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Podcast Notes: HUNGRY - Episode with Camilla Barnard of Rude Health
Episode Overview
- Podcast Title: HUNGRY
- Episode Title: How Rude Health Disrupted The Health Food Category and Built a +£20 Million Household Brand - Camilla Barnard, Rude Health Co-founder
- Episode Description: A look back at the rise of Rude Health, featuring co-founder Camilla Barnard discussing the brand's history, impact on the health food industry, and personal anecdotes.
Key Themes and Discussions
- The Genesis of Rude Health
- Background: Launched in 2006 amidst a bland health food market.
- Initial Offering: Began with a single product, Ultimate Muesli.
- Brand Philosophy: Aimed to make healthy food attractive and enjoyable, countering the stereotype that health food is boring.
- Market Disruption
- Visual Branding: Introduced bold colors and playful designs, transforming consumer perceptions of health food.
- Expansion: Successfully scaled to over £20 million in revenue, with listings in major retailers like Sainsbury's, Waitrose, and Tesco.
- Market Strategy: Focused on appealing to both health-conscious consumers and those who enjoy great taste.
- Influences and Personal Connections
- Cultural Background: Camilla's fascination with Japan and unique experiences have shaped her worldview and influenced Rude Health’s brand ethos.
- Language and Culture: Discussed the importance of words, connections, and how cultural nuances can enhance brand identity.
- Business Philosophy and Leadership
- Serendipity vs. Strategy: Emphasized the value of being open to unexpected opportunities rather than rigidly adhering to a pre-defined strategy.
- Decision Making: Encouraged a culture of inquiry within the company, where asking "why" is essential for growth and innovation.
- Team Dynamics: Highlighted the importance of maintaining a strong company culture and addressing morale when facing challenges.
- Challenges Faced
- Economic Downturn: The 2008 recession posed significant challenges, forcing Rude Health to adapt and survive amidst financial uncertainty.
- Team Management: Discussed the complexities of hiring and retaining the right talent, and the consequences of making poor hiring decisions.
- Export Strategy
- International Growth: Described the gradual approach to exportation, initially replicating the UK model in foreign markets.
- Building Relationships: Focused on the importance of establishing strong partnerships with distributors who understood their brand ethos.
- Food as a Cultural Connector
- Social Significance of Food: Discussed how food serves as a medium for connection, celebration, and community.
- Nourishment Beyond Nutrition: Emphasized that food is not just about calories but also about social interaction and emotional experiences.
Key Takeaways
- Importance of Brand Personality: A brand should resonate emotionally with consumers, blending aesthetics, and values.
- Always Ask Why: Continuous inquiry helps navigate uncertainties and fosters innovation.
- Role of Relationships: Building genuine relationships, whether with suppliers or consumers, is crucial for long-term success.
- Resilience Through Challenges: Facing economic and operational challenges with a mindset focused on problem-solving can lead to survival and growth.
- Cultural Awareness in Branding: Understanding cultural nuances can differentiate a brand in a competitive market.
Conclusion Camilla Barnard’s insights provide valuable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs within the food and drink sector. Her emphasis on branding, cultural influences, and resilience resonates deeply, encouraging listeners to innovate and connect meaningfully within their markets.
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This episode serves as an inspirational case study of how a challenger brand can disrupt a market while maintaining authenticity and a strong connection to its core values.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.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 a toolkit to scale super fast. I am Dan Pope, I am your host and without further ado, let's get started.
0:25Hi there guys, thank you so much for listening as always, it means the absolute world to me. Before we jump into this episode, I need a really big, big, big, big favour. I have pitched to some massive guests, humongous guests, and unfortunately they've said no because my subscriber count isn't big enough. Please, please, please just hit the subscribe button on Apple or Spotify or Follow. Ultimately it helps all of us bigger guests equals better conversations, equals hopefully better insights for you, which means you can scale hopefully faster with a little less stress as well. So please hit that subscribe button and yeah, enjoy this episode.
1:00hey there guys quick one i want to reintroduce you to our beautiful wonderful sponsors mckenzie jones they are fmcg recruitment specialists um and i think oh god yes recruiter it's recruiter um they're less recruiter more growth partner they understand founders dna they understand what it takes to build a challenger brand they get the founders mindset and dna they've worked with so many buccaneering brands lucky saint real superfoods hunter and gather in proserbrew but They've also worked with some of the big puppets, the big boys, Unilever, PepsiCo, Campari, and Lucas A. Red Bean and Suntory.
1:33Never knew that was one word, but it is. There you go. Fun fact. They can support across four key areas, digital and e-commerce, sales and marketing, supply chain, and operations, and even IT, which is just so fantastic. I can vouch for Mackenzie Jones. They've supported and helped so many of our listeners build brands. Please reach out to my mate, Billy Maddox. His email is in the show notes. if you want a chin wag or you want to build a team thank you so much there's a horror story in food and drink that absolutely no one talks about it surreptitiously scurries through the underbelly causing throbbing headaches, wasted money huge amounts of pain dodgy barcodes so many brands do the hard work, they create the product name the brand, open the bank account and then they cut bloody corners online and they order a dodgy barcode not sorting your barcodes out is like scoring your own goal before you've even laced your boots and got on the pitch.
2:24It's a souffle of aggro. You know, you've got to relabel products, waste time. I've even had a pal who's lost a planet organic listing so they had the wrong barcodes. But thankfully, not all heroes wear capes. GS1 UK are the superhero and they are the solution. Barcodes from GS1 UK are globally recognised, trusted and accepted by all retailers and marketplaces, giving you the confidence to sell your products anytime, anyplace, anywhere. but GS1 UK are so so much more than that they really are kind of a spring well of advice for buckingering brands, 95 % of their community are SMEs, you can get free tickets to events and invites to talks big big picture opportunities, if you like to apply organic boots and Sainsbury's and help with advice like exporting there's just so so so much and look don't say don't treat you there's an oh so special offer through the podcast, get 20 % off your first year's membership with GS1 UK by using the code Hungry20 at checkout.
3:22Thank you so much. Hello there people and listeners of the Hungry podcast. Today I'm fizzing with excitement to welcome Challenger Brand royalty onto this podcast. Camilla Barnard is co-founder of Rude Health. I think Rude Health were doing Challenger Brands way before the word actually existed. They won listings at Sainsbury's Waitrose, Whole Food Market, Paner Organic, have a huge export business um i think if i'm right in saying when you've got over 60 skews i absolutely love your approach to mpd and back in 2015 they really kind of catapulted the the trying dairy oat milk you know revolution in many respects um rid of a brand we've looked up to massively at money life um i kind of love your fun and playful engaging personality as a brand um so yeah i'm super super grateful for you coming on today camilla thanks so much that's quite an intro thanks dan that's all right i was rehearsing it in the mirror beforehand oh god i don't know if i can live up to all that no no no no it's very i don't like genuinely obviously so so louise who i've mentioned numerous times on this podcast she was obviously sales director at rude elf she then came joined us at manny life and she's been such a great mentor to me and it's kind of really i think we've taken a lot from rude health as a brand and implanted it manny life and i think it's that's why i'm really excited to have this conversation um that's lovely to hear because i'm a big manny fan we've always we've actually got three tubs in the house at the moment um that's amazing have you tried the new rich cocoa yet is that oh yes oh happy days thoughts amazing i actually i'm a plain i mean it's brilliant i'm a and the flavors as usual spot on um and the texture is fantastic i'm still plain crunchy every time keep it keep it simple yeah yeah um amazing so i was doing a lot of research for the for this interview and where i want to actually start is quite well many continents away from london granola dairy old milks and rude health.
