How Bio&Me disrupted Granola and won listings at Waitrose, CoOp, Ocado, Sainsbury's, Tesco in 4 Years - Jon Walsh, Dr. Megan Rossi

0:00Hello there and welcome to Hungry. Hungry is the podcast for the next wave of challenger food and drink brands looking to pour gasoline all over their growth. Each week we'll interview successful founders, thought leaders, unpack their lessons and provide you with the toolkit to scale super fast. I am Dan Pope, I am your host and without further ado, let's get started.

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3:22Thank you so much. Hello there people and listeners of the Hungry Podcast. I'm absolutely thrilled to welcome John Walsh and Dr. Megan Rossi to the podcast. Together they are co-founders of the soaringly successful BioMe. BioMe make gut-loving granola, porridge, mueslis, yogurts. They've won a whole host of listings. I think Planet Organic, Whole Foods, Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Co-op, um i think tesco as well yeah amazing um megan is the gut health doctor she's under the guise of the gut health doctor on instagram and ultimately really responsible for kind of bringing gut health and making it soar into the zeitgeist and it's it's so so powerful i can't wait to talk about this um and john is ultimately uh a very young industry veteran i must say um who's had an An eclectic and illustrious career, I must say.

4:17I mean, I had to write a note. There's so many places. So responsible for Sonny D, working for P &G. Sorry about that.

4:28Betfair, Jenny Craig, a part of Nestle, and then ultimately responsible for John West and now Biome. So look, guys, I'm absolutely thrilled and very grateful to have you both on. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, it's going to be fun, Dan. Right, so where I want to start is probably quite a weird place, but an important place, is bruised and bad apples. And I suppose we're recording this in Marks, although the weather's quite shy out there. But imagine we're under the apple orchards. And Megan, I read on your Instagram something that really kind of set, I don't know, tsunamis of curiosity flooding, right?

5:10And it was this, and apologies if I read this like a 13-year-old. But anyway, it is, while the most perfect-looking piece of fruit may be the most alluring on the supermarket shelf, does it provide the biggest health benefits? Science has shown that red apples with an uneven colour and other imperfections like bruises typically gain more gut-loving polyethyls. I hope I said that right. Phenols. Polyphenols. Than the perfect ones. and this made me this made me really think so i've done over 70 of these interviews now and every single founder i meet has had some sort of bruise or setback or insecurity early on in their career and that has ultimately led to their drive and their fuel i mean with me like used to be a bit of a porker at school always felt a little bit ostracized but it's good and always told that i wasn't good enough don't go to uni don't try this and ultimately it's given me this kind of hell bent drive um so i'd love to know and i suppose whoever wants to take this first is like what was the the setback and the bruise in maybe your early life or in your early 20s that that gave you this drive and tenacity that allowed us to kind of be sat here today yeah then i absolutely love that question and the analogy bringing it back to the concept of good gut health yeah i mean mother nature had it right you know a bit of bruising actually can make us more resilient and you know more successful in the long run and I completely agree a lot of entrepreneurs and really successful people certainly have had some sort of setback and you know I've reflected the psychosocial element of my life and wondered you know what kind of could have triggered this this hunger for for working really hard and I've never really thought about it as like a financial success I just know that, you know, I've always known that whatever I wanted, I wanted to have an impact and I wanted to deliver and help people.

7:12And, you know, it could have been, you know, from a place of actually, I lost my sister when I was quite young. So my mum and my brother kind of probably dealt with it harder. So my brother was five and it was his twin and I was only about three. And it actually turned out a very similar time my dad left the family. So there was a lot of, I think, Like, again, I was only little, so I didn't really, I guess, consciously understand. But I think that kind of trauma early on and the struggles that my family faced, I think, did build a bit of a resilient mindset within me. And my mom was then, you know, working as a single mom full time.

7:52And despite going through quite a lot of grievances, was an amazing moment. I never went without anything. We obviously weren't super rich or anything like that. But like, I had a decent life. And I think a lot of kind of my drive, my inner drive probably came from that actually. So yeah, losing your sister at that young age. And I think drive is like a recipe. It's not just, oh, God, every entrepreneur is like miserable and depressed and trying to get over something. It's one part of many things. There's also a lot of passion and love and desire to make an impact. but yeah it's it's that bruised bruisedness that i think makes us stronger it's it's almost this anti-fragile thing of like the more setbacks and resilience and more stresses you have then you come back out swinging and i and i love that so so john i'd love to go into into yours mate like what would you say is being the yeah have you ever been told like you're not good enough so i was working for a lovely company who i'll still be very complimentary about they were private equity owned and they switched from one private equity company to another and as very often happens um they switch the board um for the board the new company wants so i found myself age 48 um out out out with um a gentleman of leisure i'd like to say rather than unemployed and um and that was the big you know what that was the shock if we're going to use analogy the bruise i needed because you know i'd sat there for 20 years 25 years in food and drink you know beautiful you know companies png nestle etc watching these amazing brands come through because i'm you've been kind enough to mention dan of a slightly different generation so you know i was of the generation where innocent i think was the first to come through and then charlie biggams and goo and every time you know i saw one it's like oh john why didn't you think of that you know why weren't you brave enough to do it you know all those things and then suddenly I had time to do something without being too leading or whatever about it like I mean I just met Megan and my problem is I'm the least creative person on the planet I I think I know a good idea when I see one but I've never had an idea in my life but happily Megan has so yeah my bruise was was that I think I love that and and you've just perfectly teed me up and segmented me to where i want to go is is i think one of my obsessions is kind of like two two bruised apples when together become become stronger it's like one plus one equals three and i think a lot of co-found uh partnerships you're trying to find like what are you good at and so you said i'm the least creative person in the world and i'd love to know and we're going to tie into the gut feeling like where was the first day you guys met and what was your gut feeling about each other as you left that meeting the truth comes out i love it i love it and see how complimentary you'll be i think i know what john will say he'll be like she was that really persistent and annoying girl who just like made sure that everything was done her way that's when when when did you meet those so it was like the company's a brilliant dairy in chester and they megan was working with leon restaurants at the time and wanted to make a kefir i think it was a kefir drink yeah so megan was my my potential client so we met when megan came in and briefed us and by the way megan you're spot on because actually i think it's one of the uh it's too way too early to say the secrets of our success but One of the things we've got going for us is, you know, Megan knows about products and she pushes teams, you know, the brilliant people we work with to make our products.

