POPHAMS: How Ollie Gold built London’s Best Bakery and Scaled Whilst Keeping Magic

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.

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 us 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 guys, absolutely puzzling that Mackenzie Jones are extending their partnership with Hungary. So gassed. In case you have been living under a rock, who are Mackenzie Jones? They are FMCG recruitment specialists. They work with some amazing brands, Lucky Saint, Real Superfoods, Hunter and Gatherer, and Purdy and Fig. Also with some of the big poppers, the big boys, the big G's, PepsiCo, Unilever, Campari. I've known Billy for Yonks, Paul for the last year. He's a top bloke. They're just super kind and lovely, and they're just dedicated to our wonderful space, our wonderful industry of buccaneering challenge brands, and that they're so much more than a recruitment business.

1:39Check out the podcast for them. It's epic. I've even introduced Mackenzie Jones to some amazing brands, and they've really helped them scale. If you're looking to hire, just reach out to them, have a chinwear, get in touch, do yourself a favour. Thank you. 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 it's a souffle of aggro you know you've got to relabel products waste time, I've even had a pal who's who lost the planet organic listings 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 recognized 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 you'd like to pack organic boots and sainsbury's and help you know with advice like exporting it's just so so so much and look don't say don't treat you and there's an oh so special offer through the podcast get 20 of your first year's membership with gs1 uk by using the code hungry 20 at checkout thank you so much uh hello there people and listeners of the hungry podcast I'm absolutely thrilled to welcome Oli Gold onto the podcast.

3:25Oli is the founder of Popham's, Popham's Bakery, who make, in my opinion, the most amazing pastries in London unreal. Popham's have, well, they've kind of got a huge esteem, voted one of London's best bakeries, and have now opened their third site. they've gone into a pasta restaurant as well as a homeware brand so look mate I'm yeah super grateful thank you so much for coming on thank you so much for having me on Dan really appreciate it thank you it's um where I want to start is I listened to a a podcast you did where you said you you'd got onto the f1 you're kind of a kitchen porter going around the world uh working in the kitchens at f1 and i interviewed a guy called rory sutherland uh about two weeks three weeks ago here and he said the best mba is being a kitchen porter or working in a corner shop the reason being is you see business as like a whole system versus this individual parts so when you're in a kitchen as a kitchen porter you'll see like how the mise en place or mise on place however you say it you'll see um how the stock comes in you'll see how the food's repaired so you basically see business as a whole system whereas at school we're kind of taught to specialize so it's like either be great at finance be great at marketing be great at be great at like x y or z the issue with that is you're kind of siloed and you don't see you don't see a business as a whole thing so what i'd love to know is what are the lessons you took from your time as a kitchen porter what leadership or business lessons that you couldn't have learned at like a business school or or in like a like in business book do you know i mean um firstly i'm delighted rory said that um generally i you know if i if i had any position in the government i would say that every 16 to 18 year old should be a kitchen porter it's come a bit closer yeah um shall i start again yeah yeah it's all good yeah um yeah every 16 to 18 year old in the country should be a kitchen porter um i yeah as you mentioned and touched on things there you learn a huge amount um and you you know you mentioned business there but i think more so uh as a person and how you grow as a person and what you learn in those early years about yourself um and more importantly other people um you know thrown into being a kitchen porter in a busy environment um you do see everything from uh you know right up close but also in a sense from afar um and uh you know certainly from my experience i remember jumping it was my first experience in a kitchen and jumping into this team of you know the time we had about six or seven chefs um five or six front of house um and i was completely blown away by how dynamic of a team worked um and you know it's not something that you see through school yes i played a lot of sports growing up there was team environment there but the the real you know the pressure to get ready for service and be perfect and on point in service and have to have such a fundamental role in that, even though some people see it as just washing dishes or getting the pots and pans ready for the chefs, but without that, they can't do their job.