5:34It's actually the kind of wildly irrelevant country Japan. In doing research, I found out that you did Japanese at university. You worked in fashion, I think recruitment and finance, and you actually lived in Japan. I would love to use Japan as a kind of a lens to explore your childhood. So where did you kind of grow up and where did this fascination with japan say versus other cultures um begin to kind of bubble in your mind it's quite an interesting way to start yeah yeah no that is that is it is different um i grew up in beckonsfield in buckinghamshire uh and i think it was a combination of things dad traveled for work and would always bring us back these little souvenirs and also stories um and i was fascinated it.
6:27It was different. I've always liked different, new, interesting. And then when I was quite young, probably six or seven, a Japanese family moved into town. And that was quite a thing because at the time it was about as homogenous as you can get. So having a Japanese family there was completely different. There was no one Japanese. And they'd come straight from Tokyo, didn't speak much English and their sons were about the same age as my brothers. And they were just the loveliest people. And it sort of sparked an interest. The mother was incredibly kind and generous, also hilariously funny. It took her absolutely years to learn to drive and it was kind of an ongoing joke.
7:10She kept saying, I'm a kamikaze driver, completely taking the mickey out of herself. But she also, one time she invited, I think, me and a friend around and she dressed us up in kimonos and gave us Japanese tea. And it was just, I mean, this was the 1970s. So now I feel like everybody knows through so much more media and so much more travel, actually, everybody knows a lot more about what goes on in other countries. But honestly, at the time, abroad was really quite abroad, especially if you were six or seven. So even France was quite exotic. And Japan was just another planet. And it absolutely just sparked an interest.
7:54And I think that interest just sort of brewed, stayed, didn't go. And then in sixth form, while I was doing precisely zero work at school, I was doing evening classes in Japanese and then in my I took a year between school and university which I somehow managed to get into and spent that in Japan as an au pair and teaching and stuff which was incredible then I did as you said I did the Japanese at university so it just sort of stuck as a an interest I like the language I like the culture was fascinating and there are parallels with British culture and it's also an island nation. I'd say in every way, it's probably more extreme British culture.
8:39If we're sort of slightly restrained and stiff up a lippy, traditionally, Japan has been historically more insular, more cut off. And I think that makes it even more, I mean, even more, what's the word? There is a word for everything in Japan. Specific word for a specific occasion. If you arrive home, there's a word you say as you arrive home, which is tadaima. If you're at home and somebody comes home, there's a word that you say to that person, okari. And if you leave the house, there's a word for that. If you're the person who's in the house being left, there's a word for that. If you go into someone else's house, there's a word for that.
9:22I mean, it's so specific and there is a right thing to say and a right thing to do in every single situation. And as a foreigner, you will never know them all. I was like, no, it's going to be wrong. You are permanently going to be making mistakes. And the longer you stay there, it's not that you get better at it. It's just you gradually begin to realize how many more mistakes there are you could make and how bad you are at being Japanese. Absolutely fascinating. No, I love that. There's so much to explore on that because I actually went to Japan for the world cup in um 2019 i was just i was just blown away i was i just said it's a different planet i was like this is mental like i love the food's fantastic just just the food just like literally pulled me pulled my soul i was like okay i'm in love with this place yes whereabouts in um in in japan were you living well the first time i went as an au pair i was in yokosuka which is if You go from Tokyo down to Yokohama and over to Yokosuka.
10:20So it's an easy train ride into Tokyo. And then when I went there as a student and then went back after, it was in Hukuoka, which is on Kyushu, which is the southern island. So, yeah, and obviously did a lot of traveling, including hitchhiking, which is not a thing in Japan. Really? No, it's not. But it works quite well. They don't. Actually, you know, if you know anything about Japanese culture, it's like of course it's not a thing but um as students you're like but that's all we can afford to do so we're gonna do it yeah yeah amazing and and back to the to the words um piece when you're saying they've got words it's quite specific questions um but what is kind of a word what's your sort of favorite word in japanese that isn't because i i find learning from cultures so fascinating is there like a specific word that's like yeah means something to you in japanese oh there's a couple actually um there's one which i think a lot of people sort of we haven't got one for it um natsukashi which is a sort of oh that takes me back or oh wow that's a reminder or it's it there isn't anything for it but you know you might have a flavor that you haven't had for years you go oh my god you know natsukashi and everyone exactly what you mean but there isn't there isn't anything for it here and i do love also i mean of course there's words for it you At the beginning of a meal, you say itadakimasu.
11:45And at the end of the meal, you say kochisousama deshita every time. And it's just a lovely framing of the meal. It's like a recognition that you've been served something, you're about to eat it, and then thank you very much. Which we just, I mean, England, I think English, or England, the UK, is one of the only places that doesn't have, at the very least, a starting a meal phrase. It's very odd. I've never been anywhere else where there isn't something you say at the beginning of a meal. And I suppose those little things make you more present in many respects. I would have butchered the Japanese, so apologies up front.
12:20But the word about sort of reminiscing, reminiscing is such a delicious thing to do. It's like it really does make you feel super present and content. And I think we lack that so much in our culture because it's just constant like Instagram. But the next thing, next thing, there's no pause. And what I learned when I went to Japan, I was like, there's these little moments in the day that add up and compound. you have like okay so it's saying it's before the meal it just it does i don't know how to yeah there's probably a japanese word for it but like there's almost a calming effect yeah um and then i suppose what because when i was in japan and this is something not like i haven't gone and specifically done this at manly life but what i noticed from japan it was always the little things so it was everything it was the attention on the little things and i suppose at manly life we tried to implement that massively so it's like you know the way you write to a buyer the handwritten note like yeah um the like even our t-shirts are making sure they're like the best quality and it's just so it's like these little little things that compound what would you say are some of the key like things you've implemented from japan potentially at rude house or or life actually yeah it's a good question i mean definitely definitely i mean we do have at least a phrase for over here devil is in the detail and I 100 % believe that we've especially as a small business totally like you everything was you know I remember lying in bed and thinking have I chosen the right pantom you know should I have gone for 345 or 346 you know is that just slightly too bright that green you know and lit hours on something that probably most people will never notice um I think that was me but I think actually my interest in that sort of thing may have been why I enjoyed Japan was rather than, you know, that just compounded it, that everything is detailed, everything is specific.
14:16There is a reason for everything. Actually, I think I'm, I am always, will always, have always a why person. So I'm more or less incapable of following an instruction until I understand the reason for it. I'm not, it doesn't, I'm not actually, I don't really want to be rebellious. But if I am given instructions that I consider not very helpful or a reason for them isn't very good, it's like I'm constitutionally incapable of doing them because it doesn't make any sense. Why would I waste my energy doing something which doesn't make any sense? So everything is sort of thought through. There's got to be a reason for everything.
14:55I've got to understand why everything has got to make sense. So there's not, I mean, which makes for very efficient, I think, in some ways, action. Because I'm not just going to splatter, can't kind of go out there. I can't remember why I started on this now. But it was like, I suppose it was when we came to ingredients and stuff, we'll be like, why do you have to use that sugar? We don't want that sugar. Why do you have to do that? You know, we want something else. Why does it have to be like this? Why do we have to advertise? You know, why do you, everything was a question. It was like, well, you know, yes, that may be what's given, that may be what's always done, but why?
15:33Is there a good reason for it or is it just habit? Is that just because what everyone else is doing? Is it possible that there is actually not a very good reason for it or it doesn't apply to, you know, a small business or something like that? Actually, and it's odd. So that was my, that was me. I think I was a why person and that sort of got taken into the business, which actually doesn't go down very well in Japan at all. And I think maybe it was Japan that helped me realize that that was kind of who I was because you don't ask why in Japan. You very much do not ask why ever. You just do what you're told.