11:55You know, she does push to make the products the best for gut health. And we sat there and I, you know, I don't remember, you know, but the technical team was like, you know, I'm really not sure that can be done. And Megan was like, I'm telling you it can. And you know what? She was right. It could. and I've seen it happen again and again and again and again. And we're going through it right now, actually, on a new piece of MPD we're doing. And I know we'll get there, but it will be difficult because I'm going into advertising now, but being the best is difficult. It doesn't happen easily. And in terms of that synergistic effect, I mean, we can bring up actually gut bacteria.

12:37It's the exact same. you know two bacteria on their own can do a certain amount of things but actually unite them and they you know have this synergism and and can really enhance the functionality and therefore do so much good within our body so I had to bring that analogy in there and again you know I always say that I don't like to give John many compliments and um but I do I do give him this one when I do I did meet him I um knew he was that guy that just knew how to deal with people and he had that marketing savviness about him knew the market like inside out was very expert in food industry and I was like if I'm ever gonna get into food industry and be successful this is the guy I'm gonna approach and you know I've I've had what I thought was really good opportunities with some of the big guys in the past who were getting into gut health and they wanted me, you know, to help with their products.

13:34And I thought, what an amazing opportunity, but it came to front. They just really wanted me to do some brand slapping and I couldn't actually change their ingredients. So that journey kind of showed me that if I was ever going to get into food industry and have the impact that I wanted to, to deliver quality, good food for people's guts, then I'd have to do it on my own terms but obviously as I highlighted you know a scientist dietitian I didn't have that sales the marketing the insight into food industries that I knew I needed to have a successful business so he really did stick in my mind and then I think it was like November 2018 at Food Matters Live where I think John had just left Meadow Foods and I just had that realization that these big guys were never going to listen to me in terms of product development and yeah I said hey John can we go for a coffee and um think about four months after that we shook on it and was like we're gonna actually go ahead and create a business together I love that so so just I love going a little bit deeper so so where was the coffee and can you remember that first conversation because I mean I'm going through this now like I'm very creative but I'll leave a wake of pandanomian behind me like i've got and i'm trying to potentially find someone to come on board who's um who could help me sort of with more structure but i don't know what feeling i'm looking for when you meet that person so can you what did you discuss is i'm sure you didn't say right let's launch biome bish bash bosh let's go and get it into say no it's like there must have been a bit more there yeah i think i don't was it a cat costa outside it was in the um the o2 it was at food man is live excel excel excel and was it the costel like one of those still there yeah so i actually i do which is really weird because i don't often have memories like that but it must have been that fundamental uh to me to remember the detail but yeah we just sat down the chairs even i think i kind of remember the chair which is again hilarious um and i think yeah i was a bit nervous to be honest I was kind of like oh this you know it could be you could just laugh in my face but I yeah I said you know I um have you it now that you're not really doing anything ever thought about going into gut health and I think John you you was and I'll let you speak but you might have been kind of having thoughts about could you do your own thing and you were kind of like oh yeah I've heard it's a big thing but you know all of the kind of what if or I don't think that will work and I was kind of walked away from that meeting going, oh, well, I've put it out there and we'll see what happens.

16:15My memory is I spent the entire time trying to convince you how hard it is, how difficult it is, and how stupid we would be to start our own business. But, you know, like, blimey, although, I mean, you know, we launched just before the pandemic and all the rest of it. My God have we, you know, I mean, it is very, very, very hard work. but um i mean the nice thing at the time was i had some time on my hands and therefore i think me and how we left it was i i was going to lay out the sort of the theoretical plan as to what you would do you know so you start off with a bit of research etc so i went away and said i'll do the first month's work you know let's meet again in a month's time um and i i and i did research gut health but i also i researched megan because like um you know and i've started to see all the following and instagram etc and i i realized i think two things one this whole gut health thing is is is important and growing uh but secondly you know how credible megan was um i remember talking to my behalf back home saying look you know this is this is where the idea is going and she says she was trying to be supportive but her exact phrase was look you've got the time to do it you've got a bit of money to do it and now you know you've got you know the best idea to do it if you don't do this you have to shut up about ever starting your own business so which um yeah so if she's listening thank you dear bohemi our beloved sponsor are helping build the fastest growing challenge of food and drink brands look if you're a small brand just starting out and you need your first indie stockist your first 100 stockists to wholesale boemi are the platform to categorically speed that up but if you're a big brand wanting to get bigger boemi are also insane they make field sales marble smooth silky slick they're just epic ollie's ollie's been on this podcast twice actually they saw a 29 uplift in sales when using boemi to check major malt listings availability insane 29 uplift by downloading an Insane Lucky Saint My boy Aaron Duff Who's come on this podcast In a couple of weeks He uses it To manage a team Of 30 people And they've Lucky Saint Have unlocked 500 draft listings By using Boemi Look you've got to Get involved with this stuff It's absolutely insane And it will categorically Change your life It's just the sickest platform I use it all the time At Ireland There'll be People listening to this Right now Who will be You know And I mean this In a very complimentary Like younger than you Who think I'm too old to set up my own business and I think what you've said there about taking that that leap and and actually saying you know I I can do it I will do it and I think there's so much in that for our listeners because there'll be people thinking I just I can't leave that job I can't I've got this idea but I don't know how to get that nudge to do it um and also what's really interesting is you said how stupid we would be to to do this and um i actually was interviewing perry hayden taylor last week who's the guy the guy who did all the branding for goo coconut collaborative and um he he we were talking about candy kittens and jamie lang and ed williams and one of their one of their mantras is naivety is a superpower and actually one of the one of the questions is how do you stay naive as you get older because actually when you know something so hard and you know how much toil it takes you know how how difficult it is it's very hard to be like as you get more experience to stay dumb and stay naive so i'd love to know kind of i suppose the first question is for anyone listening to this who is on the precipice of jumping into their own thing is there anything you could say to them is the first question and the second question is how do you stay naive as you both get older and that's for that's for both of you um i mean this is a rather obvious emerging theory but when you talked about age to begin with dan i i have started to wonder if there are two times in life it's a really good you know is the best time to be an entrepreneur first of all when you are very young uh where you haven't got very much to lose and you know and then the world is your oyster and just go for it or when you're my age where you sort of you've gone through the big mortgage and all the rest of it side of life where you know maybe giving up a corporate job you know just is is that bit more difficult so actually either being very young or in my case very old you know those two extremes actually you know work quite well um and also you know just to be honest you know from my story i never gave up the corporate job in order to do this you know i had i'd left meadow foods through their choosing rather than mine so you know people say to me how were you brave enough well i never was so i don't i can't answer that question because i never was but i would encourage people to do it because if you are brave enough i mean it is just there's nothing like having your own business and doing things the way you want to uh and i love my time at png and nestle etc but you don't get to run businesses as you think they should be um you know you follow their rules you can try your best internally to change them and nudge people in the right direction fundamentally you're doing it the way they want it done and you know like megan was saying about working with kellogg's or oh did you mention kellogg's anyway i've got some other big look we'll cut out don't worry begin then i um you know you you you follow their rules and that's that's the way it works whereas we can do it the right way we can do it the right way for gut health the right way for our people you know and it's you know it's brilliant and it you know I mean it is very hard work but I you know I'm not sure I bounce out of bed in the morning but I you know I love this this is my well apart from my children and my my better half this is my you know the love of my life and I yeah I love it yeah and and Dan just to kind of um you know feed off the back of that.