7:08And although you're 0.1 % of that operation, I remember the first time, and so much of my inspiration of Popham's, I remember that first time I looked out and I saw two people eating the food and you saw that instant gratification, you saw that joy that they had over that meal and I stood there and I was like that's so cool I was I was a tiny tiny part of that um but I was a part of that and just yeah as I said being around those people needing and and listening and certainly the work ethic at that age that taught me so much um you know it's hospitality obviously over the years and recently there's been a lot of discussion around um work and working hours and you know it's great that that's that is changing and it's been spoken about at the moment but I learned so much in those days of hard work and I loved nothing more than that feeling of a long shift a long double and knowing that you'd put absolutely everything into it you could hardly walk at the end of the shift but that gave me so much pride and and and joy that I you know was working with this brilliant team and um yeah I just i i loved that role and it's something i'll always remember so i had my first job out of uni like just because i didn't realize i didn't want to go and do the corporate bollocks right and i've talked about this before is i was uh it wasn't a kitchen porter i was a delivery man for a cheese wholesaler at harvey and brockless if you know those yeah and it it didn't allow me to see the whole business as a whole but it allowed me to become very good at being able to speak to anyone yeah because you know you're i'm the sort of the posh guy going into a into a yard like fuck are you mate like so and you've got also completely you've got a polish you've got um like uh romanians you've got jamaicans a whole kind of hodgepodge a melting pot of different cultures and you're just thrown in the mixer and you suddenly got like i was i could speak to anyone like through through that through that experience um and then also like just that the hard work thing is is in terms of like you having to get to the power not by the power station but getting there at like 4 30 a.m yeah and then everything goes pete tong you're driving up to deliver some fucking cheese to some garden center yeah and everything goes pete tong and all the every all the orders haven't gone out right but it teaches you to stay calm under pressure which i'm not very good at but like yeah it you learn so much from these things and what you said at the beginning of i think every government should not make kids kitchen porters but some sort of job where you see things zoomed out yeah zoomed out from uh zoomed out and seeing the bigger picture because ultimately school like a levels uh university is making you zoom in it's making you see like right i'm going to be the best finance account manager or finance manager that's only good if you understand what it is from the bigger yeah bigger hole so so you said you'd a lot had changed about yourself when you you learned a lot about yourself in that role how did the ollie change from your first shift as a kitchen porter to your last shift what are the specific changes in you well i think you you touched on it really nicely at the beginning of uh that question there is personal skills and you know I went into the kitchen as you know a really shy nervous um obviously I was young there was everyone was a lot older than me in that space yeah if you want to move across just because that that will go yeah sorry um uh where was I um yeah as you mentioned uh about talking to people and you know think a lot about what uh my growth I guess in there was personal skills and walking into a kitchen you know someone who was really shy nervous um a lot of people from yeah different cultures around me but a lot of different ages um and you're taught to deal with things on the spot and you're taught to think on the spot and those things are what allows you to grow in confidence and grow as a person um and you know you eventually you know the whole camaraderie around a team it teaches you how to interact with people teaches you how to interact with people in front of house in the kitchen and you know I think what if we go on to you know today not myself but the generations that are coming through now so much of their time is spent on screens and is you know spent looking down and it is you know there is definitely a concern there that people aren't getting as much interaction with each other one-on-one and learning personal skills and that's like you know for me that's everything in life is interaction with people that's what gives you the most happiness is is with people and around people and getting a buzz off people and so that was so crucial is is just an element of confidence in myself that I had that I could speak to these people and then you know and gradually as you speak to people from other teams as it was in the f1 circuit or you speak to the vip guests and you learn how to do that and you feel more confident you know that's huge and how you you're able to bring yourself across as a person and you know as as you get through life then that's you know as you know it's crucial but i think because because you're going into a melting pot of different cultures and different people and different what's the word for for example and i don't mean this in a disparaging way but as i as i said like my mates we're going for beers in the city after this right yeah but everyone everyone they met when they finished university was all pretty much cut from the same cloth they all went to a good university they all probably went to a good school yeah they all had a good education they were really into politics into into rugby it's the same kind of fucking person right yeah because i think when what if you can jump into a melting pot of all different cultures all different backgrounds it's like having the handbrake on um social uh social skills so that when you go out into the the big bad world you call it that it takes the handbrake off and suddenly it's so easy to talk to anyone yeah because when you're speaking to these people they're like who the hell are you mate so you're all constantly on the back foot whereas if you go out in the city and you're a grad it's like much easier to say mate i work at deloitte and like yeah mate like you know do you know what I mean I know exactly what you mean and as I said before it was so important for that and then and then what are the leadership not necessarily leadership but what are the principles or skills from that time as a kitchen porter that now if we fast forward to 2023 that you kind of use as a leader um that is tough question uh I think something that stuck with me at a time that I like to think a lot of what Popham's is based on uh or certainly a part of is I saw from quite early on in that role I saw amazing chefs not just chefs front of house but amazing people let's say and sometimes found it frustrating how they weren't let loose in terms of like they were so creative they were brilliant chefs but they were always you know it's important to have parameters in a business and set you know set those lines but it was so systematic it was so you do this down this line my way that I just I used to remember like just let them let them do them let them create like you've got these amazing brains you've got these people who are just you know there's so many amazing people in this world who are creative innovative and just have so much up there but a lot of times they're suppressed in what they can do and what they can give so I think that's certainly one of the the memorable parts of my time and when you when you ask about leadership is you know that's very much how Poppins is built and someone actually in F1 of boss I used to work under I think when I was talking about my dream of one day opening a place he said um only ever people only ever hire people that are better than you and that has stuck with me so strong and that is what Poppins is about and we have so many brilliant people and i just try and be the link with those brilliant people and never get to um uh yeah let let people be their best self and let people create what they can create and and just have amazing people around you in a business there's there's two bits on that the first is in principle lots of founders and people listen to this like let's hire people better than us i completely get that the hard bit is to be the link that pulls it all together because ultimately i believe a brand is pours out the founder's soul in many respects where there's like popums there's there'll be parts of your soul that have gone into that brand but then as you say you need to get people who are way better at you and all the different things but it's like how do you link that together how do you thread the needle between those various moving parts to make sure the problems is still magical and that is hard so how how do you try to thread the needle if that makes sense uh sharing a vision i think interesting um having people follow the vision um and create um create a place where those people that you want on the journey are all on that page and is uh is the link is you know if if you have certain people and maybe talking about management and senior management more in terms of what your what your question is um is it's and i'm definitely not saying we're perfect to that and i'm not perfect at that because it's a constant learning curve but what we're trying to do you can't have so you can't have a disjointed part of it you can't have someone who doesn't back it doesn't follow it whether it's you know it's it's finding people who share what you want to do and 100 there's been people on the way that haven't um and not out of them or out of us it's just you know it's a it's a different type of business let's say that they want to work for and um that's you've got to be understanding about that at times but in terms of that link it's just um yeah i think it's really an awareness that people are following what you're trying to create and people are all on board with it on the same page and you're making decisions that empowering as many people to make those decisions it's not all yourself yeah of course you've got to sign off on the big ones but it's so important to let people make their own decisions empower them make them feel like they are changing the scape of popums and they are changing what they can do um rather than just constantly biting into you have to do this you have to do that you have to do that have a trust is a massive thing um and once you get that and once you incorporate that into a team and a group of people i think then you can uh yeah you can lead in the right way hi there guys super super quick one um i write a weekly newsletter called hungry friday feast it goes live at 8am every friday i'm pouring my soul into this bad boy it's probably my favorite creative endeavor i've ever done i basically pick apart all the biggest lessons all the biggest learnings from all the wonderful guests and throw it into a feast or a newsletter we've got over a thousand two hundred subscribers come and join the party i'm going to put a link in the show notes it's right at the top subscribe and if you are already a subscriber please just forward it on to a friend do the amount of favor it would mean the world to me anyway back to the old episode boys and girls i love teasing out these ideas because i think ultimately the vision is the needle that threads the whole thing together so no vision no no trust no vision no empowerment no vision you can't really get those people even though they're better you better than you to be to allow them to be their best creative self what is that what is the poppins vision i suppose what what is say we were to sit sat here in i don't know 50 years time what's the big Popham's play I suppose?

19:3750 years time yeah that would be tough we'll be on a boat by then mate no I don't know about that what's the vision? the vision has evolved through the years and I think that is that's something that you just take grasp of and there are certain points that change in that and I'll start as in you know our vision from day one yeah that'd be very interesting yeah that day one vision was a really simple basic concept around can we be the most innovative and creative with one pastry croissant dough just use that have eight ten twelve different varieties using just the same dough and create with that do things that you know london at the time 2017 it was panachocolus plains and almonds you couldn't really get anything else and for for something that you know is part of a lot of people's daily rituals is that pastry is that plain crust and that pan chocla you know we were living in what london still is the most like fast forward innovative food scene in the world and i just wanted to play on that and i wanted to see if we could create we could be the most innovative we could be the most creative so that was in terms of product and And then a huge part of us is, can we create a place that people are the number one?

21:04And that when you walk in as a customer, atmosphere, warmth, you feel at home. Anyone can walk into Popham's, whoever you are, however you look, however you feel. And our goal and our vision is to make everyone's day better, whether that's through product or service. and as I said that has that that's day one that's what's shared now but it has slightly changed as we've opened more things over the years what's how's it changed slightly because I think it's something I haven't talked about on this podcast I've done a hundred of these episodes is is how your vision can change I think people think right you've got to sit down one day airy fairy write it write out some fucking like get your post-it notes out and write your vision and that's you done for 50 years and it's like and then that's the vision but actually the vision can evolve and should evolve the yeah the business you evolve as a founder the brand evolves the business evolves so the vision should evolve whereas i think people get and i probably thought the same thing is you think all right i just need to sit down and get this vision sorted out and stick it on the wall and then bish bash bosh we're away yeah but actually it's like no that can evolve and the business can be fluid and can move into different things.