16:01And that made me realise I would have been a disastrous Japanese person. I would have had an awful school career in Japan. Probably, I don't know, I might end up dropping out or something. I just don't know if I could follow those rules. I mean, it's nothing but rules. You either got to suck it up and get used to just living within the rules and find your kind of space around them or I think you combust and I don't know, you just drop out of society. I mean, there is quite an interesting counterculture out there and it's quite extreme because it's like the rural society is quite extreme and then the counterculture is quite extreme, I think.
16:34So, it's fascinating. I don't know whether what I've taken into business, perhaps more of an awareness of selves. There's nothing like living abroad to understand who you are because it shows you up in a way you don't see it when you're amongst your own. It's like taking a fish out of water you can suddenly see the water this rum analogy but you know what i mean yeah no no no for sure and that's fascinating because i think it's um it's so interesting with their especially from a food angle like it that food is just seems so creative and again for outside looking in all the sushi the wagyu um the rum and all of it but it there is beneath this kind of very militant um process and rule book to things it with but but i think with for people listening to this there's there's a massive balance between always having that curiosity and always asking why it's something we've tried to do it money life why do we have to do it that way why can we do it this way versus um having some sort of you know not rule book but template to follow and i think you can't be in two camps if you're just constantly why you're just never going to get anything like done i mean you could see people like why that color you'll never get it done so it's trying to find that balance between having sort of a template of what's been there balanced with always asking why and i think the best brands or anyone listening to this they can balance those two sort of things simultaneously there's a real sweet spot of creativity and i i want to there's an amazing example of that which we'll discuss later is the rude health cafe because i think that's just unreal like i think it's it's absolutely amazing um but i i was listening to um to a podcast and you you said the two of the things you guys had yourself and nick was blind faith and absolute drive um i'd love to sort of go back to you know you said your your dad was would travel a lot like how did your parents shape um give you this kind of tenacity and drive was any specific moments they like how do they body that within you do Do you know what?
18:39That was, I think, Nick, I would have described Nick, my husband and co-founder, as having the blind faith and drive. That's what he, and that was crucial during the recession. We wouldn't have got through it. Absolutely wouldn't have got through it. That is not so much what I bring. I think what, I mean, which is why we were quite good teamwork. work um i brought a very different energy to the business um but i think what i learned from growing up was i really don't want to spend my life in a job that i don't enjoy that's really where i don't want to go it's not a good place to be um and yeah that i think that just stuck deep deep down and then there was something in me that always wanted to do my own thing I mean really quite early on for no particular reason I remember it some reason they asked us at school what do you want to do when you grab in this must be when I was 12 or 13 or something I can't remember why it came up um and I said I wanted my own business okay and I had no idea why I wanted my I didn't know what it meant didn't really know anyone with their own business but it was just there that was a that was a thing I think it was being able to do my own thing actually I'm probably because uh as a why person I'm wanting to make my own rules that's the easiest way to do that is not have a boss yeah no I love that um amazing and so then well where I want to go now is is to the genesis of root out um so what were you yourself and Nick doing kind of the six months preceding Rude Health?
20:28How did the idea begin to bubble? Well, I was looking after a one-year-old. I'm pregnant with the second child in the six months leading up to Rude Health. So I had my hands full. And it was actually the only time in my life when I wasn't working in more or less that six months in the build-up. And Nick was doing a variety of things at that point. I think he was still publishing. He was basically B &Q's publisher at that stage. And he was also still flying. And I can't think what else. But yeah, it was, yep, we were in a baby phase. Totally. Baby phase. And with the name Rude Health, to me, it's just, I love it.
21:17And actually, you know, it's almost like the juxtaposition of Rude and Health. It's this funness. and I interviewed funnily enough you talked about devil in the detail I interviewed Luke from Lucky Saint yeah and he one of their values is devil in the detail as well but I was asking him like the name Lucky Saint again is the juxtaposition um and he said he went around the houses trying to pick the name and I think the name is so important for for for brands and to be honest we not overlooked it but for a long time people like mate what does money life mean but we had someone from Starbucks at Specialty thinking it was like Viagra, Manny Line.
21:58She'll ask us, oh my god, this is a very awkward conversation when extremely sweaty rent. I think getting the name right is really important. Maybe you've never been asked this before, but were there any other names that got bandied around Jaws and Nick's kitchen table that weren't rude health? I now can't remember what any of them were. We had a specific sort of brainstorm session and the idea was we'd get everything down on paper and then vote. But as soon as someone said root health, and nobody can remember who it was, as soon as somebody said root health, we went, oh, my God, that's perfect.
22:28It does everything we want. Because as you say, it's actually, I mean, as you may know, may or may not know, it's an old English expression to be in root health, which is like to be in root health, it's got that sense of energy and, you know, like really, really well, super well, super healthy. And I think it's rude from the old English ruddy, red. So it's like that red cheek kind of healthy, you know, like outside you know glow um so it's exactly so that the actual phrase being in rude health was exactly how we want people to feel and you know that food should be a part of how you feel but even if you don't know the phrase luckily it doesn't matter because most of that don't um as you said the contrast with rude and health particularly at the time because back in 2006 when we started Rude Health with Ultimate Muesli, health was a very serious world.
23:25So having Rude Health was immediately not what you were expecting, which was lovely because it just catches the eye, you know, bang home the health, but you get something else that's not in the same world semantically. Boemi, our beloved sponsor, are helping build the fastest growing challenger food and drink brands look if you're a small brand just starting out and need your first indie stockist your first hundred stockist 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 ollies ollies 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 app insane lucky saying my boy aaron duff is coming to podcast in a couple of weeks weeks he uses it to manage the team of 30 people and they've lucky to have unlocked 500 draft listings by using boemy 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 i remember that it was quite a not a kind of crusty, senile category in some respects.
24:40And then I think you guys came marching in a bit like, you know, Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, whatever. It was just this eye-gordily, like, gorgeous products on the shelf. But just, like, yeah, it was palpable the way it kind of made you feel as you go around the supermarket. I think that's what everyone listening to this is trying to do is make someone feel something. And I listened to a podcast, and you said a brand is a personality. And I thought, bingo, that is genius. Like, could you talk about that a bit more? Because I think it's interesting. That whole bit you've just said actually was really interesting because that whole thing about feel is more what I bring to the business.
25:17Right. The whole brand bit is my bit. And yeah, that was the whole point. And the fact, actually, it was very funny. We were talking about something. My kid said something the other day, and it just made me think, that is killer marketing. And they were talking about busy drinks. And my son said, yeah, no, Pepsi. Pepsi is so much nicer. So Pepsi is really, really nice. But I'll always buy Coke. And I was just like, wow, how brilliant is that? That Coke has managed to maintain that desire and that brand love with the 100 % knowledge that you actually prefer the taste of the competitor. I mean, that is the biggest win ever.