22:23I actually don't necessarily agree with the whole naivety statement. Maybe it's because I'm a scientist and therefore I'm very risk adverse and I like to do my research. But, you know, I think the end of the day, as John has said, it is really hard work. And if you go into this naively thinking, you're going to have the perfect work-life balance. Everything's going to work out nice and rosy and you're probably going to fail. So I actually feel like this duty of care to warn people that it's going to be really hard work. You're not going to get paid for a very long time. But as John said, there's many perks to that and there's that huge reward.

23:04But I don't like people taking uncalculated risks, so to speak, and I completely agree with John. It's like you do something like this when you don't really have much to lose. And, you know, I continue to work and I still do work as a research fellow at King. So I, again, I wasn't brave enough to give up my whole other world and kind of go into this. It was very much aligned with my other world. So, yeah, I kind of want to make that as a bit of a yearning for people is to be smart about it. Don't be super naive because you'll probably end up really hating the decision you've made if you kind of didn't do that research into it.

23:46Yeah. And I suppose maybe I love sort of pulling into testing of different ideas. So what I mean by naivety is I think you're right. There needs to be some sort of calculated risk. I suppose one of the issues can be is if people get quite almost, they think they know so much that there's a bit of inertia in what they're doing and they lose that sparkle in their eye is what I suppose I'm getting at. And I suppose with your research, right? So like, you know so much, and I want to talk about this, so much about gut health. But there's that, there must be that little part of you that stays naive that makes you think, not naive, maybe that's when we're using the wrong word here, but it's like something gets you out of bed and thinks, what else can I learn?

24:32Do you know what I mean? And that's what I suppose I mean by staying naive, is it's like, you can build a business, but how do you, the phrase Perry was using is always ask why. So why is that happening? Why are we doing that like this? but yeah completely agree like going into it like this will be hunky dory as i'll say launch by with me we'll get into the same reason bish bash bosh we'll be on the french forever with a cigar um so but but on that note then let's let's go into that megan so is what is your kind of creative or not creative but like your scientific process um that they're like because you must always be learning like what's that like yeah look i absolutely love the research world and that's why i haven't given it up um because that ability to be at the forefront of this evolving landmark scientific discovery so our gut microbiome there's trillions of bacteria living within us it is actually redefining um health care you know prevention all of that sort of stuff like there is just so much fascinating stuff that's coming out of it that really gives me that hunger to want to keep learning because it's so new.

25:45And I think, you know, I'm still, I work as a clinician, I still have a clinic, so I still see patients. And for me, I guess it's that ability for that translation to actually happen. So yes, in the scientific research, we uncover, you know, certain types of food additives might be damaging for the gut. And then I can straight away, instead of waiting for the normal 15 years for science to translate into clinical practice, I can then experiment with a lot of my clients and say, okay, why don't we take this out? Because actually some of the studies are suggesting that could cause you a gut flare.

26:17And then actually seeing it work is just so rewarding. So I love that I'm able to kind of see that translation. And again, that kind of feeds into the food industry as I saw this big gap in the market, at the scientific world of saying gut health was one thing we should be eating this way but then all the food supply and manufacturing and everything wasn't in line with that and I was kind of in between as a clinician saying well actually I can't recommend any brands to you that's legitimately going to be good for your gut because there isn't anything I can see on the market so I think for me it's that gap in the market that you know is is kind of a bit frustrating and maybe it's injustice to gut health not being translated properly that really gives me that drive to want to kind of put something in there.

27:05It's almost like you're scratching your own itch. And I think if you can scratch your own itch, there's something really in that. And so sorry for sounding like probably like a bit of a thicko, but I think it's really important to ask dumb questions because I don't know, there's something about school tells us not to ask dumb questions and actually dumb questions are what most people are thinking. so i've always that person that literally from like grade one i was that person who asked always those stupid questions and i so i'm a huge believer in asking the stupid questions because i think exactly i think i've read something about your mom encouraging you to ask questions actually there's some asks about that um but i i read um this smiles this smile study um on again on your instagram which is is fascinating um and uh but basically there's there's a link between your gut health and your mental health how and why it's more than a link now uh right there now is you know some really hardcore legit scientific evidence i guess mechanistically in terms of how we think those microorganisms you know the lower part of our gut actually communicate to our brain which is obviously in a very different part of the body it's down to three different mechanisms.

28:20One is via the enteric nervous system. So this, you people may have heard the vagus nerve. So essentially when the bacteria is sent, something's going on in the gut, they activate the vagus nerve, which is kind of like a mobile phone, an electric signal, zips up to the brain and activates part of the brain to take action. The second one's kind of like an alarm system where actually 70 % of our immune system lives in the gut. So right next to the bacteria, the alarm system is able, like the bacteria able to alert the alarm system if something's going on in the body. They then produce all these inflammatory markers, which then again communicates the brain.

28:53And then the third element is the things we actually eat and digest. The bacteria then produce some chemicals as a result of their digestion of the food that we have, like the plants. And some of them can actually get into the blood and pass that blood brain barrier to have an impact there. So that's kind of like the postal service. So those three, I guess, scientific mechanisms. And that SMILES trial, I mean, I could take the whole podcast to talk about this. But essentially, it was a hugely landmark study for its time and actually gave me confidence as a clinician to be able to say people who had diagnosed depression, you know what, I'm not going to ever say go cold turkey on your medications.