22:19Yeah. So you start with this just relentless focus on croissant or croissant. Croissant, yeah. There's no cross there. There's no other trademark names that we've used. But the maple bacon thing, mate, when I tried that, that just, that category changed my life. It's like a hot, steaming. I mean, I'm salivating now. It's orgasmic. Okay, good, man. It's so good. and so you relentlessly focus on that and then the brand evolves you get this traction you get people like Felicity Spector coming in you get you get people talking about you in the press it's like one of London's best bakeries how does the vision change as you move into pasta as you move into homeware um so I think there's a lot there and a lot to answer there um but yeah as as you touched on that agility um because look if i'm going to be completely honest when we set out to open popums there was absolutely no plan idea or thought that we could have two sites that we could have three sites let alone you know five sites if you include our homewares and and our lifestyle brand and so it would have been i didn't have i didn't have any vision of what we are now i had no idea it was possible i didn't think people would buy bacon and maple pastry why would they we're in a tiny little place off the beaten track in islington where everyone told us not to open there because there was no one around there we didn't think we know if you look at the early projections it was 10 pastries a day for a year you know and those are things that that you you have to change you have to change division as that evolves so you know i guess the first and major part of it is um when we opened our site in london fields in 2019 and we had a huge site and we knew we couldn't close at 4 p.m with all the rent costs the business rates the service charge the everything the you know huge increase in cost when you open a place that's so much bigger um is we need another operation here and you know for uh a few reasons which i can i can go through uh it we we really wanted to do pasta um and and so there was another part of the the concept that shared and you know the vision evolves but it's very much based you know in steps is that the pasta restaurant is based on respecting traditional italian pasta techniques as the pastry is and being more innovative with it and that was that was the simplicity of the pasta restaurant launching now that has evolved as well as the menu has grown and it's become more popular um and you know that comes under that that sort of how can we be a place that can serve people by day and by night and you have to switch different things you have to change the atmosphere you have to have different members of staff in there and and you have to uh you have to create uh i guess more of a place that you have to come away from what you were doing originally and you have to be open to new ideas and you have to be open to you know this is the pasta restaurant now how are we going to be our best self in the pasta restaurant and how are we going to really we'd built a reputation in pastry at the time how are we going to be at the same level of pasta and that was just the the sort of the I guess the goal coming out of 2019 was was how are we going to do that so I'm just trying to link as you said right when we were talking about you hiring all these great people and you're the link yeah vision is the link i'm trying to go like shine a magnifying glass on this link right because i think what you're saying is the ultimate vision from whether you're starting saying a making a bacon maple versus selling yeah yeah yeah yeah versus versus a pasta dish or homeware yeah the link and the thread between all of those businesses is still the same basic premise of like make people feel good yeah and like be super creative with yeah x whether it's a croissant croissant pasta or homeware but it's still the same thing and i think what's really interesting is is lots of brands do a brand extension so yeah you could have gone from uh croissants

26:50i'm gonna have to say a lot of croissants today mate it is croissant isn't it croissant yeah i don't know why i'm saying croissant mate oh god anyway um croissant okay so you could have gone from croissants to donuts to the cookies right for example and and that's like brand extension uh drinks brand cbd brand does another flavor of of brand uh of of said drink is a brand extension what you've done and you're while so excited to speak to is like a brand bounce which is what rory southern was telling me about is where you hop into different categories but you still keep the same uh as the needle that threads through it i think it's absolutely fascinating what i want to i want to talk about how you got punter through the door uh in those early days but first i actually want to i do meander with these conversations um i want to go back to to the to the f1 side of things and the genesis of of the brand because i think i read some of you like going on that you obviously on loads of airplanes and you're writing business plans.

28:00Yeah, failed ones. Failed ones. What were some of those business plans? Because I, for this, it was actually, it was never meant to be called Hungary. It was meant to be called Pope on Toast. Fucking random name, mate, but I might sound like Pope. Yeah. That would be quite weird, I don't know. Fucking spreading the Pope on Toast. I think he chose well. Yeah. But he, but I wrote that on the plane back from Japan. Yeah. I was like, well, I thought 14 hours to kill. There's only so many times you can watch, I don't know, some dead film. But yeah, what are some of the ideas that didn't make the table pre-poppins?

28:41Do I have to say? No, I'm joking. Cauliflower-based pizzas, I thought was going to be the next big thing. And then I tried to make 10 or 12 and realised pretty quickly it wasn't going to work. because because extracting the water out of cauliflower was just a ridiculous amount of time you needed to make one pizza it was extremely expensive and I don't think there's a market for it early on and I'm so happy I did it but me and a friend were going to go into chicken shops actually at the time where when chicken shops before they were actually evolving and erupting and I must have been only about 22 then 23 first one or two years of f1 I'm so thankful we we looked at getting sites why are you thankful like because there's no way I could have I mean I struggled to run a business when I was 27 when I launched popums yeah the thought of doing it at 23 when I was four years younger less experienced more naive it's terrifying and it would have never worked so yeah that was a blessing in disguise chicken my brother and I breakfast tacos that was we our family live in Austin our cousins, uncle and aunt and we spent a lot of years a lot of our time over there and just the breakfast tacos in the morning the Mexican derived we never really understood why it was so perfect for the quick grab and go in London.

30:22And so we really wanted to do that. It's weird you say that, because the other day, slightly tangential here, but for some reason, I got some weird fucking grieving to make a breakfast taco. So, because basically, you can get those three things in the, so you get like the sour cream, the guacamole and the salsa. One of those hadn't been in the fridge in Yonks. My mum had got it in an Okada shop. And I opened the fridge, I was like, fuck, I just need to make a breakfast taco. So I went down, got some wraps, smothered that all on, bacon, egg. Mate, so bang you. And the simplicity of it there, you just have like egg, bacon, chilli sauce, like a really nice spice sauce.

