredible and we will get into that a little bit later on. So being calm with Trip, I mean, you guys are building this global brand that is owning moments of calm. Well, it seems to me as a consumer and as a shopper, I'm always like in wonder at how you're merchandised in, say, like WH Smith Travel or at supermarkets and, you know, front of store, back of store. And how big you've gone on owning a moment and an occasion and a feeling.

2:12Will you talk to that about how you've gone from a brand that started out to the rest of us potentially was seen as focused on blends and particularly one ingredient in CBD and now you are something so much bigger than that? definitely well i think when we spoke in 2022 i would have told you about kind of this journey of discovery and that this was never part of the plan for daniel and i but it was a personal experience when i think i mentioned recovering from an injury during our wedding we were recommended lots of natural ingredients one of which was cbd and it was incredibly incredibly impactful for his recovery and it opened our eyes to the potential of these natural ingredients so the core range that we launched with right after that wedding, I think I told you, you know, left our careers in law and finance, put all our savings together as completely naive newlyweds and think we're going to change the world.

3:03We're going to help people find ways to manage their daily stress and wellbeing in a natural, accessible, convenient format. You know, we had absolutely no idea what we were doing.

3:18Welcome 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 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.

3:50We've always been really passionate about bringing that expertise of multiple ingredients. CBD is one very powerful functional ingredient. There are many more that we're continuing to learn more about. I think when we're looking at our slightly newer range, the Mindful Blend range that launched last year. And for those that don't know, so we've got the beverages, the CBD range, which had L-theanine, ginseng, chamomile, always in this proprietary blend. The Mindful blend, which has lion's mane, which is a functional mushroom, magnesium, L-theanine, chamomile, that launched in 2024 and is already the majority of the business.

4:26And I think that's just testament to growing the brand as a global lifestyle brand. And in the industry, we talk about ingredients and milligrams and effects and absorption and get quite excited about the nerdy detail. But to the customer, we have to remember that that split second interaction and connection at the shelf feeling is so important. Taste and brand connect with emotion. Function is this third part of that decision, which is very exciting and growing hugely and driving a lot of the growth in soft drinks more generally. But for the customer, it's the simplicity of that message. You know, we talked at length about the aesthetic of the can, which is exactly the same now as it has been since day one.

5:06The Mindful Blend can looks the same. And that's very intentional. You know, it's to deliver that calming, clean, easy, understandable packaging for consumers and not infantilizing them with clickbait around certain amounts of whatever is trending. Having said that, the ability to innovate and draw from social trends, viral trends, learning that actually our customer base was already interested in magnesium and Lion's Mane and capturing that information to be able to guide our innovation pipeline is how we really think about new ingredients and new products. But as you say, the brand has always been take a trip to find your calm.

5:48You actually can barely read the ingredients on that can. You know, I think a lot of people have enjoyed telling me over the years, oh, you're not making it clear enough what's in there. It's all intentional. It's all considered to not shout at you with anything to just grab attention. But actually, that calming recessive nature is really disruptive in its own right. And when we're thinking about a global brand and our ambitions, feelings and emotions are incredibly powerful and storytelling and our customers telling us when and where they've ever had that moment of stress or looking for a trip has always been a really powerful part of guiding our strategy, customer first.

6:25so for us it's a natural evolution we're continuing to take guidance from our community who are there's a section of the community that are interested in new trending ingredients wellness and we talk to them a lot about what they're looking for so that we can continue to create products and evolve to meet them in that moment of need and stress it's not about standing still it's about continuing to iterate and provide the best experience whenever someone's feeling that moment of need. It's a spectrum, isn't it? You've got people at each end of the spectrum of everybody wants the same outcome, the same benefit.

6:59Some of them are really interested in how that's delivered. Others just want you guys to do that piece of work and they just want to believe. And some people really need it. And I think that's great. You know, you're serving everybody on that spectrum because they're all looking for the same job to be done, which is this feeling. Talk to us about how you've gone on a journey as a brand leader, brand owner. So, you know, you're from a law background, right? Yeah. Building a global brand and understanding how a global brand works and working with, I suppose, you know, global branding agencies and thinkers.

7:33What's that been like? You know, how have you gone on that evolution yourself in terms of understanding brand? Or was it just intuitive and we're all making too much of it, really? I'd say it's a bit of both. I think at the beginning I might have shown you the picture where I just drew the initial designs on the back of an envelope. And I'll send it to you after this if you haven't seen it. And the designs have pretty much been the same when I'm thinking about the can. I always think about the can as the first touch point, because for me, it's a perfect encapsulation of the trip experience in terms of how it looks, how it makes you feel, the flavor fullness of it, the layers, and the fact that the price point makes it the most accessible piece.