29:30But as an adjunct therapy, focusing on a gut boosting diet can actually lead to measurable impacts in your mental health. And certainly, you know, in clinical practice, you know, working with a prescribing doctor, in some cases we've actually taken people off the antidepressants slowly over time in a very safe way because they've had so much benefit from this gut kind of boosting Mediterranean style eating and of course you know the medication thing is very touchy because I know that actually for some types of mental health and depression they absolutely need to be on it constantly no questions asked but I want people to feel very empowered by this SMILES trial which was a randomized clinical trial to show that actually there is hardcore science out there that you should feel empowered to be able to help you know manage some of your your depressive symptoms via what you put into your body yes it's like bamboozling bamboo bamboozling if that's the right way of saying it but it's is there like a link between um so so say what you're eating and and and your nerves well literally so are lots of people who are listening to this are founders they may be going into a sainsbury's meeting they may be going into a um an investment meeting they may be going they may just be a pardon the palm of the guts shitting themselves right before a meeting is that is there anything they can like um eat to kind of work with that and if it is so linked to the brain do you remain yeah no that's a really good one and i mean there is some short term effects of diet and the mood.

31:06So what I would say, if anyone's going into any of these meetings, go decaf coffee or tea, because we know that caffeine, even if you are caffeine tolerant, so you'd only have it, what it does is actually increases your stress hormones like exponentially, if you've got caffeine in your system and then had that stressful event. So on the days where you're feeling a bit stressy, anxious, got some big meetings coming up, I would ditch the caffeine. um a lot of people think that actually it settles them but no we've you know there's a lot of studies out there which shows it increases your cortisol your stress hormone um and and it peaks up for several hours after if you have had the caffeine versus if you've had a placebo fake intervention of caffeine and then we do know there's a little bit of evidence around um the active component of turmeric called curcumin and the curcumin has actually been shown in in some high dose studies to actually reduce cortisol, the stress hormone in the body.

32:01So no, you might want to add some turmeric to your smoothie or to your porridge that day or some curries and things like that that might be able to help kind of take off a little bit of an edge of the stress. But in terms of, I guess, those depressive long-term mental health benefits, that clinical trial I mentioned, the SMILES trial, was a three-month trial to kind of have those benefits of the mental health. So usually that sort of mood, it does take a longer period of time. But like I said, some quick fixes there for acute kind of anxiety and stress. Yeah, I mean, the amount of times I was talking about, I mean, when I pitched into Harrods about four or five years ago, I sat in the Pret opposite, which is probably going to crucify me for this, eating like a quince on a neck in coffee.

32:48and I got in there went up like the lift upstairs and I was absolutely again bricking myself and I was I just thought to myself why did you do that mate like why did you do so many coffees before one um but but it's fascinating and then again just just following my curiosity what is a gut decision like is there any science about that like because I'm really believing in my gut decision making I always go with the gut but is there anything to back that up yeah that intuition that we've got yeah and I mean I definitely think there is there is something to it it kind of has its own unique brain there is like this sensor of what feels right and perhaps it's kind of like triggered by experiences that are subconscious in your brain and then you've got too many of these like conscious thoughts to really tap into it so sometimes the you know the subconscious that it kind of gets expressed as those gut feelings actually is worth listening to because it picks up on you know a conversation that was had maybe four years ago that you know your subconscious only remembers and your conscious is kind of too clouded by the fact that you've got kids screaming you've got to go into you know a work function all that sort of stuff so it does pick up on those subconscious feelings so yeah I agree definitely a lot to say for those gut feelings yeah and I suppose going to you John is is part of being a founder is is taking risks right there's no ifs ums or buts about that and i'd love to know what has been the biggest risk or or gut decision you've made um on the biome journey that has had like kind of the biggest upside or uptick um i mean it's funny you know because we were chatting before about the differences between big corporate life and then startup life because because i think once you've made that massive decisions once you've basically taken the biggest risk in your life which is to start a company what you then do is actually i've become far more risk averse now you know once we've started it the way you know unless they you know forgive me my old bosses but you know people there sign off 10 000 20 000 100 000 and quarter million pound projects you know without even thinking about it whereas here we now go through every penny you know everything is really thought about because you know here if you get a decision wrong it could you know at the extreme but not that extreme end the company so you you really think about it like a lot more um but if i think back like no i mean megan see if you would agree with this one you know probably the first really big so obviously we knew our strategy was going to be about gut health from day one like that's why we're working together i think it was choosing the design agency and without wanting to publish their fees you know we we knew if we're going to do this you've got to have a proper brand um and you know therefore if you're going to do it properly then you know you go to a proper london agency we tried our first big learning was we tried the old like would you like some equity in our uh in our company and got treated like um sort of secondhand double glazing snails people and i mean i'll tell you who our agency was to their brilliant um so so bmb um and sean i remember sean there who i think both the founder and the creative director he was like john look if you want to motivate us pay us and it's like oh yeah good point sean that's how the world works so you know and that was tens of thousands of pounds you know worth and that was our own money and you know I mean it's a single but you know you don't buy a house with cash do you buy a house on a mortgage like it's the single most expensive thing I've ever bought in my life and you know that I think was the biggest risk and the biggest reward and it was it was very nervy I remember when we went in for the naming exercise and uh they told us they had 10 names and we got to number seven um and they'd all been rubbish sorry sean but they had and then out came bio and me and on my relief of like you know i was nearly in tears and then suddenly from you know the depths of depression to joy so but you know i still think that was probably uh and megan does that yeah no absolutely i mean it It was a big pot of money for a startup without kind of external investors.