31:05But yeah, for timing reasons or people reasons, they just didn't work. I'm thankful for that. And then landed on Popham's. yeah it's it's beautiful for our listeners because i think you need a lot of lead to find gold you need people think you're going to sit there and pontificate and suddenly this this eureka business idea is going to float to you from you know like alan sugar's angels right i mean it's just not going to work like that and i think uh why i love what i think creativity is is it's throwing a lot of shit on the wall you need volume of shit to find gold yeah and what you've said there is you had the tacos you had the um cauliflower pizza um i could probably do with some of those no i'm not eating your pastries mate um but you had those things and then then then you stumbled across the the um popums what was it about popums versus the idea the other ideas that made you just think i'm going all illness because one thing that makes me really fascinated with founders is the turning point when they go from almost not on the sidelines but like thinking of the idea that there's that set when they go right i'm jumping in this is let's go for this um so i think i settled on i knew the innovation of pastries needed to be the idea i'd say two years prior to opening popham's right a lot inspired uh by trips to melbourne big up loon in melbourne who amazing bakery um and yeah spent a lot of time there with well some time there with f1 um and yeah so a couple of years planning knowing and then when you start talking about it and i was talking to friends what are you going to do next you know family um and then there was a moment i knew f1 was done and that's when you know i used to be buzzing going to the airport every other week and going to Heathrow I'd love to take my little bags and then one day I just woke up and it just no excitement there and I just knew that wasn't can do it anymore um handed in my notice but just out of interest why because the no no because as I watched the F1 and you just think you're like gallivanting around the world I know it's tough work but it's like you're in all these sick countries but i know in fact i was in i was on the on a on the in a in a queue for a flight and there's these two blokes behind us this must have been about two years ago and they were like he was like mate i haven't got any more races in me he goes i've cut it back massively and i was thinking they worked for the f1 i don't know what their role was and i remember in the queue going mate you work for the f1 like you've got you go to all these countries like it looks like a big piss up if you win like but okay isn't that what why why did you it's it's as most people know it's it's know when you work in those sort of events and sports it's nowhere near as glamorous as as what you see um the out like not only you know the hours were incredibly long it was tough you know it was back to back 18 hour days for you know you do the whole week and sometimes if it was back to back you'd fly to another country and work long hours um but for me personally um and just on that like you know you've got to remember that i obviously didn't have a i didn't have a family at that age um there are people that are away from their family 250 days a year and that can be really tough and so when people don't have many races in them you know they miss people a lot and they want to be back home for me it was f1 was this it was a bubble i needed to get out of it was you know if you slightly bad example that you run your own podcast but if you work in your mates who work in the city when they finish their day okay they might go for a couple of pints within their home with their housemates or they're on their own they chill whatever they have dinner on their own they go to bed with f1 you work with your colleagues you eat with your colleagues you share bedrooms with your colleagues you wake up with your colleagues you know i had amazing people that i work with and people that i'm still friends with now and it was incredible and we had the best teams but I needed to I also just craved being back in London London's my home I grew up in London I was going around the world with a bag I wanted a room I wanted a wardrobe I wanted to put my clothes somewhere I wanted to be settled you just have that state it was a stage of life thing um and and just this burning burning desire to do my own thing I all those years through f1 i had this i knew i wanted to do it i knew i wanted to have my impact on people on the hospitality world and um and your question about that turning point yeah what was the point sorry i interrupted as interested but that turning point when you went from sat on the sidelines to jumping in you said that you'd woke up weren't interested in f1 was at the airport but then what was that next bit talking to people like talking to friends family and i remember just one day being like stop fucking talking about it do it i'm a really competitive person i i always strive i guess to to to um i don't really challenge myself and test myself and i just wanted to prove to people i wanted to prove to myself that we could build something and we could build something special um and so yeah it was just that stop talking about it do it prove to yourself you can do it ask maybe a bit of a personal question here but like just so you can tell me to bugger off for what i just find fascinating the amount of founders i've sat opposite the room so i think a lot of founders have the kind of an internal friction or and i've got i've got this like the ninth degree right where it's like a lot of some when i really need to dig in i'm like well fuck i'm watch watch this you doubted me like yeah yeah school you doubt me and you've like it sounds very cringe i felt the sound of some sort of american copper like don't doubt me bro but like got it yeah yeah yeah but as in like maybe not a copper but like it's that that sort of uh one of those nfl fucking cringe films but it's that oh like you shouldn't have doubted me and it's it's not that healthy but that is my friction so it's like that forces me to just to keep pushing keep pushing keep pushing what would you say you said you're competitive what is what is ollie's internal friction that is is driving you through things um again that's something that's changed a lot throughout the years and as the company have grown and the stage as the company is at but at the beginning it was yeah it was proving to myself and people that we could do it that we could you know build a brand from a really basic premise and concept and that desire to you know we had to create a destination at the beginning because when you're off the beaten track and you're not on a high street you have to create a destination there's not people walking past and there was just a lot of excitement around trying that and yeah those first few years were super difficult and there are times that you wish you never ever went for that push over to trying it but you just march on and you keep going and want to prove to yourself that you can and you know I think more importantly is a real love of food and love of hospitality and I wanted to put myself in shoes where I was doing that every day and I could you know create a place where people walk in and you know I remind our staff to these day in training sessions you have no idea how people are feeling when they walk into the bakery they could be having a really bad day, it's tough at the moment, a lot of people are finding life difficult for whatever reason and you can it is so powerful the effect the impact you can have on one person's life you might not think it that smile on the till that question on the till that amazing coffee that amazing pastry that they get given in two or three minutes quickly that discussion of what did you you know what did you do last year yeah sorry i'm awful with my hands that conversation that you have you can make people's day you can make people's weeks and you can't you can't underestimate that power that we have in hospitality to do that and that's every aspect of hospitality um and so it was you know i really wanted to have that impact really wanted to create a place where people could feel better after coming into popham's essentially hi guys super super quick one so so excited look for years i've been badgering on about hungary the podcast you're probably bored to death thanks for putting up with me but hungary is also an agency and we look after one amazing brand called islands chocolate we've had a great time over the year we've won listings at a load of wholesalers we've won milk and more we've got our first grocery listing coming very soon which is very very sick but what i'm thrilled to announce is Hungary's merging with HC Consulting.

40:33My boy Harry Clark and his wonderful team, he's an absolute G. They do brand strategy, new business, business and account management. But why I really love working with Harry and why we've got on so well over the last couple of months is Harry was actually the founder of the boozy, isolated brand Pops. So he's been in the trenches. He's grafted his face off. He's had the sleepless nights. He's had the turmoil. He's had the triumph. He knows what it is to be a founder. He is a founder. and he's got a proven track record in grocery and out of home holy moly dips the gut stuff savile drinks remio gelato so if your brand and you're you're stuck you're looking for like new business help you're looking to scale drop us a message we'd love to chat thank you so much back to the old episode we went in the other day i said was was with islands and um without even realizing like we didn't know you didn't know we were going yeah oh god was it okay yeah yeah oh shit mate they told me to fuck off and i'm joking yeah i didn't get a smile they threw a hot chocolate over me i'm joking what site what time um no no it was amazing it was super warm like super super friendly everyone was like super gregarious um it has got that community feel and i do the more i'm sort of teasing this out i do believe in hospitality is they're kind of the everyday superheroes really and truly like you have that ability to really make someone's someone's day i've interviewed julian metcalf at prep and he had this thing which no you couldn't justify in a board meeting you couldn't justify in a pnl you couldn't really justify at all he had this ability where i've got a print in front of me whereas people could go in they'd be like right if if if someone fancied it they could be like right here's a free coffee or here's a free pain au chocolat um i can say that i can't say croissant but pain au chocolat i'm all over it son and um but that's but there's something about that i really do believe they are hostile ads can they you can be every the everyday superhero or conversely you'll know about it if the service is shit like yeah we can really piss people off um and i i think that's fascinating but so going back to that friction i'm asking this more personally like for myself is is i think it's really healthy if we when you have the sweet spot of like an absolute passion to do something brilliant and beautiful with this kind of that's pulling you from the front and then pushing you from behind or even vice versa is this almost like kind of fuck you watch this you said you said that friction had changed over the years how so um how's that change i guess

43:20um there's different stages of the journey so at the beginning it was like you know and it was a fight and every days of fight getting through the weeks of fight um and it's yeah it's really hard it's tough and it takes it really takes its toll on you and as it's developed and as we've hired better people and a better team you you know you just you you look at the company in a in a different way and in a different sense and so it just it you know now I have a different goal of what I want Poppums to be from the beginning not a different goal I've always sort of shared the same goal but it's just in a it's a in a different game state it's not a fight anymore you know it's not like a it's not a a pain as it was before as much of course there is there is with that at times sorry i'm smashing the table again but um yes hard questions have sort of put a finger on because it is it's it goes up and down on it but the only way i could put it in simple forms is as the The company has grown and I hope in areas that we've got better.

44:33My, you know, my role has changed, I guess. And it's, yeah, just the company is in a different place. It's, you know, now we want it to, we want to create a real amazing lifestyle brand in London. And that takes a different, you know, mental capacity and space as it did to get through every day and every week previously. it's reassuring for me and and listeners is I'm definitely in that scrappy fight mode at the minute where it's like just I feel like I'm pushing water I'm like this is hard yeah yeah and as I said it's I love the conversation it's just so much fun but it's all the other stuff that you don't see behind the scenes it's almost like the actual I was recording this is the products you see all the quests on but you don't see all the other shit there's so much other stuff behind the scenes I'm probably having to scrap um but it's quite reassuring that it does kind of temper out or kind of um softens ever so slightly uh i want to talk about this destination uh thing because as you say when i was working for manny life i think we met albeit super briefly when i was feet on the street kind of pounding the pavement and i popped popped into poppums probably had that one before haven't you first time yeah really genius and uh and it was it was kind of in a to describe it to listeners it's just off upper um Essex Road yeah yeah it's just it's kind of off the beaten track how did you like if you told me banks the the chef Tommy Banks he's got the the the black swan and old Alstead.