26:05And it's insane. It makes no sense at all. But it shows, you know, if you can create. So that is nothing to do with creating the best products at all. You know, you can sit there and say, I prefer Pepsi and I choose Coke. And to me, that shows you can create the best product in the world. And that's not it. That's not enough. You know, you probably do need to create the best products in the world in order to sort of get your foot in the door. but you also it's that what that won't do it and you know the history is littered with you know the whole everyone listening to this probably far too young but Betamax VHS when video recorders came in they were a thing you know the better one got trumped it happens time and time again it's and for me it's the difference is almost always about how you feel about something and it's intangible and I think it's quite difficult to create it took us years and years you talk about so you talk about the bright colors we took us seven years to get to that point we started in 2006 with one newsly and then there was a long long long period of which we can talk about if you want to and then in 2013 for you know again serendipity our pack designer who was freelance got a full-time job and couldn't work for us anymore and i didn't want to go to a new pack designer and say uh can you redesign the packs but make them a bit better because that would be literally the worst brief ever um so we went through a process and so we managed to get a deal because we still didn't have any money at this point we managed to get the deals through our copywriter whose agency uh had a request from the bbc to feature them and none of the big brands wanted that so we were like we'll have it we can feature as nothing you can't you know nothing you can't over here so we've got a cheap deal to do a which is called an extreme consumer co-creation workshop um which really was testing with with various different consumers testing how far can the brand go what do people speak to what is the essence of fundamentally to come out with what is the essence of root health how has it moved and to to turn to be able to turn that into a creative brief so we started with this workshop um and then i did it we you know we kept on working we kept and then again this is where the why thing came up it was fine what we did in the workshop but i was like it's not specific enough we're not it's not tight enough we need to do another round we need to do more we need to really get there because we've got to nail this it's halfway there we've going to nail it so eventually we did three rounds um to to come out with what after seven years was a lot bolder we were a lot more confident we really knew what we wanted to do and we realized that what what we had been doing was trying to let the food speak for itself which is exactly what isn't going to work um and we realized what we needed to do was to be out there being what we wanted the food to do.
29:09So, you know, this idea of if you want people to feel in root health and all your food is created for that sense, either for people who feel like it, who want to feel like it, then that's what you've got to show. You've got to show the sense of being in root health. So the packs have to be in root health. And as a small band, our packs were our advertising basically that is that was it there was no other advertising so if the you know the packs are spot on and you're you know they're speaking for themselves on the shelves so that was the point at which um we we went from you know actually quite this massive quite typically healthy looking you know really the food credential packs which are quite brown quite plain quite lost on the shelf to what you see now.
29:58Although, I say I have to give massive credit to the designers because apparently the one thing that we'd said when we briefed them, Nick and I, the only thing we'd said, he said any restrictions, and apparently we said we have to keep the brown. I mean, neither of us has any memory of saying this at all. And quite correctly, he completely ignored us. When they came back with the designs, the one we chose was the one with the most colouring, zero brown. 50-0, bro. That's amazing. No, because I think I found a picture of the old branding. And anyone listening to this, you should Google it because it's like a brand.
30:34It's a complete rebrand. Yeah. So there's so much in that, Camille. I think what you're saying, trying to get to the essence of Rude Health, getting more specific, how to get a brand to speak or make people feel on shelf. lots of people listening to this will be trying to do this they'll have like a great product but they're trying to get the brand right yeah um what would you say are kind of the pillars or the principles the ones three principles that are needed to build a great brand because i think anyone listening to this could go away and potentially you know they may not have access to a root health masterclass but it may really help them just to get their brand dna across on shelf or on pack or on social etc yeah i i i mean i don't have a classical marketing training so there's probably a sort of actual answer to that question um but some some which is probably well worth knowing um but i think it's interesting hearing yours that's why i actually prefer not hearing the the technically as we were saying earlier i much better actually hearing people who've been there and done it themselves it was it was a combination for me so where it came from was um okay so it came it came from what was it we were trying to do so it came from what what do we believe and it came and that was I I love food food is my happy place I just you know eating cooking sharing food with people the whole the whole and you and you have to eat you've got to sleep, got to eat and you've got to drink.
32:09There is pretty much nothing else in life that you have to do. It's fundamental. So for me, and it was quite a shock when I left home to find out that quite a lot of people, what food was not their house place in any shape or form. And that was quite a shock. And I really felt like, wow, that's a fundamental that's not right. And that's not great. And part of the dislocation or dissonance, part of the problem seemed to be for a lot of people, there was a sense that if it's delicious, then I shouldn't be eating it. And everything I should be eating is going to be miserable. And it's going to be healthy and horrible.
32:46But actually, what I want to eat is that stuff out there, which is really bad for me. And for a lot of people, I'm being an extreme case, but there was a real sense that you weren't going to enjoy the food that you ought to be eating. And I'd just grown up with home-cooked food and anything. And then we had sweets and treats as well but you know fundamentally we were full of decent food and then the other rest was top up so nothing was off the table nothing was banned and nothing was ever obviously sweets and treats were like well I'm not gonna make that my main meal because it's not really gonna nourish me but I can have them so it was a very easy relationship and and I suppose really what we wanted to do was to make healthy food desirable as desirable it there is no reason that something that's nourishing can't also be satisfying and and that was what that was what we wanted to achieve was to to for people to feel like that about to feel excited about their um you know whether it's a muesli or a granola or an almond milk you know or oat cake it was that it's you can combine nourishment and and satisfaction, deliciousness.
33:53And part of that comes in what it looks like. So it was really, that was the sort of essence. That was why we started. And I think that's your, you know, that's a why. If you can identify your, why did you start? What did you want to do? You know, yes, you wanted to make an amazing popcorn or something, but why did you want to make the amazing popcorn or, you know, the amazing peanut butter, whatever it is, what made you want to do that what were you trying to fix um or what was missing and i think if you can get to that that's really important so yeah for us it was it was the making healthy delicious and desirable and was was a huge part of it um and as time went on it sort of slightly developed but if you know that that leads on to then well what would that look like you know how would that you can you can begin and where are the issues and where can you play with that understanding?
34:42And so it came from what were you, what were, what were we trying to do ultimately? What, what was our goal? And then, and then you've got a whole load of things to what's your competitor set, you know, and, and what are the important things for you to do for us? It was packaging. It was visual because the really obvious thing about health food was it had a really strong look and feel. It was brown and green and it sat in the health food shops. So we realized quite early on that we didn't, sitting in the health food shops wasn't going to rock it because it turned out. Because that was where our heart was.
35:16We're like, we shop in farmer's markets and health food stores. And about 18 months in, actually it may have been even less. It may have been only a year in. I think we had a few muesli's and some porridges at the time. Someone said, you do realize that 94 % of cereals are sold in the supermarket. And we went, no, interesting. right in that case right okay and then you know that's your decision moment where you go well are we trying to be a niche artisan brand or do we actually want this to be available for everybody and i mean we're pretty clear immediately we want this to be available we're not going to change anything we're not going to change anyone's relationship with food if we're only looking at six percent of the market so um yeah we realized then that supermarkets had to be part of our landscape you've said segue personally there commit us my next question absolutely genius i love it um so because that's what i was going to ask actually is again another pain point for listeners and you know it does pain me seeing brands go in go into a supermarket shelf um they've put put their kind of their heart soul blood sweat tears years into getting it on the shelf yeah and then they just get kicked out it's like a revolving hotel door and it's it's it's it's so sad and i think oh i kind of want to talk about how you guys drove the rate of sale on this because what was waitress your first malt listing uh sainsbury's but waitress was the first sort of big one in a sense right yeah okay so so how did you drive the drive the rate of sale when you were on a on a shoestring budget uh that is a really good question i'd say not very well honestly i I think it wasn't something we were terribly good at, which might explain why we've, and also, I think to your point, absolutely, it's really hard and you can get kicked out.
37:14And I think we've, the story that we were always told was, you know, once you've been kicked out, you'll never get back in. And just to reassure everyone, I can tell you that's not the case. It does not have to be the case. I think we've been kicked out of Tesco four times. that is so reassuring for listeners honestly we're back in we're back in we're in so uh we just it was there were a number of reasons it was a different reason every time but how did we do rate of sale well Sainsbury's was actually was our first marks listing and we were in the free-from aisle and that you are a little bit where you were a little bit more protected in that area because the it was such a um uh what's the word i want uh it's a very fixed demand it doesn't the people who shop there were shopping there and you didn't have to do a huge amount once they discovered you um then they would go back and buy you again and again because there wasn't an enormous amount of choice um and if you presented them with something which tasted nice and looked good you know bingo they were you it was a pretty good uh it was inelastic demand that's what I was looking for.