37:22So it was like, wow, this is make or break essentially. So yeah, I agree. And we are quite a risk adverse startup. And I think it's probably unlike many other startups out there, but it does work for us, I think. And, you know, it helps us be really savvy with our decisions. And I think it's paid off to where we are today. this is what this is why i love doing this because you interview so many people you can just get new pieces of kind of knowledge and different perspectives and they just yeah kind of building this web of knowledge is really interesting um so funny enough one of my questions was going to be if it wasn't called by me what would it be called so john you're like doing a better job than this for me mate so um rang a rang a tan was one of their other ones because i had the hadsa or something the hadsa tribe and i was like no i'm sure that's really trademarked it's so because naming your business is like naming a baby and it is a gut decision i think it's like it can be it can be make or break ultimately and that's that's that's fascinating and so did you because looking at the category like granola is not a new thing there's rude health there's dorset cereals there's loads of brands there you guys have come on and just sort of smashed your way into that category and have got a lot of distribution pretty quickly is that because you just focused on gut like why how yeah good megan you go you go i was gonna say yeah when john and i got together we um decided to do some like npd thoughts like what you know where should we go with this and we literally came up with like 40 different types of products we could launch based on how it could be better for your gut health and i think um owing to a lot of john's insight he was like let's do ambient because chilled there's so much risk attached to that.

39:12We're a young startup. We can't really afford that sort of turnover in the short shelf life. So it has to be Ambien. And I was on the Women's Health Food Award judging panel. And one of the categories actually was granola. So I was looking at all these brands, which were meant to be like the healthiest and the best for you. There was about 15 brands and I was critiquing them as I would, you know, in the kind of criteria of gut health. And I was like, cut there literally is none that are no added sugar they've all got added sugar even the healthy ones use like coconut blossom nectar or like um date syrup or rice syrup brown rice syrup which literally is still sugar spiked your blood sugar the exact same health benefits you know aren't great so you know i was like there's really this gap in the market here in granola and you know they all really lack it's like that plant diversity some of them are adding in refined fibers but we know that from the scientific evidence actually it's those whole plants um and i was like wow this could be a really easy win here because a lot you know the granola market is quite big um and and that was kind of john's confirming that and you know the ability to to make a best in the market for your gut is clearly there um so that was kind of our decision making around the granola john i'm not sure if you want to add anything to that when it all goes back to i mean everything of course is linked so with one company you know one set of products one one one team you know it links to the the risk attitude i think because you know what we're not is a huge technological invention you know we're not a dot-com company nor nor we like one of the new vegan brands where you have to put you know build a 10 million pound factory you know we are you know granola yogurts porridges have been around for for you know hundreds of years we're just coming in with a you know bet you know happily provably better version of them um but therefore you know we're not gonna uh win the whole market overnight you know we're gonna win one consumer at a time you know we grow we grow we grow because you take the current consumers in there and you you trade them up to a better product and you know that so therefore you know you don't want to spend millions and millions on the first day because you know we're we're not we're not an invention we're just a better yogurt a better granola a better porridge and you know it's why we spend all our time on cycling is just get people to try it and they'll switch across and you know so nice that they are um but it's yeah i think you know whereas you know if we had had to build our own factory and all the rest of it well then yeah you've got to spend the millions on above the line marketing to get the volume going really fast that's what you see some of the especially the big american back ones doing because they kind of have to um whereas we are no no no slowly steady grow grow grow like with gut health the trend just grow with it yeah i mean there's yeah there's so much i could kind of i want to pick out but i think the first thing is this is this risk adverse risk averseness if that's the right way of saying it so i'm quite frivolous i'm very frivolous i like to sort of spend money on sometimes completely inane things which is probably a bit of a downfall but how how do you um is is there like a a way you guys if it's coming to like a not even a big decision actually i think when you're spending like 100 bags on a rebrand and that's a big decision you're going to think of that but it's more the little things where people and i know brands can just sort of pillage away money without them either noticing it like how do you guys um make decisions what's your decision making kind of um matrix i suppose to make sure you're not just pissing away money it's hard i mean i might take i'm not sure if risk averse is quite the right phrase i think um i think what we are very aware of is you know we have we have done some fundraising uh but that old expression of you can only spend each pound once and you know it's really easy and I you know sorry to be a little bit rude about you know but there's lots of consultants out there who are very happy to take money off you etc etc and you know maybe that's the advantage of having gray hair is you just know you've got to stay super focused on what really works I mean Dan you and I've debated that whole thing about almost can you have too much distribution too quick because every time you get you know a new listing you have to make it work you know those customers those lovely retailers you mentioned earlier that we we love so much you know you make a promise to them and you've got to deliver on that promise and uh you know call it i don't know calculated risks prioritization just just not wasting money on the vanity side of things just on what really matters i think that's what drives us you know between that i mean the other the other decision making criteria which is the really obvious and easy one for us is the gut hell side because we won't we can't you know for our brand's credibility for megan's credibility you know we've we've put ourselves up there on a pedestal so we we have to be you know if you're going to make a health claim my god you've got to stand by it so you know those two things i think you know drive us on does that me megan anything good yeah no absolutely in terms of i guess the recipe development that side of things we know that you know we can't compromise on the gut health front so there's kind of that nice line it's like well okay we're going low in certain things but certainly not on on the gut health this of the product um but yeah i mean john is very tight with money um which is unlearning a very good thing he wasn't asked he wasn't our supper club put it that way bottles of vino in it find southern yeah that was on that was on the first check his expenses that was a personal account sorry in front of you as a bus there mate no i'm definitely nice no not the first dan it's all right so i think um you know the way that i see john dealing with like managing our staff um you know we could have gotten really excited with all of the amazing launches that we're doing so well at the moment and just being like recruit recruit recruit but instead we've actually been looking okay where can we cut in case things you know turn we are very i'm not necessarily like john said risk averse but calculated risk we always want to be thinking about the future what could happen um and that sort of stuff and yeah we are obviously taking risks the whole time but they are calculated uh and an example is that you know with our um our team kind of um public facing admin account john actually leads that at the moment so he's had to roll up his sleeves our ceo has got you know 20 years of food industry experience and he's the one who's actually you know replying to customers um you know thanking them for their lovely feedback and ensuring deliveries all of that sort of stuff so you know we're saving money there um thanks to john who's happy enough to do some of the kind of the nominal tasks people might think or people might be like oh i'm the ceo i won't do that i'll just outsource it um but you know he is actually rolling up his sleeve so therefore he can spend a little extra when he goes to events with you dan yeah but it's um it's a delicious a leadership lesson so um i interviewed the founders of caravan you know caravan where we have the summer club tom yeah yeah yeah laura and chris and there's a kiwi value which is um taken from the all blacks and ruby which is is it's clean the shed so it's don't be a dickhead clean the shed and it's and it's you know even no matter how big you are in the organization you've got to be willing as a leader to to go in and either clean the shed and and with chris and and laura was like they've got 500 people working for them they will still pick up the boxes and carry them and it's it's such a good point in in leadership for anyone who's listening to this if how to build teams it's like are you willing to to clean the shed and i think john you clearly are as well as spend frivolously on wine but uh and um what i want to talk about and it's a very good point this thing i haven't talked about is um when distribution goes up and say you get 500 co-op stores whatever there is a tendency to think okay we need more resource to fund that that listing but you know co-op stores are so interesting because it's it's such a wide array but so many stores it's like you could be in the ones that are in the fuck end of nowhere excuse my language and it's like you're you're hiring a sales team to fund that listing if that listing falls off and you and you get delisted then suddenly your overheads are here and you're really like bollocks to be honest it is really really tricky and um it's something i haven't talked about because i think lots of teams scale they get the listings they think right let's hire um but i want i want to talk about how how you are specifically doing this so quite a hard question but say you couldn't promote and you couldn't buy off shelf like how how would you drive the rate of sale but let's um let me come back on your first call there first tank it's really and fun enough just what we were chatting about before before this started because because i think we were in the mindset we've never recruited ahead of the curve but we were probably in the mindset of when you get new listings you need to bring new people in etc and and that has changed with because of all the inflation and we've now just said you know what you know we're we're a team of 12 we we can't go bigger for that until we see where this crisis is going um and therefore you just have to fit you know and that becomes almost self-prioritizing so funnily enough tomorrow we've got our we do like quarterly team days and we're in london for the team day we're basically we're going through that prioritizing excuse me prioritization exercise because we can't do everything and it's it wouldn't be right to bring you know one two three new people in the business now because we we just we need to get through the next six months just watch the pennies for that you know and then hopefully when this craziness is all over we can grow again but you know we heard this week inflation food inflation has reached its highest so i think it'd be really unfair to bring people in now because you might be letting them go again in three months time so so so that just wanted to kind of say that sorry sorry to interrupt actually so so just to get into the specifics what what is what is your sales team sales and marketing team um but what who what are the 12 positions because it that would be quite helpful i think uh we've got four or five sales people three people in ops uh two in marketing myself a finance person uh how many does that add up to but i i always have this no well i and i always forget somebody this case is being good i there'll be somebody i do apologize team if you're listening but um i there'll be somebody i've forgotten but but that's roughly the shape of it and i you know we were very much the three roles we were going to bring in we're going to be sales roles bring in more you know we've got the the engine room working let's you know let's make you know bring more and more business in but i think we've decided just for now you know the right and you know i love talking so why i came to your your summer club is to talk to other founders and ceos and i i think most people happily by the way you know we're not we're not planning on letting uh we had to let one person go we're not gonna let anybody else go is the plan um but also we're not going to grow it's just the team it's not you know even whilst our sales by the way you know they they doubled last year and it's looking like we've had an unbelievably good start to this year it's looking like you know it'll happen again this year but we're going to do that with the same number of people that's just how it has to be and i guess in terms of the whole prioritization of of things we are quite fortunate i think one of our kind of secret weapons is the fact that you know we do have the gut health doctors social media following um so therefore we have always saved quite a bit from marketing and I think initially that frustrated me um to some extent I was like seeing all these other companies really invest in their social media yeah we were having to do everything organically and and not have the paid ads and all that sort of stuff um uh but thankfully we've obviously been able to to grow just off that um but I think yeah it's that prioritization about where where do we really need to spend the funds um and yes it can be you know hard to see other companies do all these amazing big billboard ads from day dot and you're like god why are we doing that we would be so much bigger and all that sort of stuff but now i start to see the balance sheets of us and and hear about other stories of other companies who've done that and i'm like okay yeah now now it makes sense you know we've been able to keep more of our shares we've we've been able to grow um the way we have in in a really kind of financially savvy way it's and you guys are a darling example of where this this is beginning to get more and more like prevalent now is this you know cpg so consumer package good i think the american phrase but they've now got this creator package good so you've got people like you know the gut health doctor who've got a following and um are then creating products and i think on on paper it sounds pretty straightforward right but obviously it's not so one of my mates ben from mob kitchen they've got a big following they tried to launch a retail brand and he was just like that's the hardest thing i've ever tried to do like you know and i think um there's lots of people who are trying to do this create it's big it's massive in america it's becoming becoming big over here but i'm just like does does it actually work so i suppose what i'm trying to ask here is how have you been able to mobilize your following megan to to drive that rate of sale is is the first question so you can take that and then john like what are the actual watchouts um like despite despite the gut health doctors following that it have really made driving that sale hard yeah dan i mean i think that's a really great one um in terms of just because you've got loads of followers and and you know the there's people out there have got like so many more followers than the gut health doctor the gut health doctor certainly you know we're only i a half a million that's nowhere near a lot of other people but what I think separates us is this concept of credibility um so you know some people love to follow people off these um reality tv shows they've got like you know five million but they they see them perhaps as more as entertainment and they don't want to do their advice because they're like well I think you're entertainment I don't actually want to get my health advice from you and and I think because of COVID-19, people are more savvy about where they get the health advice because they've been burnt in the past where people say they cure things like gut disorders or skin disorders or even cancers through these crazy therapies and they've shown that that was not true.