46:25But I mean, that is a real destination. It's in the fuck out of nowhere. It's like an hour up from Leeds, but he turned it into a destination. And I find it fascinating how people, instead of pushing out your brand to customers, you pull them in. How did you turn Poppins into a destination? i'll take that on two angles really answer that um firstly it was so crucial and i thought the only way you could do it was having a product that was only the one product as in only based on croissants okay as in your main product if you know i always thought if you had a menu of donuts cookies just you know 10 different types of sweets how are you going to get known how how are you going to get people talking about one thing oh they've got you might have one person they've got really good cookies one you know we wanted everyone to get talking about one product we wanted everyone to focus on one thing that problems was um was going to be good at um and i'm going to put a third thing in there sorry as well uh lucy my business partner as well she you know she's the genius behind our social media and you know everything pr creative look style and she you know through through instagram through photos um got people talking and and really basic organic photos of of what we're about and you know if you've been to our place though we have handmade plates um our ceramics which are a huge part of what we're about we want that whole journey of you eating you know being a handmade artisan feeling um and then you've got the pastry on that and I think having you know there are lots of brands that get people to come in and do social media and I understand why you might not have someone who's naturally good at it on board and that's understandable but I think you lose so much of the organic nature of the growth of social media which I think is really important and having someone on board obviously who knows he's been there from day one and knows everything about Poppins and knows everyone in the company and how everything's made and why everything's made, that allows you to give a real organic snapshot of what we're about.

48:40And I think that's really important in creating destinations rather than if you bring a social media company and they're doing lots of different things and it just doesn't really bring it around to a package that makes sense to people. And then thirdly, destination is just service again. If you want to create a destination, you can't have someone come in and them not coming back. and how do you have someone you know you can't not having a returning customer and you just got to make it absolutely perfect every time they walk in and they've got as i've said before they've got to feel the best and they've got to be treated the best um and they've got to have you know we're always saying there's there's 1500 different variables that can go wrong in the three-day process of making a plain croissant but really but there's there's there's no excuse for bad service and okay you someone who walks in might might see that our pastries are 99 of what we want them to be today and we might see the one percent and yeah we'll serve them that day they'll be absolutely you know they'll be a great level that we're still proud of serving them but when it comes to service absolutely no excuse for you to have an off day on service service is i think the phrase is no amount of good food can make up for bad service but good service can make up for bad food exactly i asked paul ainsworth the question of like is is food art or magic because i actually think it's kind of both when you go to a banging restaurant and the service is so good it sort of melts away all your stresses and they they get you nice and like boozed up look like completely off your head but like you know listen like slowly boozed up serve you loads of good food you feel amazing it's like a magical experience yeah and then the food is often the art how do you as you're bigger now it's much harder to make sure service is to a t is how you want it is is magical makes people feel good what are some of the maybe systems you put in place to ensure that right now people are walking into pop-ups you're there as we're having this conversation how do you make sure that it's got the poppums you just hope and you pray um yeah it's putting systems in place um and you know having having levels of management um who as i said before you you make sure that they share your vision and then implementing them with training plans so that they can so when a new member of staff ofcoms on board they have you know full till training of of what they're needed to do on the till and just a reminder of how they need to act on the till um and yeah it's it's it's is the most difficult thing in growth is creating that same is creating that same service that you had when it was four of us in a shop um and it is still difficult and it's something we you know sapphire our operations director and myself talk about a lot is how we can constantly improve this and as we employ more and more people how do we make sure that they know what poppums is about and that is running training sessions um and you know mainly for me though it's just all trust in managers to to empower them to share exactly how you want the poppum service to be because it is you know people ask sometimes what's the what was the most difficult stage of of the journey and and you know was it opening that first site but opening the first site had different problems and different difficulties but I was always in that room I knew exactly what when it was at the beginning the three of us were doing when it got to a point of 10 people I knew what everything was going in those four walls and I could lead by example in that and I could talk to people the most difficult was going from one to two sites and suddenly the day of opening the second site you're like what's going on in site number one and we made that I'll be the first person to admit that we were really poor back then at replicating uh or putting enough systems in place to make sure that site one i won in islington was okay whilst we were all putting our energy into london field site because that was the cute beast that we had just opened and we just spent all of our cash on and had to try and make it work um and yeah as as we've grown and as we've got better people on board it's it's just implementing those those systems and trusting the management in place yes i've been i've been to the uh london fields one as well it's a whopper comparatively to the other one how did you see so you're straddling across both sites so you're trying to keep the magic in both what were some of those systems you put in place because i think people listening to this some sort of we have a lot of people who like own restaurants as well who are sometimes trying to scale up from one to two what are some of the systems you put in place to make sure that the first one was up to scratch with the second one do you see that kind of balancing act we didn't you didn't no we were amateurs but so there'd be what but i i it was it was investing in a moped so i could be in a site and fight another site in five minutes and and still be there and still show face and and have to that that's something like we did have systems in place of some sort but but more basic ones we had we had management you know the the managers of our site in islington had been with us for two years at that stage i trusted them with everything and i knew that they could run the site really well and yeah we had basic um i don't think we had training plans in at that stage um but but yeah at that point it was you know two amazing managers there who I knew and trust would run the site brilliantly um and but then yeah as more staff came in either site that's when we needed to um really up our game and it's you know and something that um you know when new members of staff join and something that we're you know we are proud of at problems is when when when people join we have you know really in-depth induction for every member of staff a real understanding background of the company you know policies mental health policies um and and that's a you know that's a great way to start is that excitement i'm a new company okay they know what they're talking about they know what they're doing here or at least we're trying to sound like we know what we're doing um and everyone gets a mopet and so yes when you bring on uh organization of that when you grow that's when it comes really important it was still you know this islington was a small site there we we got away with it and and we still managed to keep service up to a level there on most part but if i would just to look back and know any like sort of in hindsight or regrets problems it was just to give them that little bit more that they should have had at that stage of going from one to two have you ever had like a manage because people come and go from business have you ever had like a key manager leave onto a different opportunity and how when that happens do you ensure that the the vibe because i i the word that i would describe it sounds a bit corny but like there's a there's a palpable like calming energy is what i would describe when you walk into a popums like it's it's it's it's not like a vibe vibe's not the right word but it's like it's a it's a you feel it as a calming energy i can't describe what that is but that's what i get but it's like how do you keep that going if say one of your managers who was an absolute legend buggers off or like goes on something new how do you keep that consistent well i guess recruitment is really important and how you recruit and who you recruit and we take a lot of time in uh that process and interviewing and you've got to remember there's still a whole rest of the team there sure the manager is leading them but there's you know depending on the site there's you know five to fifteen people that are in that team and they they should be at that point they are sharing that vision and the poppins ethos that we want in a site and so it's when you bring that new person on board is they almost can lead that when they join and give them that sort of example of how we need to be, even though we would have in the interview process and in the trial process and in their starting days where we'll be working close to them, we really emphasize that ourself.