38:18Very inelastic demand curve in the free farm section. So Sainsbury's was actually a fantastic listing because that pretty much, our puffed rice pretty much got us through 2008, which was the recession kickoff because it stayed in and kept going. And at that point, that year, we had been expecting listings from bigger listings from Sainsbury's, new listings from Tesco's and listings from Waitrose. Of course, by the time Lehman's went down and then all the supermarkets were more or less clearing their premium ranges. That was the moment when they created Tesco Value and Waitrose Essentials and whatever the Sainsbury's one is.
39:05So, then absolutely the last thing they wanted was a new premium, super premium cereal brand. so we the only listing that came through in 2008 um was waitrose um and that was a big and stuck and i i mean we did everything we could i mean what i wanted to do was cut through so we couldn't have didn't have any money couldn't advertise um sorry to interrupt just just quick question were you in the old branding at this point yeah old branding this was 2008 the new branding didn't happen until 2013 so we're loud and proud on shelf dorset had done their rebrand by this time um so they were looking actually amazing they transformed the music category completely um and it was yeah it was really hard so i mean we would try what i wanted to do and i didn't we weren't actually terribly good at it what i wanted to do was something which which was different so when there was for example a bbc good food show exhibition which was one of the bigger and better exhibitions at the time.
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40:10We had a teeny weeny stand. And I think one year we didn't even have a stand. They were huge. We just get a lot. Nobody wants to try muesli at a food show. You know, if you're selling chocolate or alcohol, you are in a good position. Are you peanut butter? Actually, peanut butter will work well. But muesli, it's just not what people are going for. So I knew that we were never going to get much through that. So what we were trying to do was do sampling outside at the train station. so you could get you know and this was in london to the right demographic who were roughly shopping at tesco so we would either do sort of just straightforward sampling um uh where you're just handing out mini packs you know to everyone who turns up and hopefully that reaches more people and also that gets the food in people's mouths so that was my sort of big belief was if our whole thing was about healthy food can be delicious then the proof's in the pudding get as many people as gospel to taste it basically so sampling was a huge sort of thing for us was get people to taste it and we tried doing a sort of stunty thing where we had I mean I was hugely inspired by a story that Howie's did when they couldn't that was just a clothing brand that they when they couldn't afford a stand or were too late to enter for London Fashion Week you know some clothes fair they said they couldn't do that but what they did was they painted up some models with their t-shirts and then sent them in and then went to the room and they took off their clothes and walked around with the painted tops.
41:35They got thrown out, but that was perfect because then it got written up in all of the magazines. And you're like, oh, bingo, that's free advertising. Amazing. And so that was the sort of thing that inspired me. And I was, I honestly have never come up with one that good. We tried to do a sort of like a naked sampling thing. It didn't, but it didn't really work. We didn't do well enough. And, oh, the other, what was the, yeah, I mean, there's some really good ones. The other one that I loved, one of my favorite marketing campaigns ever, it's probably relevant to nothing, but I just love it, was, I think, I think it was done in America first, but then I think a Welsh milk company did it here, Calonwen, when they put lonely hearts on the side of the milk pack, and it was genuine, it was farmers, which is you know it can be a fairly lonely life and they did uh you know they did lonely hearts on the side of the the milk carton and i think actually managed to find some of them wives partners um husbands so it was and i thought that was an amazing campaign because again it was true it's like this life is quite intense and you don't get a chance to meet many people um it's to stick put that on your carton and use that as your marketing campaign i just thought was absolutely brilliant um yeah so anyway it was about fundamentally it was about taste and the only other thing we was about was pr and then the packs that was that was what we had and did we do a great job of driving sales on under i mean we did as best as we could but with no money it's relatively difficult hey guys quick one the biggest festival in challenge of food drink is heading and coming very very soon bread and jam is literally glass and brief for food drink brands is so banging they're in the eighth year everyone's going to be there it's going to be a great time i'm actually doing a live podcast with the wonderful giles brooke 18th 19th of july business design center in islington london you've got to grab a ticket there's opportunities to do huge pitches meet the right buyers a card of selfridges tesco sainsbury so much more and it's just good crack it's great fun and if you want a ticket head to bread and jam fest.com but I'll also put a link in the show notes so please do yourself a favor and grab yourself a ticket I think that's so reassuring for listeners and I also think what you what you said there Camilla of like if you start with asking why all the time so you know if anyone's gets say someone gets listed tomorrow in waitress if you start asking why you'll think of creative ways to get people trying a product I think the the sampling piece is really important and I think it's also really important that you're doing it yourself because no one will care about your brand as much as you i know you can outsource it to these agencies but they're probably like sat there limply on their phone like it just creates the worst first impression not a lot to be a bit rude but like it creates a worst first impression for your brands but if you think you know i can imagine lou giving out samples or with us at man like we're so bloody passionate about it that it has that powerful effect from consumer um and then if you can ask those why's in a creative way and do something a bit irreverent you may get some pr off the back of it so i think that's it it's like ask why sample yourself in a creative way with the golds hope you get some wangles and pr off the back of it i think pr's pr's i yeah i'm fascinated by that i think i've i've got a mate who dressed up as um it's a brand called uh i think it's t-rex you just they all dressed up as loads of dinosaurs yeah um got into sainsbury's got loads of pr of it um and probably cost them what the cost of some dinosaur suits in a bit of time like when you do it when it works it's amazing you just can't it's just not under your control you can't guarantee it works so it's a total risk but if it works it works um yeah um and and one i suppose actually another thing i listened to a podcast is when you said serendipity over strategy and i was like i was like oh my god that is just ticking my boxes because i i believe that that's what you were saying about the why like there's i think when you're in the supernation stages you can sit around like pontificate with this big plan but you know it's neither gonna go the way you think it's gonna go so having this ability to be serendipitous and try new things and i think your your approach and this is what i've heard from ludes mpd is is amazing like you just try something and it's fun and if it works it works if it doesn't it doesn't like um as the team has scaled so um i don't know is the team over 50 now i don't well yeah no we're including the cafe and the dental office in the netherlands i think we're at 44 44 so still still a pretty big team from the early days yes so now as as you're bigger and there is more kind of a name not a name process but there's more process in place because there has to be as you're a bigger business how do yourself and nick still inspire from like a leadership perspective this sort of naivety and serendipity to make sure you're always being creative that is a really interesting question because that we are that is something which we're working on how you maintain that forever how yeah and what we we have uh we now have a ceo who actually knows what they're doing actually knows how to run a business because obviously what Nick and I did was start a business and build a business and it's now at a different stage and neither of us knows how you run a business actually neither of us really wants to it's not what we do so we even if we continue acting the way we behave we do and the things we do best it's not what the business needs at this stage so our CEO Tim is doing an amazing job of making the business function as a business needs to function at this stage, which does, as you say, involves a certain amount more process and just understanding measurement, target, which stuff, which we just not had, but retaining what he calls the founder energy.
47:34However you want to refer to that, as you said, it's the stuff which probably comes in a bit sideways or you know might appear a bit random and he's trying to sort of distill that and what what exactly is it and there's an element of there's an element of sort of ownership that and an element of just you know if you've got a belief if you've got something you think is really important then make sure that the business hears it you know it's don't just get stuck doing your little bit. It's a tricky one to try and blend in as the business grows and as it requires stronger foundations effectively.
48:17But yeah, that is exactly what we're trying to do at the moment. As Nick and I get older, I'm less thankful for the business that how do you retain the best bits without letting us knock the wheels off by being too random and still behaving like a startup when actually it now needs to be a lot more focused than it used to. Even the way we do innovation now, it's so much more thought through because we were creating so many skews. As you said, we're still on 60-something. It's not like we've stopped. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in the early days, it was very much our testing process was to get it out there in the market and see whether it works or not.