8:11You know, a single can means anyone in the meal deal can begin to think differently about their daily well-being if they so choose. At the end of the day, a drink is a drink. We're not here to preach or tell you to live your life in a certain way. But I think the single can is such an important part of the Trip brand DNA. That has always been instinctive because Daniel and I had this personal experience, which we were customers, right? We were looking for a product that didn't exist. We had a problem that needed a solution. And no one seemed to be making anything that we felt resonated from a brand, product, or experience.

8:44So that's been a really important guide. So I'd say customer centric is a huge part of how we build. We were the customers on day one, and then we listen to customers as we go and how we continue to build and grow the brand into new formats, new supplements, new beverages. I think it's so important to have that kind of reactivity as well. But I must admit, and my team would say, you must admit, I have very strong views on everything that touches brand and product. And I think what I've learned in this journey of growth over the last five or so years is leaning into where you have good instincts and you feel it's paying off when you get larger.

9:28One of the tricky areas is, you know, top agency X and top agency Y telling you your flavor is not clear enough. Your color doesn't match your flavor. How is people people supposed to understand that it's raspberry when your can is lilac. I don't think it's that serious. I think it's actually a bit more of a playful moment at Shelf. And it's actually something I secretly quite enjoy, the fact that we really have bucked the trend and bucked the kind of industry best practice and built something that customers truly love and truly connect with. So I think it's important as we look at the next five years, I tell myself really regularly, try and hold on to that instinct and that obsession around the detail, because the larger you get, as you can imagine,$100 million this year, that's a hell of a lot of cans.

10:13And there's a lot of clever people telling you, consider this, change that. And I think staying true to the original concept, but how in the brand and what it's trying to achieve with people and customers ultimately, it's really important. There's definitely days where you feel more influenced by the experts in the room. But I think holding onto that is going to set us apart when we look at that next stage of growth. And if you go back to, I suppose, the building blocks of this, it's that you've got cans on shelf in meal deal or back of store, and some of your flavours are the highest selling cans.

10:48I think I read that your raspberry is the highest selling can in Sainsbury's, is that right? Yeah, it sells more in that single 250ml can than the small can of Red Bull. Small can of Diet Coke, it sells more. We're only outsold in those stores, and we're talking 500 stores, we're not talking a 50 store trial. For the industry listeners that get very into the detail, the only single SKUs that sell more than us in those stores is the plastic 500 ml Coke bottles. I'm thrilled to introduce Brand Growth Hero's newest partner, Jolson. Jolson is a leading B Corp certified commercial law firm that specializes in guiding the founders of scaling CPG brands.

11:32With long-term relationships with clients like Little Moons, Trip, Eat Natural, Bear, Graze and Pulsin, Jolson is also famous for advising the Innocent founders in their landmark sale to Coca-Cola. And believe it or not, they still work with the Innocent founders at Jamjar Investments today. I'm especially impressed by how Jolson sets founders up for long-term success and by their commitment to championing female founders. Recently, I asked one of Jolson's managing partners, Phil Halesmith, to talk to us about how Jolson supports female founders on their scaling journey. We're fortunate to have worked with loads of female founders who've had some very successful businesses, raised huge amounts of capital and are happy to give back.

12:13And that's part of what we're trying to do in terms of running a regular programme that supports them, both here in the office, but also enabling them to actually access getting VC financing. If you'd like to find out more about Jolson's female founder club, Hercules, Why not go to their website www.jolsonlaw.com or send a quick email to hello at jolsonlaw.com. Huge thanks to Brand Growth Heroes podcast sponsors Jolson. Now let's get back to the show. So what that says is that mass market, enough people out there prefer or want to try or first of all, find appealing, believe in the job to be done at shelf.

12:52because, you know, it's not like you've had enough years yet to be all over TV, social media, whatever, you know, you're building that slowly. It intrinsically is appealing enough for them to pick it up and then they like it enough to buy it again. It's at the right price. It sells a promise on shelf. And there's enough people who want to do that, which allows you to build a business as big as you've built it. That means getting a lot of things right. I mean, you've got a lot of things right in terms of the look and feel, the price, the you know whether it's the colors of the can and the flavors and you haven't gone wild with flavors right you've got your raspberry your strawberry you've got your yuzu's i think it's a really important point it's about in beverage it's about having everything right the flavor the brand the experience people need to come back right we've all heard stories where brands have sold out overnight but have the customers come back and i think as you mentioned doing 100 million dollars this is not niche this is something that is appealing to the mainstream because it is delicious because it's delivering on that feeling.