57:23But the team of people create the atmosphere. The team of people can almost lead the new management into really understanding. And that's what you hope and you pray when you build teams is it can work that way around. bohemi 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 bohemi are the platform to categorically speed that up but if you're a big brand wanting to get bigger bohemi 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 percent uplift in sales when using boemy to check major malt listings availability insane 29 percent uplift by downloading an app insane lucky saying my boy aaron duff is coming to podcast in a couple of 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 Ireland.

58:32I still hadn't thought of it like that. It's almost like the youngster, not the youngsters, that's such a, the wrong way of saying it, but it's like the, the core people who get that, that palpably calm vibe of that's the way of saying it, which is probably not in your employee handbook, right? But it's my time. Will be now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we'd cross, cross on, yeah. We had to shoot some fucking cross sorry mate fascinating and with with what we were talking about when we were outside there is how scale can come can kill magic so with there's there's uh i'm not going to say the name but there's a restaurant which we were talking about which was unreal sick one site like there was so much magic you're like walking now i was like this is unreal they opened another site still good open another site still good opened another site um which is mahusive went in there the other week and i was like this is just not the same thing so at some point you you have to go through the paradox of growing versus keeping the magic so you're at three sites now how what are your thoughts on that first question second question is is how are you going to keep the magic because you've got like as you go into this home wear and lifestyle brand um so three so yeah we got three bakeries one operates as a bakery restaurant and then we have two homeware shop as well on top of that uh we have one in hackney and one in islington right um the in terms of how do we keep the magic it's not i think it's we can answer that as simply as it's not to grow to five seven ten fifteen sites um you with the way that we make pastry um and the the time the labor the love that goes into every croissant um we understand that there's a there's a tipping edge there's a tipping point where you lose quality quickly um you know we've obviously got space to grow in terms of yes we can produce more but we can't produce more for another three sites we can't produce more you know to go massive because we will the product will not be as good as as um as good anymore and i think that's that's something that you've got to realize that you want to do so are you know we've always wanted to strive to be the best not the biggest you know i'd love people to one day talk about poppins being the best bakery in london whether that's you know around the world and that's what we want people to talk about and it's not poppums are the biggest or or you know we can i'm sure have 10 10 sites by now if we were to take investment and you know the whole of poppums then becomes diluted in something that we don't know about and the love gets lost in that um and so it's uh yeah that that tipping point is definitely something that we're aware aware of and in terms of the growth into the homewares brand Popham's Home which was launched in August 2020 so Lucy my business partner she pretty much single-handedly launched that a few months after COVID hit and something that we'd always discussed and talked about together that we wanted to do it was you know really based on the premise of people used to come into our sites and say where do you get that glass where do you get that cup from where do you get those that linen from and it was really nice sending them to the local producers and people were buying them and that was great and then it got to a stage that was like maybe we should try selling this ourself and COVID you know if we were to look back at COVID I think one of the positives of of that was there was a time where you suddenly weren't operational 23 hours a day for seven days a week and we stopped and we breathed and we took a step back and we're like okay maybe we can actually strategize this for the first time in our in our three years and maybe we can talk about what we are good at but more importantly what we're bad at strip that back let's focus on what we really want to do here poppin's home um yeah derived from from really wanted to feed the community on something else but pastry and coffee and it was building up that reputation we'd done that and there's like look now please trust us we can we can build you a retail space that has lovely cups glasses napkins etc now there's a range of 200 different types of products um and and so that sort of that's a growth that we can handle that's a growth that we can we can deal with it doesn't take 10 more bakers to open a couple more sites you know it takes to and really specialist in great buyers to buy the products um but thankfully um there's touch wood they're you know they're easier to find than skilled bakers that are really tough to find at the moment and so it's just growing it's growing in a different way and and it's not something that i would recommend anyone you know you don't open a bakery and then six months later open a homewares brand you know this took years of us building a reputation and building i think trust is the is is a word in there that customers really feel like they can back you for creating something that they will enjoy and it's one of the reasons why Islington Popham's home also has a deli in there it has food items in there and that is feeding a community that have been so so supportive to us over the years and have given us everything by constantly coming through you know rain or shine but through covid through queuing up for hours because in covid that was the only thing people could do and you know we then through an amazing group of people who are interested in small producer food we wanted to open a deli to give them you know back their sort of local amenities of what they can get on their daily shop rather than having to go somewhere else um mate it's so clever like it's it's looking at business from this is what I loved in these conversations right yeah you just see everything you think you know can be just pulled underneath you just look at things from different angle yeah I think so many people think of how do we grow a business upwards how do we get more sites how do we get more products in those sites whereas what you've done and it's what we're talking about beginning is a bounce so you don't have to grow loads of bakeries which is so odd I don't know like especially with apparently the way um i'm not as privy to the industry as as you i just like keep stuff in my face with croissants but but they're you know the the shortage of staff now post-covid's mental so you're not going to find those good bakers but so you can't you're you're keeping the magic of popums by by not going too vertical yeah but you've then got the width yeah in homeware which is super scalable yeah and can build that brand so it's like so that's how you're kind of you're keeping the magic and growing yeah that's mad yeah that's the i think the the horizontal and vertical is a good description of of how you said it there and you know it's we're soon launching a pantry range so we have you know jams chutneys cordials that uh you know come under the popham's brand again another thing that yes you need people to make it but it doesn't take as many people to make it and it's you know if you think about our product our main products are pasta and pastry their one day shelf life you know we want someone in newcastle don't know why i've picked newcastle in anywhere outside anywhere outside london to enjoy popham's products and so you know we're gonna have this these range of jams and chutneys that we can send them you know across the country we would also have them in different delis as well around london and people can enjoy popham's and that brand um without having to have that one day nature of it and that's something again that's scalable and that we can grow without diluting all of our resource that we have but again that's not something you just do on the off year this has been two years in the making it's been two years of recipe development it's something that we know that we need to focus that the quality of product needs to be so spot on before we release it and before we launch but yeah it's just it's an exciting addition that fits in that in that deli mold but allows us to scale in different ways and just for that coming back We want as many people to enjoy popums as possible.

1:07:13And some people don't love coming to North East London. But while still keeping the magic, because to be honest with me, I've asked this question to a lot of people and most don't have... The only answer I've really found of how to do this is the scale magic paradox is you can constrain by geography, which doesn't really work in the UK. It works in the US, like In-N-Out Burger. The reason In-N-Out Burger is banging is because you can only really get it in those states. So it makes it still super exclusive. Is that right? You can only get it in California and maybe one other state. So you can't get it in New York.

1:07:52So it's like, it's hard to get scarcity. Whereas like, I think they opened a Shake... Remember when Shake Chat came to London? Everyone was like, I mean, I was like running now. It's like, oh my God, there's a Shake Chat here. Now there's loads of them. Same with Five Guys. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that with Five Guys actually. yeah when they first came I was buzzed for it and I don't think I've had one since really? mate their milkshakes are like so good it's probably blasphemous saying that's you with all your fine art but if you ever want a good world of shade they're really good noted and in terms of what we were talking about at the beginning is in terms of unleashing we talked about you being the link and we talked about how you unleash these people that are more creative and better than you but still give them tram lines you said when you're in the F1 it was almost it was too rigid tram lines so people couldn't be creative completely agree but the other side is if people are so fucking flamboyant they may end up creating some like hot dog croissant thing do you know what I mean which isn't on brand might try that actually hot dog croissant yeah why not oh mate yeah call it the hungry the hungry hot dog mate wait to be fair to be fair you could put like a bit of mustard obviously yeah we could be croissant dough bun couldn't it for the hot dog running for it with crispy buttery wait you've done the maple bacon so that's a good brand extension mate bring it to football stadiums around the country that's good scalability that way we dilute the brand the so what was I saying?