49:02And as a small business, that worked really well because it was just more effective than any amount of research was ever going to be. but now at a bigger scale a launch is a bigger deal um and you don't want to be distracted with loads and loads of launches if hardly any of them are going to work and also if you you want brand recognition we need to make sure everything is right so it's just being a bit clearer about why why are we launching this who are we launching it for you know what are we expecting from it So there's still the sort of serendipity in the early stage of our head of innovation does some great brainstorms with what could we launch and some amazing ideas.
49:44Some of them are not even in food. So it still starts off with the same sort of breadth of opportunity, but fewer of them will get to the point of actual launch than probably would. But the reason is stronger. No, no, no. it's so interesting because i i suppose with us with the deep roast that was we basically burnt the nuts in wimbledon rubby club kitchen and then i always i i personally believe like you don't know what you don't know like the market didn't know they needed a deep roast peanut butter suppose you guys were a granola brand you launched the milk to then bang that was like that really kind of had the cataclysmic shift in the brand so i do think it's interesting balance that's why i was trying to kind of understand how you keep yours and nick's magic um like balancing that with the process and there is the hardest thing you know we've grown our team to like 16 17 now and there are more processes in it does it's just getting that balancing act yeah is there a specific example of like in the last couple of months where you and nick have had an idea and i would just love to kind of know how that works on a maybe a weekly basis like we need to do this but it's how to manage that so I can't think of a specific example um I think because the idea I think what what when it when we'll know it's working if it's not only coming from me and Nick because I think that's what has to happen is it can't it can't just be us it has to be that because every week we are nobody you know we are just another other people anyone else in the team can have these ideas.
51:19And it's just making sure that there is space for that and the attitude for that. And that people, it's sort of not get stuck in a rut, isn't it? It's not letting the process own you. It's you own what you're doing. And then you'll ask the right questions. Then it's that point where you go, but we could be doing that and it would be so much more interesting or so much more effective. And that's what, bring that back, you know, bring that back, put that into the business. So if everybody has that sort of sense of they've got the power and the capacity and the ability to see what could be better.
52:02And, you know, like you said, something's gone a bit wrong. I mean, it's brilliant when it comes out of something going a bit wrong. It's exactly what happened to us. You know, we got the wrong oats for the muesli. They were the wrong mill, the wrong grind. And they were just too tough for muesli and didn't want to waste them. So it started making porridge. It turned out they're brilliant for porridge because you need a bit more bulk. You need a bit more bite to an oat that makes a porridge. So all of those things is when something goes wrong and sometimes it just goes wrong and you've just got to move on.
52:32But when you can turn that, when you can see in that what the opportunity is, that's a huge win and stuff will always go wrong and there will be opportunities. So it's just getting the whole team to feel like they can make those changes they can make stuff happen i think no that's so interesting no i just think because i it's it's a pain point every founder what people listening to this will be going through so it's um yeah i love that it's about kind of keeping the magic as as you scale um the other question or theme i wanted to explore is is export um and winning in different kind of countries because i think again i'm trying to be if i'm wrong but lewis mentioned that um you guys are in a whole bevy of different countries there's some very kind of intergalactic brands uh but um they're all in this galaxy at the moment yeah yeah yeah well you never know you never know especially if you're if you're really in rude health kind of sky's the limit um but i would export is such an enigma for every brand like it it seems straightforward yet it seems paradoxically like so tremendously difficult if you were to kind of start your export strategy again tomorrow like how would you what would you do differently and why and it's a good question we what we what we did with export was really fine we we sort of copied what we did in the UK so in the UK we started with um the premium so it started in either health food stores or delis and then gradually grew into malts fundamentally.
54:14And so what we did abroad was slightly replicate that model, and we did that through finding distributors, importers who were in that world. Our first export was Norway to a distributor who looked after all the fine food and health food stores in Norway. There are a million of them, and they understood what food health stood for, and they could sell it in their markets. I think the biggest, I don't know how I would change that, actually. I think the challenge with exports is that you don't know the consumer. You're not on the ground. So you are relying on whoever you're selling through to have that knowledge.
55:01So that you need somebody who can do the sales and marketing. It's not just a distribution game. You need someone who knows their market, knows their consumer, and knows how to get to them. It worked pretty well. But we weren't trying to be enormous anywhere. So the sales going through that approach with a great way of testing markets and getting a sense of what works, it doesn't necessarily get you huge distribution in any one territory. That, for us, I think happened partly with scale. And I don't know how we would have done that earlier. I mean, I guess, I don't know how we'd have done that earlier.
55:44I mean, people do it, but we didn't. And I'm not quite sure. But what I think? Sorry. In the end, through being seen in the UK, we got our sort of most straightforward big international market, which is Portugal, interestingly, which would never have been one that we would have put top of the list as an obvious market for rude health. But they were looking for – they'd been looking and they'd seen rude health at the coffee festival. They'd seen – I think in Amsterdam and London. They'd seen loads of Rude Healt in Whole Foods. They'd done the food tour in London, and they were looking for a couple of flagship healthy brands.
56:34So they came to us, and that was a big retailer, and that's a fantastic partnership, which is still going. But that came actually through us having scale relatively in the UK, through being seen at various sort of in stores and in windows and things, which was interesting because it made me realize, God, you know, it's like everything. You know, once things start succeeding, it feeds its own success. Sure. Getting the first bits, the real killer, getting those nurse listings and the first bits of success. But what I've learned, and I think it's really interesting, is how you replicated the model, irregardless of country.
57:16So you still did the built-in the Indies and health food stores to kind of get that nascent awareness and brand building. So when you did go into the bigger retailers in X country, there was a bit of ump behind it because we went into Ireland and it's so annoying. We launched in March 2020. And it was just a cataclysmic nightmare because I couldn't get over there and I had Brexit. How did you get the distributors on board with the brand? And like, did you invite them over? Did you fly over? Did you? We did trade shows actually. And it was trade shows and getting to know people. And this was a huge part, not just of distributors, but suppliers and everybody.
58:03It was about relationship. It was, do they get it? Do they get us? Do we get them? Do we like them? And that was what did it. You know, that was what would seal it, was you could feel their energy, enjoyed working with them. you know they had their market and it was based yeah that was what it was based on really hugely about relationship and it and it still is you know supplier relationships and distributor relationships is still enormously important because it i think because what we want to you know we've created a brand that we we love and we want people to love and so you want the people who are either making it or selling it to also have a relationship with it and have a relationship with you to get it it's not just a thing you're churning through you know it's not plastic bits of piping or something you know something you care about you're feeding people so it yeah the relationship is huge actually and again it could what you were saying earlier about doing sampling um we still do it ourselves we our staff the just the london coffee festival we've just had um people were approaching our staff to try and poach them and then realizing that they were rude house people and that was why they were so good because and they're brilliant you know they yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah god stand and yeah of course everyone wanted them um but that as you said you know that's lovely because it's it's absolutely genuine you know they are genuinely talking about the brand it's not a sales spiel it's they love it no it's so true it's so you can yeah sometimes you go and meet these people and you can tell they'd rather just kind of be on Angry Birds or something like that.
59:42Like they're just so far removed from actually interested in it. And you said Portugal was your biggest market, but you hired, you built an office in, is that Holland? Yeah, yeah, in the Netherlands, yeah. So how come you guys built an office there versus Portugal if Portugal was like the bigger? This was a while ago, so we didn't have Portugal at that point. Ah, okay. What we did find was we found, actually it was a person, So when we started exporting to the Netherlands, it was still a really good export market for us. And it was one of the really early ones. And it was an early strong one. They have a little chain of gourmet healthy stores called Markt.