54:45So I think one of the strengths of the gut health doctor is that we are seen as very credible. So people come to us and it's not just, I guess, the number of followers, it's the quality. So a lot of quite influential people themselves follow the gut health doctor account as well as healthcare professionals so our reach actually is exponential to our followers because these are the other people that are making the decisions and recommendations and they're kind of seeing it from us so I think that's probably a strength that we've got that perhaps maybe other influencers don't necessarily have yeah it's a great it's it's something I wanted to pick at because as you say that there could be so many more followers and it's I've got this whole thing of like brand depth versus brand awareness I think people venerate brand awareness and and total numbers but it's like how much you know you can have a thousand a hundred thousand people in the stadium and who absolutely despise um uh granola right but you're like oh we've got a hundred thousand people in the stadium you'd much rather actually probably have a thousand people who love granola and would tell all their friends but i think where where we could get we could get slightly muddled is we see this cpg and by that i mean create a package goods and you're like fuck they've got a huge following that'll be you know easy game set match pass me the oranges sort of thing and it's like in reality it's almost that instagram versus reality um and john i suppose yeah back to my back looping back so i do meander quite a bit but how despite megan's following how have you driven the rate of sale like without promotions um because anyone could promote anyone could buy off shelf quote unquote like how are you driving that rate of sale so um if you sort of follow the almost the old models where you know megan would be the advertising in a way if you like um i think our job is then to convert that into into action um and i know what you know people say about promotions but you know what they do work but again when we were chatting before you know if you you've still got to get the absolute basics and there's nothing like a good promo to drive trial but that trial is our absolute number one strategy that is what we're all about because it's almost the the pressure test the pressure moment because if if people have heard about us through megan's channel or wherever they know we're good for your gut then they try us and hopefully discover that we taste delicious as well then you know then they've got to repeat because if they don't repeat then we don't have a business so and thank heavens i'm delighted to say they are um but that is that's what it's all about so if you see us out and about we're you know we're always at these trade shows and always at these consumer events etc because it's just about sampling sampling sampling sampling and it works and you know it's again it's not like um the 10 million pound advertising campaign overnight um but it is you know just get that next sample we're really into office sampling at the moment i mean it's just brilliant because that's bang on our target audience.