13:52In terms of flavors, I think in the UK, we've got about six or seven now, a bit more in the US, a few more coming. But for us, it's about that elevated adult experience. It's not just a nondescript blend of citrus, what's in that. Elderflower mint, incredibly grown up. To be honest, the number of tens of millions of these elderflower mint cans we've sold nothing about this product makes sense i mean elderflower mint how niche does that sound but ultimately if everyone's reading the same insights deck i think you just end up with a plethora of similar products but giving people something exciting aspirational different some of the flavor profiles lend themselves more to that kind of 5 p.m 7 p.m unwind especially when people are reaching for this instead of an alcohol um glass of wine or something.

14:43Having that range where, you know, raspberry, orange blossom, and wild strawberry is more familiar. I think the breadth of the profile allows us to cater to so many more moments because we're designing these so that you can drink multiple in a day, whether that's three elderflower mints or actually your lunchtime diet Coke replacement is a blood orange rosemary and your evening unwind is the elderflower mint that gives that sort of mojito feel. We want you to enjoy many different trip experiences throughout the day. And it's not about infantilizing customers. Adult softs or soft drinks more broadly have been dominated by a handful of heritage players.

15:24And I think particularly the younger demographics are looking for excitement and playfulness, especially when mental well-being is the number one health issue actually now in the UK that people are looking to address in their food and drink. below that comes weight loss, comes gut health and things like that. But actually being able to give something that empowers them from a brand perspective has a big impact on sales and shelf presence. That's a pretty big insight that you've just dropped in there. I didn't realise that. So the number one job to be done that people are looking for is with their food and drink is mental health.

16:01Yeah. Wow. Well, it's overtaken obesity and cancer as the UK's number one health concern. Yeah. That's incredible. That is incredible. So one of the things that you guys did a few years back was you did a collaboration or a long-term partnership with the Calm app and that's still going. Talk to us a little bit about that and has that been, you know, is that something that you're still doing, continuing? Yeah, it's amazing. I wish I had a can to show you in front of me, but we launched that in the US this year. We had a smaller scale partnership that was primarily for D2C, direct-to-consumer. And I've always been very passionate about their brand and the fact that Calm are building an incredible brand for mental well-being and really trying to de-stigmatize the space and give it cultural relevance, give it modernity.

16:51It's not easy to be talking in this space with authenticity and build brand. I've always admired what they've done. So working with Michael, the founder and the team on how we could bring that partnership into the physical world so imagine calm lives on your iphone or on your um on your tablet and you know it's a digital space to go and listen to harry styles give you a meditation to be able to bring that into the physical space so it's a product collaboration where they launched in target this year and we launched it in the uk with the wild strawberry which you might have seen so it's got their logo in collaboration with ours and on the back through two clicks of a QR code, you can get a free$45 membership to continue on your mental health journey if you so wish.

17:38It's not forcing you to do anything, but to think that with a£2 can, you're getting a£30 free gift is very impactful for the retailers. We've given it to all the store staff, all the HQ staff who are also obviously concerned about their daily mental wellbeing. But for Calm, they essentially are getting out of home advertising in a very disruptive physical space that they don't normally get to be part of, you know, to see that logo, turn the can around and engage with it. It's essentially advertising for them in a physical space that previously did not connect with digital in the way that we've done it.

18:14That is so clever. I've seen it. I didn't realise that on the back of, I mean, I've seen it everywhere I go. I see it. I didn't realise that you can actually get the$45 free membership with it. So they are driving demand and conversion. and you're able to give them that. It's almost like media space. Definitely. Yeah. And it's just a really aligned brand fit and mission for people who are maybe new to Trip or even repeat customers of Trip to then the brand itself stands for finding that moment of calm in the chaos. But if someone wants to continue exploring what that might mean for them, you know, we're really proud to partner with a brand as incredible as Calm to share that story and share that mission.

19:00If this episode is inspiring you to think about new ways that you can drive growth for your business, don't forget to click follow or subscribe on your favourite podcast app and even leave a review. Your small gesture has a big impact on me and my business and will be truly appreciated. So you've just raised 40 million to accelerate your growth in the USA, and that's a real focus for Trip right now. And that values the company at over a quarter of a billion. I mean, this is really an exciting inflection point for Tripp. Are you able to tell us more about the raise? I mean, who did you raise the money from and how did it go?

19:35Definitely. It's our first VC round. So it's the first, a lot of people talk about venture capital. It's a certain type of funding. There's different places you can fundraise from. And it's our first time going out to venture, which is very exciting because we're working with a few different partners, but Coefficient Capital, who are based in New York, are our lead partner in this round. and they are experts in CPG, particularly in the US space. And for us to be able to work with someone who's done this, who knows the landscape inside and out and brings that really strategic value is something that we have a big focus on amplifying the initial success in the US to become that global calming brand.

20:15And to be able to work with experts in the space is something very exciting. alongside them we've got quite a few I guess customers celebrity customers who've actually been in touch and worked with us and come on board as investors as well which I think is a really special kind of authentic way of how you can work with your fans your brand fans are you like share with us who some of those are we have you might recognize Ashley Graham Joe Jonas I don't have any of these names. Some in the UK like Sophie Haboo, Paul Wesley, just some amazing, amazing experts in their own field who are able to share their story, how they found Calm with Trip and be part of this incredible growth journey.