1:00:24And we flew in them right from the beginning. And the Netherlands was a market that was working really well. Also English speaking, basically. So you don't have any pack changes. So it's a nice one. and being in Europe at the time it was an easy one so it was it was a great market and we we met somebody through our selling to the Netherlands we met a Netherlands Dutch salesperson who we'd have hired in the UK like a shot but she wasn't interested in coming to the UK so we took her on in the Netherlands and she became a kind of one-man business and then it just it built up into a smaller group and she runs our international um so she runs the international from the netherlands got some staff in london some staff in the netherlands and then uh worked in our favor when it came to brexit because we now have a hub in in the netherlands like separate business so we can do get around i mean we don't want to get into this but gets around the rule of origin and all the other joyful difficulties in yourself, imports and exports now.
1:01:31Yeah, the big palaver. I love that. It kind of goes back to your whole serendipity strategy and people. It's just like, you know, the person who's in the Netherlands, I love that. I think for listeners, it's just so reassuring to see a brand of your kind of stature and size that, you know, still do the the the sampling yourself you still you haven't ever lost that kind of human bit and and the the grit i suppose um cool contrary to your times like kind of a few more few more questions camilla um and where i want to go to now is is sort of resilience and navigate navigating uncertainty um because i know everyone listening to this like one of the certains of starting a business is uncertainty so it's basically the only certainty is uncertainty um and it can be quite like discombobitating when you're going through all these like crazy changes etc um and one of the things um i read it was an ask week article so what is the most important thing that you've learned from starting business and he said the ability to learn and to keep going face failure is at least as important as any skill or aptitude you bring.
1:02:53What has been the hardest sleepless nights moment on the rude health journey? And what were you saying to yourself in that moment to push yourself through it? Because I think everyone listening to this will be going through that on some scale. Yeah. Now, we've been going 16 and a half years. So, there's been more than one and some of them were very long moments. So, the whole of 2009, after when the crash happened and stayed, the whole of 2009, and I mean, it was a bit longer than that really, we were absolutely on the edge of survival. And we had remortgaged our house and there were both of us in the business.
1:03:46So it was pretty much, you know, we needed the business to survive. And every time the phone rang, you were really crossing your fingers that it wasn't a D-list because we could not have afforded a D-list. So the only way, how do we get through that?
1:04:04it there being two of us for me made all the difference like i don't think i would have gone through it on my own um i think having two of us was you know share the pain uh i mean ironically it actually factually objectively made it worse because it was all shared how you know it would have been both of us if it would be your partner's doing something else you'd actually be more secure but the fact we were in it together made it slightly easier um uh and then i think it's i mean it's it's day by day what can you do i mean it goes back to that very almost trite thing you know and look at focus on the problems you can solve or the things you can change there's an awful lot you can't do anything about but you can try and do that teeny weeny thing you know whether it's get a bit more publicity, you know, to try and shift the sales a bit more or, you know, improve your pack a bit or what it's just focus on the stuff you can do and just keep, keep trying to do that.
1:05:03Get another list of whatever, anything, anything. And I mean, we were trying, we would try anything, absolutely anything. And we were, you know, looking at any possible savings, spending absolutely no money, you know, just using whatever we had to do, whatever we could do and just doing day by day by day by day. I mean, you know, we did it. And if you look around, there's a reason there's not many businesses of our age is that so many people, but through no fault of their own, there is a massive element of luck in it as well. We survived, but so few startups who started, you know, anywhere between sort of 2006 and 2011.
1:05:43I mean, almost no one, you know, The cull was extraordinary. Now, I can think of six serial companies that all disappeared. And then in 2012, 13, people started again, and it was something like, oh, wow, this is great. There's new businesses happening. So that was a really long, really hard period, which was just deal with it day by day. We've made some bad people decisions, and that's a really tough one because that actually affects morale. And this can be quite tricky to sort out because once you've got something, once something's off, you know, once the morale is off, it's like, how do you get back what's no longer there?
1:06:29How did you do that? Because I'm thinking it's so many... Quite a lot of time, actually. Quite a lot of time because you've got to reshape the team, which is never fun. to make sure that you've got the right people. And then it just takes time because you've got to reassure people that you do what... I think when it goes wrong is when there's a dissonance between what it is you want to do and what's actually happening. And to try... And so, of course, to the team, that can feel like you don't mean what you say, whereas what's actually happened is you've just made a bad decision that something's not working the way you want it to work.
1:07:11But to them, it means like what you're saying is not what's going on in the world. So even when you've got to get that faith back again, you've got to rebuild the trust that you really do believe it, that is really what you want, and you've actually just screwed up. But again, you can't even be hugely clear about that because quite often it's not that there's a bad person or even somebody's bad at what they're doing. They're probably just in the wrong place. This wasn't the right company for them. And we've made the decision to hire them. So it's actually our fault. I find that one of the hardest things because I don't know, I just feel hugely responsible every time we make a decision that turns out to be wrong.
1:07:58Yeah, it's tough. I hate it. And to be honest, we had this i've seen like sort of two teams at manny live the first is when i was right there at the beginning and then and then to be honest it really started to kick in and change when lou joined us because that's when we started to realize okay here we're trying to hire the right people you have almost the right the same very similar values like same passions but i i can understand how um not bad highs they're not bad highs of what it's just the wrong hire it's like wrong person wrong place yeah so so with the like sort of the og rude healthers who have been with you i think but um uh bursal and donathan yep how how did you sort of not rebuild the trust with them but like get these these processes to yeah almost like because as you were saying i think it's so hard as a founder it's like you're not making a decision like it for for a bad reason that you want it to work but it's just that dissonance between what you think's in your head and what's actually happening on the ground.
1:08:58Like how did you rebuild that trust? Time. Time. You know, time and just keep just going back to, you know, making sure that you are then, you know, what you say is happening, what you say you want is what's actually happening. And when that is consistent, when that is happening, then I think, you know, obviously people can then trust. and it's something that Tim, our new CEO, is really strong on, really, really strong at being incredibly clear and transparent about what he's trying to do, what he believes in, what the expectations are. He's much better than we ever were at doing it consistently and explicitly and knowing what it is that people need to hear and need to see.
1:09:48So I think actually, you know, I think we're in a good place now. Yeah, amazing. really know where they stand and the part of the tricky bit is probably the growth switch between when you're a very small business and everybody each person kind of manages their own little world you know and all the there isn't really a meeting because you're all sitting around one big desk and you know you just talk about stuff and decisions get made and so everybody is totally responsible for what they do um and in a way you're all like mini businesses and you've got you know one salesperson one finance person one marketer you know it's really straightforward um and so the communication then happens incredibly naturally and i think there's a there's a we found there was quite a tricky bit where we were assuming that everybody would always continue to act like that but you always continue it would always be like your mini business and you take responsibility and if you had an issue just turn around and ask someone because that was how it started off.
1:10:51And it doesn't, you know, at some stage, there's more of a sense of hierarchy or people are worried about raising things or, you know, and you've got, you've then got to start bringing in the ways to make it easy for people to do what they need to do, which is again, where Nick and I probably aren't the best people to be doing that because we don't really know how you do it. And that's where, you know, Tim is bringing in the stuff that hopefully makes it really, people get their input, know when, how to have their input and, you know, can be heard. yeah that's no no sorry i was just reflecting i interviewed the mindful chef um miles from mindful chef oh yeah the other week and he was saying something similar as he was they brought an md in called tim as well actually um and what they do is the founders add their magic like they have a thing called like the feast of failure or something like that and they get all the new employees in because they want to obviously you've got to have this process but like almost too much rigmarole means people don't want to say what they're actually feeling so i think that's a really interesting way of like almost from ancillary coming in from the sides to like add that founder's magic i think it's it's really interesting so so just out of sheer curiosity here is obviously you would have had a long list of people wanting to join um it will be the md of rude health so what were the things that other than like tim's sort of cv which i'm assuming was like very glittery um what were you looking for in him that made him the right fix again i think that's a really interesting thing for the listeners who are trying to find maybe somebody who's got more experience yeah yes i mean actually relatively similar for all hires now we used to hire on on basically on fit it almost entirely and then we switched to a while to skills and then we that skills alone just doesn't work, totally doesn't work.