1:09:37No, you were talking about unleash the creativity Yeah, so then mate, you said you got me highly aroused that sausage, sorry the hot dog croissant drink anyway, I've calmed down now but the yeah, so you know, I saw on your website the other day, I like, it was just mad, that Victoria's Spartan machine and croissant i was like mate i was like how someone thought that it's like that is so needed in this world yeah is that so vital it's so vital mate it's so vital that as well as um i mean i mean your instagram is just like it's like disneyland for croissants but like it's there's a whole corny copia of different things you can like look at but they've they're so wildly creative but they have the popham's essence so how do you let your chefs kind of uh sorry bakers run wild but sort of bring them back to the popham's harbour at the same time because i think well i they when they are creating and developing they know the the parameters you know we won't have you know pink hundreds of thousands on top of our pastries we won't have you know there's lots of bakeries go down the colorful route and have you know some I don't know blue custards or cream on top and everything and it just you know it's a different type of way to do it but we're you know we like to think of ourselves as creative innovative but really you know uh smart and um uh what's the word I'm looking for I've got a bit brain dead here um but just yes we don't want to be like funky too over the top we don't want to be in your face that's the word you know it's it's really harboring brilliant ingredients what's seasonal at the time um and and just creating it into something that is that works and so many don't work you know we have development sessions and tasting sessions and we can try lots of things that just don't work and they don't um what's the craziest idea that just didn't work that sounded we tried the Bloody Mary pastry for so long couldn't get it right

1:11:56there's a lot of development in a tea and biscuits pastry there's like a tea flavoured custard and then the bottom of the pastry is actually a biscuit base then it's incorporated with the pastry on top of it that's taken some serious development but we will get what's the longest you've had to spend getting a pastry out the door if that's the way of saying it it really varies some of them just they work you know it's yeah it's really dependent some taste and what's what's difficult with developing a pastry it's not like if you decided you know tonight that you wanted to make a hot dog not the classic but if you decided tonight you wanted to try a new dish or whatever yeah yeah um you can buy the ingredients and you can buy two you could buy two you know you could buy two lots of whatever you're buying and you could do them in different ways um when it comes to pastry because it's a three-day process if it doesn't work then on most part with how the shifts work and how development work you might sometimes have to wait two or three days to then try the next version and so it can sometimes be a long process so there's so much and and something that we're actually constantly working on because it's difficult is that balance of giving all the bakers as much creativity as possible and we do really try and do that as much as we can but also the organization behind it and the systems behind it to make sure on these days someone's on development and then if it works it goes to this day this person's testing it so it is quite the process it's not it it really is does take time it takes a lot of um resource and yeah they certainly don't come flying out the door left right and center and and they're just yeah it shows me because the quality is i'm just having a look like a scroll through your instagram and if anyone's listening to this just just do it but make sure you've had some food before i was what's the pastry you're most most poignant poignant poignant to you that was pastry that you're most proud of or bacon and maple the og the og it what it's what took us from um i think if i look back at the journey of poppums it it's what took us from i don't know how to describe it in in the of hardly anyone coming to okay there's a lot of people come to this bakery there's more people and that was based around i got i think in about three months after we opened I got a text message something along the lines of it would be great if we could come in

1:14:44great if we could come in and take some shots of you with the bacon and maple tomorrow, is that okay and it was signed off by a song called Susanna Butter from the Evening Standard and I was like with a surname like Butter, someone's having me on this is probably one of my mates funny joke, well done That's quite a funny joke. That's true. Suzanne Butter. Anyway, I called Suzanne Butter back. And she was like, I know there'll be a photographer tomorrow coming in. It wasn't a joke. It was for real. That's hilarious. Suzanne Butter. And so this photographer came in. Does your own bacon maple? Bacon maple.

1:15:17I can't say it, mate. Bacon maple. Go for the bacon first. It's easier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bacon maple. Do you have that? I just thought you didn't have that. No, it was day one. Day one, the bacon and maple, yeah. so he came into this really awkward shot of me holding the bacon and maple with tongs like this and um and it was in the evening standard the next day quite a big double page spread i think like i remember the article like the bacon pastry is landed or something and then and we were doing small productions at that stage and then the next morning we opened at 7 30 and it was me and the had Bruce at the time, Fraser, we had Flora and I had Baker in the back and we suddenly look outside and there's like, you know, bearing in mind we're doing, there's hardly anyone coming and there's like 20 people in this queue.

1:16:07We've made our normal like 10 bacon and maples that day. And we open at 7.30 and at 7.35 all of our bacon and maples are sold out and people are coming to to buy this pastry um and so in terms of your question that's the i guess the pastry that means the most to me that's really sad well no no we've all got a pastry to to pop them that that's what elevated i think so um and and then that just every day we had to increase the productions of bacon and then people would come back and and then we obviously we had a bigger range around it range around it at the time but that allowed us to do more and more and try more and more would you say yeah yeah it's just i mean i was i had one the other day like three four weeks ago bang it's like just the saltiness and then you get that drenched that like the sweet sweet maple and then the butter yeah it's just yeah game set match do you know i mean it's gorgeous um we've talked about or we almost swam down the channel of investment and a lot of people listening to this the the narrative in food and drink i think is let's raise some money and grow as fast as we can you're kind of the counter to that narrative and that's why i really enjoy our conversation i've kind of realized that but you've said no to investment what could you add some color to to that like what what point was that the journey maybe how much was on the table is that you're right to talk about that why did you say no to it because i think people can get pups be like puppies when i'm fucking out there's an investment on the table maybe not like that but they get they get excited don't take back don't set back have the pause and then before they know they're no longer the boss the investors are the boss yeah so i guess we've had we've been approached on numerous occasions um but there was a time I think 18 months ago where Lucy and myself really considered it we actually had multiple discussions and were pretty far down the line in doing so and that was to grow a couple more sites and it just one morning just had a gut feeling that it was the wrong thing to do it was a time you know it was coming out of COVID whatever that time is where things were tightening it up and costs were just continuously increasing um and it was a it was a difficult organization to run and yeah sure we could have a load more cash in the bank but i was just really put off with having um the potential of people just looking down on us the whole time and constantly asking questions why what do this you know why don't you use this butter it's half the price or why don't you use this bacon it's half the price and it's like because I don't want a product that's half as good and I know that there's and I'm not and I just want to state now that the people that we spoke to absolutely were not like that they were actually quite the opposite to that but I think that's just giving an example of having people there around the business um that can that can push you to decisions and I think what what I certainly enjoy the most about one of the things I enjoy most about Poppins is you know between the senior management team of myself lucy safari our operations director and phil our exec chef we make all the decisions ourselves we're we're all young and agile in our decision making we get around the table when there's something quick to be made and we we make it there and then and i think that is sure we've made mistakes with that but it's we've also i don't think we'd be where we are today without that with four people who really care and understand And the business, you know, everyone's, you know, luckily there's been amazing retention in that team there.