57:49And it's just, yeah, I get a bit religious about it, but I just think that's what we do. You know, Megan creates the noise around gut health and, you know, the excitement amongst her fans. And then we get, we sample them. And then it's, I mean, touch wood, touch wood, touch wood. It's working. And then probably just to kind of pick up on the fact that by maybe talk about it being like, you know, really the best for gut health, which we always, you know, really will pride ourselves on. But we're actually a foodie brand, you know, as our fundamental principle. So we make sure we do through so much product testing to make sure that our consumers really enjoy the taste.

58:27And then a lot of them go, oh, and it's also good for my gut. You know, this is a double win. We don't want to produce something that is great for the gut, but tastes like, you know, dirt that no one ever actually wants to repeat by. So that foodie principle is our number one goal. And then we also just happen to be much better for the gut i love that point i think i think in in the world of uh human beings have a tendency to complicate things and confuse things it's just part of our our nature and i think boiling it down to just like the most fundamental principle is like not forgetting we're in the business of food and the proof of the puddings in the eating i mean maybe this may be dangerous saying this but this kind of vegan meat stuff i'm thinking jesus christ how complicated have we got here and actually all the all this investment and all this it's all kind of getting pumped up and it's ultimately a bubble i think people have forgotten the fact that food is is food and i love that point and then in terms of what you said earlier and it's such a good point john is is making distribution work right and i don't know how many stores stores you're in let's take a couple of thousand with what was the actual number i mean stocking points the good old you know skus and I think we're around about the 10 ,000 mark now.

59:37So we've got a lot of stocking points to make work. And, okay, so to make work is a really good, interesting point. So there will be places up and down the country, and I saw this with Manilife, when you go to kind of the different parts outside of London where people are shopping that aisle and they may not be able to afford Biome. they may be struggling to even just put money on the table with their kids um they may just default to kellogg's and coco pops simply because of price like in terms of like the good better best pyramid they're like they're down here and that's just the way it works right like how with those stores being dragged down and dragging down your average how do you convert those people or what what's the sort of yeah how do you convert those people i i may be getting your question wrong i think the horrible simple truth is right now at this stage of our business is we probably don't i mean we've worked very hard to be um as as lower premium as we can um i think one of the things megan did the best was you know to design the product to be the best for gut health but to a price point as well so that we can get into as many tummies as possible because it's a it's a very convenient truth that you know the more the more packs we sell the more good we can do for people's gut health you've got to get into someone's tummy to do some good uh but you know we are still a 5 10 15 you know a 25 30p per pack premium to to other cereals and i mean happily enough people right now can afford that um and it's growing and i don't know what you're hearing but anecdotally what we're hearing is you know the healthy brands consumers are continuing to prioritize even through the cost of living crisis um whereas very indulgent brands you know some of our you know lovely friends who are running those have seen volumes drop off so i'm sure it'll come back but that's what they're they're experiencing right now so but if you're talking about you know so we hear a lot again about the switch between brands and private label etc you You know, where there are families who that's just the right thing to do right now because of the cost of living crisis.

1:01:56I mean, I hate to say it, but at this stage of our development, we probably are out of reach for them because. So with that said, take that back to our retailer strategy. It's all about being in the right stores and making those stores work. So that's what we we talk to the, you know, all the people who you were talking to before, Dan, you know, make sure in the right stores. I mean here's another funny one where with each retailer we could be in too many stores so you know we're in you know roughly 400 Sainsbury's 700 Tesco's you know our yogurts 400 in in the co-op you know you you were using the co-op as the example if the co-op took us into two and a half thousand it would be very bad for us and very bad for them we'd be in some wrong stores so you know of course we want to grow from 400 over time but you know maybe you know 100 at a time 200 time just let's learn and grow this sustainably and make make each listing work first before being you know too greedy too fast yeah it's such a good point it's it's like how does one especially when you said right there's two ages to be to be a foundry the super young or slightly older oh yeah i think when when when you get given potentially a thousand stores and you're like you're you're kind of a little bit young you're like oh my god like that's banging i want to get those stores like let's let's and it's like it's really hard to say and i was interviewed christy about this the other day who was the director of food at harrods and and um this is like i just yeah so he was saying about how do you say to us how do you say to the buyer oh by the way mate you've given us too many stores like it's like they'll be like um i mean you know that's the class by the way was old james bailey from waitrose you know he was doing the same thing about just being you know it's it's somebody once said to me this about getting married is um some people see getting married as the finish line as opposed to the start line you know it's like getting uh a listing you know winning the listing is the start line it is not the finish and you know it all all the hard work and you know all james's advice about being in store ready getting supply chain right driving trial you know you it's it's it's when we say it's hard work this is what we mean it's hard work it's actually more nerve-wracking when we get a new listing because like oh my god the press is really on we have to you know live up to the expectations of the buyers we don't want to like let them down that's like my worst feeling is is to let these buyers down who've given us these really great opportunities so it kind of yeah it's a double-edged sword isn't it sorry to ruin everybody else's sleep you know we joke about sleepless nights unfortunately when we launched our yogurts into Sainsbury's we discovered that their system updates at about half past three in the morning and honestly I did not set my alarm but for the next two months i just woke up at half past three and then once you're awake you've got to go and check the figures and it's just it's just on your mind and it's yeah it's yeah that's that's our that's our world and megan what i want to go into now is you seem to be like kind of superwoman i'm not i've done a lot of research i'm like how hell do you do all this you know doing talks you're a researcher you're a practitioner you're running this business what i know this is probably again a bit of a dumb question but what does your day actually look like because i want to be able to do as many things as i want to be able to do so many things all at once like i really believe in that how do you do it um yeah look it's certainly not easy and it's something that i am constantly trying to review where i'm spending my time you know i'm currently looking at letting go some amazing opportunities that I literally would have died for two years ago but I'm just like this takes too much of my time and the output and the what I can achieve from that is limited so actually it is really tricky and I've had to review that sort of stuff.