1:12:42It is absolutely crucial.
1:12:46But obviously now there is a skills. It's trying to get both. It's a big ask. I mean, you know, I think the skills is a big ask. You know, that's hard.
1:13:01And we needed to save this role specifically. we wanted somebody who had a new challenger brand. Challenger brand, absolutely crucial, basically. Absolutely crucial because I think the mindset, this is for me, it's one of the big things, is there is a totally different mindset running, being part of building a challenger brand from being in an established brand. It's just totally different. The whole way of doing things is different. I think that was a non-negotiable. and to have built it, we wanted someone who'd grown well beyond the stage that we're at, you know, who can do business. So those were the sort of obvious skills, you know, experience in Challenger Brand and have built it.
1:13:48And then we needed, we knew we wanted someone who was really strong on people because we are a people. I mean, we are, Vood Health is so people-based, you know, everything about what we do. So, you know, the fact that our team, you know, are on, and it wasn't just the sales team on the London Coffee Festival stand. You know, there were people from marketing, people from operations, you know, everyone had their moment. And it's the same last year we did an event down at Lido in Penzance and had a sales blitz sort of around the country. And again, you know, it wasn't just one team that got involved.
1:14:24It's the whole team. And, you know, everybody needs to really believe in it and really care about it and want to get involved in it. And then you get, you know, and then you do these events and you kind of realize why you're doing it. You know, you love it. So it needed to be somebody who really gets that. And, you know, the supplier relationship is huge. You know, you want to be able to work with them because we don't own our own factories. We work with suppliers and you've got to have a great relationship with them. if you want to get something out of them that they're not currently doing, which we usually do, then, you know, that's going to be relationship based because there's going to be a pain in the ass to get to the point where, you know, and a lot of iterations to get to a food that we were really happy with that they can make.
1:15:09So yeah, that was, that was the big one. And then, and then there's just that intangible, does it feel right? yeah yeah so everything i i do is is a gut decision i mean i interviewed the the box park founder actually and he was he was sort of saying that you know shoppers don't go around with an excel spreadsheet so just like let's start making making decisions with your guy so that is that's such a great piece of wisdom um cool well where i want to finish uh camilla is is actually like food and and what's kind of zooming out of the since on a micro level of rude health what does food actually mean to you okay there's a there's a thing I I always bang on about here which I ought to be more specific about it but I read an article a few years ago which said that the second biggest indicator for poor mental health is how many meals you eat alone which I thought was really interesting and that for me says a huge amount about food and actually it obviously does link back to rude health but it's this idea that it's not just nutrients food is not just about how many calories how many nutrients how many macros whatever you've got into yourself it's much bigger than that you know eating with other people enjoying food sharing food is, and it comes back to this survival thing, yes, you need it to survive.
1:16:43But if you think about every single social occasion, every single life-marking event, almost always, you know, a wedding, there's a wedding breakfast, you know, everything you do, there's a meal, there's shared food. And in some countries, I think I'm right in saying in China that, you know, how are you? Have you eaten rice today? You know, it's, and in so many countries, the first thing you do for a stranger is offer them food. It's absolutely a social human need. That's sort of where I'm coming at it from. That's the root health element of it.
1:17:21It's together. It unites people. It joins people. You have to do it, but it's also the ultimate sort of human social experience. It's both. You need that. That's part of it. It's as necessary as whether you want nutrients are in it, which is, again, why Root Health, despite being a healthy base brand, is not focused at all on nutrients and fuel because that's so much just a part of the story. We'll cover that. We're doing that in the recipes. That's our problem. We'll make sure we're delivering you really good food, really nourishing food. But your job as a consumer is to enjoy it and appreciate it with other people.
1:18:03no i yeah i mean i can like wholeheartedly agree on that um and i i listened to a podcast and you were saying that you'd like one of your ways to unwind i suppose is to is to cook and have a dance around in in the kitchen which i know i'll probably um i'm putting my neck on the line here but during lockdown i was living well living with my parents and i did this it was a bit of a joke can well on the virtual office thing called poga like poga yoga it's hard going to like it was a bit of a paradox like techno dancing and doing some yoga and it was like the most amazing like it was like the best thing in the world and i would love to know like what are some of the favorite your favorite like well what is your sort of favorite songs to cook to and what's your favorite dish to cook i think people listening to this like if they are going through a challenge right now but sometimes it is as easy as just shutting everything down whacking some tunes on and making a banging meal like yeah i'd love to know what your what the camilla barnard uh play yeah i'm my tune playlist is depending on mood but if i'm in a yeah if i'm in a real kind of banging tune mood it would be something like i can tina turner's river deep mountain high and actually quite a lot of the girl groups from the 60s is by kind of banging chin and then some scar that would be my bang in tune uh landscape um i think but you know you're not sometimes it may be a more chill melancholy thing and that what would i make i mean do you know it almost doesn't matter i mean one of my desert island dishes is probably um potato dolphin once um just you know i don't know it's just pure comfort really isn't it i can just eat that on its own with a bit of salad it's like it's like a big hug from your grandma totally like i love potatoes yeah i'm literally that the whole yeah me and carbs are best mates so there's no listen we're inseparable um camilla that was amazing i i just i i really love that conversation i think the kind of key things for me is just this thing about always asking why um we'll just always will stand listeners in such good stead for everything they're doing because I think we can get so perplexed with you know thinking oh we've got to do it this way this is how people have done it before we've got to do do it you know the more sort of corporate way or whatever and I think always asking this question why that serendipity over strategy um is is just brilliant and so thank you so so much oh you're really welcome I hope it's I hope it's useful as well as entertaining with any luck but it's been absolute yeah absolute pleasure joy to talk to you really interesting to go back and look at kind of time in Japan and influence and stuff like that amazing thank you Camilla thank you thank you so so much for listening to the podcast I really really do appreciate it if you liked that episode only if you liked it please do give it five stars subscribe tell all your friends families foes next door but one cat dog whatever please tell everyone about this podcast it means the world to me and I really want to understand what your pain points are as the new wave of challenger food and drink brands please do hit me up on linkedin search dan pope and hopefully we can together create a more meaningful and powerful podcast for the next wave of challenger food and drink brands thank you so much
From the publisher
Life is a little crazy right now. This is a reposted episode from a couple of years ago with the wonderful Camilla Barnard, founder of Rude Health.
Back in full swing next week.
In 2006, finally, something erupted.
Health food was an imbroglio of crusty and boggey-fied, innocuous yet alienating food.
Glib green and banal brown shelves had less personality than a broken Asthma pump in a hospital car park.
A cacophony of precocious cardboard-with-a-conscience.
In 2006, thankfully, a TECTONIC SHIFT ERUPTED!!!
Lashings of lurid orange and green and pink and red lava spilled over supermarket shelves.
A bombastic riot of eye-gorgingly-gorgeous products, coquettishly carousing your taste buds.
Rude Health, the Granola-gorging Jospeh and the technicolour Dream Coat.
Rude Health made you feel beautiful and bountiful.
They’ve scaled from +£20 million, won listings at Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, TESCO, Booths.
My latest guest on HUNGRY is the wonderful, Camilla Barnard, co-founder Rude Health.
One of my favourite episodes to date!
🤝 Let's Connect!
►Let’s link-up here (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/)
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