21:02Talk to us about the US then, the launch in the US and how you're going to develop the business over there. So this year we launched into Target nationwide. So Target, for those that don't know, is an incredible kind of equity driving store, considered quite mass, big on social. Their customers are looking for discovery, experience, excitement. We've covered the full spectrum of stores this year. It's kind of insane. I think people have been watching the brand in the U.S. And because it's so global now with social media, we launched nationwide with Target. Whole Foods has gone live nationwide.

21:39wide. The supermarkets there are absolutely enormous. So HEB, which is the supermarket of Texas, you know, Texas is absolutely huge, far, far bigger than the UK. It's hard to imagine this kind of scale. We've also gone into Vitamin Shop, which is kind of a health store. CVS, you might have heard of. They call it a drugstore, you know, pharmacy, thousands of locations. it's that breadth of they have a channel called natural specialty which is kind of premium whole foods-esque but you can do you know 20 million dollars a year in just these stores how have you gone about it i mean have you got a different distributor in each uh or agent in each date yeah it works a bit differently so we really wanted to go nationwide in the us and that's obviously a lot of states a lot of geography to cover so we've worked with a series of distributors brokers, we've always had the connection ourselves.

22:38Again, the benefit of social media means a lot of these buyers have been watching us, watching our progress, getting excited about the brand. They're seeing as well that stress and mood are some of the key concerns of US customers when it comes to day-to-day health. And over 60 % of customers surveyed in the US are looking to incorporate food and drink that address those daily concerns. Anxiety, sleep, these are really big issues. And in particular in the US, with these buyers coming to us, what's been amazing is it's always tricky when you get started in any market, because if you want a distributor, you need 10 customers on the other end of that.

23:14And how do you get the customers if you don't have the wholesaler? But we have grown remarkably, remarkably quickly. Thousands of doors in the US from day dot with this mindful blend range. I think that is a key part of what is so exciting for the US investors. To do that profitably as well is pretty unheard of when you're talking beverage. Beverage is tricky to ship. It's tricky to move. It's very high volume. So in the UK, people might purchase, let's say, one drink outside of their home a day. In the US, it can be four, five, six, given the scale of their lives. They have a very different approach to drinking tap water.

23:57They don't drink tea. Their healthcare system is very different. So they're very dialed in to actually ingredients and functional in a way that Europe is very much at a more nascent point. So I think seeing those trends and those tailwinds of people reaching for a better for you option. I mean, you probably heard Poppy, the gut health brand sold for$2 billion to Pepsi. It's more than a trend. This is meaningful change happening at the shelf. So we've been incredibly lucky to have relationships directly with the buyers from the stores who've seen us online and been in contact and then created a kind of incredible team of employees, brokers, distributors.

24:37It's a real complex patchwork to drive that product into store and execute. Wow. And I imagine you have to have a completely different senior team looking at that because it would just take senior management, senior thinkers away from the everyday business and growing the UK or developing in Europe, right? Yeah, well, it's a patchwork. I think anything that we, Daniel and I spend time on, you know, it's super high priority. So we talk about the US every day. The team has been learning about being a global brand for over a year now. So we have CFTs, cross-functional teams that have meetings on the US every single day.

25:15we've got several UK employees on US hours we've just made an incredible hire um senior hire in the US um who's come from a brand called Olipop we're building that out but ultimately Dan James and I we're talking US every single day we are in the detail it's not a plug and play I think anyone that thinks I mean I'd ask you Fiona how many brands do you know who have made it in the US in beverage. Brands from this side of the pond? Yeah. None. Yeah. It's hard. It's not easy and very few make it. I mean, very few make it here, let alone there. So for us, it's a huge focus of excitement around how we're able to amplify very exciting early signs.

26:01You know, this is something that you have to prove product market fit very early on and just having the cans on shelf in the right place at the right price point with the right brand with the right taste out selling any competitor whether it's coconut water whether it's celebrity-backed brands you know doing that on shelf was our initial proof point very early on to be like fuel on the fire we've got to go now so how big is the u.s business for you now and how big is it going to be is there going to be a tipping point where the u.s very quickly is just much bigger than the rest of it yeah so this was our first proper year in the US being able to go nationwide and it will be about a quarter of the business next year it will be over 50 % and then quite quickly a lot bigger and I can imagine everybody who's listening to this who is thinking about you know business in a very strategic way they're going oh I wonder who's going to be knocking at the door in the future looking at acquiring a brand like Trip if the rate of sale of Tripcans is bigger than the rate of sale of their own historic brands.