1:06:06I would have to completely be honest and open and say you know a lot of the success in terms of day-to-day is due to John's diligence and John being there and him working on the business seven days a week and I'm working seven days a week, but it's not always on Biome. Sometimes it's, you know, doing new research to develop new principles, which indirectly will support Biome, you know, and going on things like this morning, you know, I don't always get to mention Biome, but it's having an indirect effect. So I think it is having a really strong team behind you and people that you really trust.

1:06:42You know, for example, I obviously absolutely trust John to carry my baby forward on that day-to-day basis. And I don't have to check in with him every hour and be like, okay, what are the figures? How did that go? Because I just had that trust that he'll be chasing this up. He'll be doing that. And then silver on the gut health doctor side, I've got a Brennan marketing director, Shirley, who again, I've got that trust for, like she will, you know, execute these things. So I don't need to have that nervousness. Of course, I'm still going to have those sleepless nights, as John said. And it's still letting go of some of that trust but it's getting people in your life that you truly trust and are really aligned and they know where your boundaries are like they know how important my reputation credibility is to me um and therefore you know they will check things when they know they need to but other things they know they can handle themselves so yeah it's um it's yeah always a challenge i certainly haven't nailed it yet no no it's it's it's fascinating i think one thing i've been really thinking about recently i think a lot of the best brands in um going forward are actually going to be kind of quasi media companies in that they've got to put out a lot of content are they the kind of the old adage is content is king but i think it it really helps if you can um i mean this isn't a new thing like jamie oliver's had uh pastor sources for yonks he's been banging out content it's not a new a new thing but i think my friend's got a business called bold bean code and if you you know, bold bean, the, yeah, Amelia, she's, I'm interviewing her next week actually, known her for, for years now, and, they, they've come up, out of kind of, out of nowhere, probably similar to you guys, and, and have built this kind of media slash community, um, I'd love to, to kind of ask you Megan, is, I'm trying to build this podcast, I'm trying to get it bigger, what would you say are the, are the principles, like what, if you were me right now, what, what should I be doing to really like, get it going, push it out of there, what is the principles of growing a, a community and an audience yeah I mean for me um probably my biggest piece of advice is to think what you can give back to people like my my vision was never like I need followers I need to grow it was like how can I give give people something that they don't currently have what what can I fill the gap in I don't want to just regurgitate what every other dietitian or scientist is saying out there like what is a unique offering that I can give to people um and you know in this world it was a really good timing to be honest in terms of gut health was an area that people had started to hear about but it was quite confused and there's a lot of myths out there so they're looking for a credible voice so it worked in my favor that you know that was kind of my my whole career was in gut health and therefore I had that credibility um but I always you know kept loyal I think to the concept and you know still to this day of ensuring that I'm always giving back and and John will probably vouch for that you know obviously every post John would love me to be like buy me buy me buy me but I'm like no because I don't want to be like that I want to I want to you know I want to make sure I'm I'm helping people do you know I mean there's that kind of gut health education that obligation maybe it's because I'm a clinician but I you know fundamentally do want to help people.

1:10:04So it's about always delivering that. And I think your podcast, Dan, is through word of mouth. People do pick up really great nuggets who might be looking to grow their own business, et cetera. And that's essentially how the Gut Health Doctor grew. There was no ad spend or anything. It was just one day Jamie Oliver started following the account. I actually thought it was a fake account. I was like, why would he follow me? I see him on TV. just because you know he'd heard about gut health and wanted you know that credible voice so it's kind of organic I think is is really the true honest way that people do grow unless you're amazing at TikTok or something can be really funny which I can't be no it's it's it's I mean it's reassuring and there's it's it's principles in in and kind of linking it back to to to um well to diet and actually driving the rate of sale at retailers is is kind of the brilliant basics of be consistent and and and give give back in terms of and i think with with in terms of doing that with customers is like if your product gives back or give someone something they cannot not tell their friends about it and we had that with you know at manny life it's like the product was so good that like it's very hard to not tell someone about that and i think it does go back to just the boil boil away the chaos boil away the confusion and it's just yeah give back and be consistent and i i really love that and yeah because you you've met some really um amazing uh people megan so and jamie oliver is someone like who's i just think what that guy's done for food is just me too is just incredible i'd love to know like you spent some time with him what what has he taught you um about like it could be about being a parent it could be about life could be like anything like what's he taught you dan i have to say that jane oliver honestly is one of the most genuine humans you will ever meet and it was just such a nice feeling that you can be so famous and so well known, but just be so genuine and not have this big head and just be so normal.

1:12:20So I think he taught me that actually these people that you always look up to, they are super amazing and have achieved so much. But at the end of the day, they are just normal people. And some of them, obviously it's gone to the head and maybe they've changed. But I can honestly say with Jamie, he's just, yeah, genuinely wants to do good. And I think that's probably one of the bigger pieces I've learned from him is that he genuinely wants to do good. Like it's not about finances for him. Like he wants to help the nation eat better. And that really like, and obviously there is that financial element that comes into that, But I think his fundamental purpose in life is to give back and to help.

1:13:02And it shows that being really genuine, you can have success with being genuine. Do you know what I mean? I think there is this kind of thing out there that you have to be a bit of an arsehole and really push and be a bit nasty to be successful. But he showed me that you can, you know, have a strong vision and mission to help others and still be successful in your own right. And I think, yeah, that's kind of what I agree with him. i i agree so like well even speaking to you guys i get him in imposter syndrome but like after so many of these interviews i think that the in terms of you're looking at the period the people who actually get to the top are super just nice and actually all this bollocks and is it all this pettiness is in the middle where people are like trying to get in ahead of each other but people actually soar upwards are just super nice i interviewed paul ainsworth who's um like i like love my food and he's got Breastraut Empire down in Cornwall.