1:20:01And they've been with us for years and since day one nearly in Phil's case. And so we know everything about the business. We know exactly what we want to strive for. And it's just keeping those four people on that journey. Of course, now we have a board that, you know, I go into. But it's, to be honest, it's more on the relaxed side. um it's advice um and there's definitely not a um yeah they're not they're not killing us any quarter asking questions as a guy have you heard of hyatt denim the jeans brand no our sick sick jeans brand based in in wales and they basically make jeans for for creatives so they've got like radio headwear them but basically this guy he david hyatt is the guy who told me about scale kills magic and he was like he built this brand sold it to timberland made shit loads of money but was like why did I sell it I actually got to the top of the mountains like I've climbed the wrong mountain I've lost all the magic so he's now building this other brand keeping the magic but another thing he taught me is this analogy versus speedboat versus shipliner and a speedboat i.e your team of four can move quick can be agile can get can try new things can reverse quick yeah exactly whereas when you a shipliner is like when you start and it's ironic that we're in a board room right now but um when the boardroom's here the company chairs around is like 15 to 20 chairs yeah it's suddenly you go from you've got too many cooks at the stove and you become a ship line you become lethargic and slow and you that inherently kills the magic i think it's reassuring how i think people may think listening to that we need investment to grow i know you did have a loan but it's just perceived with caution because you yeah it can it can weigh you down quite heavily um where i want to go now mate is um is in terms of

1:22:02the the dark days basically or the hard days because it is hard there's no there's no two ways about it and I think everyone who is listening to this is often listening to like thinking how do I get through the dark days? How do I get through the days, the sleepless nights? What's been the darkest day when you've sort of looked at yourself in the mirror thinking I can't do this? I mean there's not, there was there's lots of those days genuinely and I think there were and I mentioned when I worked in F1 I was working super long hours. And so when I talk to people about opening my own place, they'll be like, you know, long hours, you've got to put a lot into it.

1:22:49And I'll be like, whatever, I've done that. I've worked really hard. I know how to work hard. I can graft. Don't worry about that. And then you get it very, very, very quickly. You realize it's not the physical work. It's not working however many hours in a day to achieve what you want to achieve. It's the mental strain. and it's it's it's that finishing work and not go and you know sitting on the sofa and you know then you're just chilling with your mates or whatever and you can just not think about anything you go home and that's all you think about work how can i do better here what do i need to do to improve this is this going to be okay are we going to make sales are we going to make money am i going to have to shut this business yeah you have all those conversations and there are you know the two weeks covid the two weeks leading up to furlough coming out that That was the most terrifying part in terms of like, well, we actually have to shut the business.

1:23:42There was no, you know, we had so many people to pay and we didn't have the cash to do that. But if we go, yeah, the dark days at the beginning, it's just, it was just the relentless nature of a bakery. It's seven days a week. It's with customers there. It's with people, you know, it's, I always try and compare it. Not that, you know, I did six months of working in an office and I realized that I can't sit still for five minutes. So it was the last thing I could do. but you know when you come in on a Monday morning in office I'm to all the people listening I'm not saying that it's a it's easy workplace at all but you're usually in your own space and you know you've got whatever you need to do to to deal with whereas when you're in hospitality you're Monday morning at 7 30 and you've got people to deal with straight from the off and you've got situations to to manage and you've got fridges that are breaking you've got equipment that's not working you get your coffee machine that's just gone down and that's that's what your business is is based on alongside pastries and so it was just it at the beginning it was like why am I doing this to myself and you have amazing like you know without Lucy alongside me in that process you know would have given up for sure would have given up what like I don't want to do this anymore I can't do this anymore um and you know I want to live a life of of no stress or less stress certainly um why am i doing this to myself and it's those feelings are strong and they're hard and they lasted at times for you know for days and yeah there were times that i would be when we closed at 6 p.m i was lying in the floor of the bakery why am i doing this this is stupid get out and you just you know i was so lucky to have an amazing group of people around me that could get me up in those times and allow me to fight further forward?

1:25:36Yeah, it's... The more everyone who's sat opposite me has basically said, and is it this ability to take pain? And I'm really fighting, because obviously I was in a job for six months and I was like, I think people think doing a podcast is like you're just sitting here and having this conversation. it's a it's like just saying oh you make making one one thing of it's much easier than bake uh baking goods right there's a whole other stuff around the other side it's like is this going to work like am i going to get the sponsorship where can this grow is it too niche is it it's just the constant all on my own like in in this fucking room and i'm just like it is relentless yeah and i'm sort of like am i losing not the world to well yeah just definitely what am i doing one am i like where's this going how's this gonna work so what were those people saying to you on when you're lying in on the bakery floor yeah coffee machine's broken it's all going pete tong yeah what are they saying saying to ollie to get ollie back on the ground back on his feet sorry back on the ground that would be stupid just like knowing that they're they're supporting you and that they're you know we're all in this together we will get through everything okay look you know look at the product look what we've created there yes it's quiet but people are still enjoying it people can you know people have come to poppers they still have the experience and just it you know just you know we can do this and rally together um and i always in those times I always as much as I wanted to give up I'm not like I'm not someone to give up I'm not gonna however dark those times were you know I'll always fight to to get there and and I did I knew at the back of my head that there was uh there was something there that we could impact a community on and there was something there that was eventually going to work um and and even after that when it wasn't necessarily quiet but it's still tough it was um it just you just do it you just you know you you don't want to get rid of something that you've put so much love and time into and it gets there then comes a point it was like obviously I'm going to crack on with this I can't let this go this is this is all I know this is my baby like it's this is what you do it's yeah it's it's what another common lesson from guests is you just you just take the word quit off the table like there's quite a simple reframe you just take it off the table it's like it's going to be hard what did you do in terms of i really relate to this you never really finish work even on the weekend you may not physically be there but i'm like mentally constantly on this constantly like it's and it's kind of pathologically relentless sometimes just give me a breather mate even going away tomorrow i'll be thinking about this whether i like it or not how is that something have you can you have can you switch that off or how what are some of the ways to switch that off or maybe like temper it down i've definitely massively improved on it i can't switch off a hundred percent as in I will be thinking about what is going on most of the time but it is like I'd say the last 18 months couple years you know I've really spent time on improving my work-life balance and whereas before I'd work every single day on the weekend every single day in the week it you just can't it's not good for you but it's also just not good for the team either and that you know becomes apparent and also yeah and I realized that a bit late as well um so I I still don't 100 % switch off but I do I would be lying you know I 90 % switch off now I'm not I'm not sitting there on a weekend if I'm off or if I'm on holiday I'm not you know constantly you know I used to be checking sales the whole time I used to be checking in with people like that stuff goes I don't I can really eradicate myself from that and that feels 10 times better being in that feeling though I do look forward to a day one time in my life where it's just it's zilch it's nothing there's no responsibility there um but and that will come and I'll I'll get there um so yeah it's definitely improved over the years um and you have to you could like you but how how what were some of the things you put in place was that oh trust you just i was yeah you you you realize that you can't do anything yeah yeah my me being there's not going to do anything something happens like nothing i can change i'm not that i'm not that good i'm not that powerful that i can come in and you know affect the situation all the time like you trust your people trust the members of the team that you have which I do so much so and I don't as I said you know unless I know that we're really short staffed one day and the sun's out and there's going to be mega mega busy I will be sitting home or I wouldn't be sitting at home in that case but if I'm on holiday then I would be thinking oh this is going to be tough them I hope they're okay um but yeah you realize you can't do anything and and you can't there's no point in straining yourself but also and more importantly to that point is you have good enough people in the business and that that's where we're at now is our management team is brilliant and i know they're leading those operations to the absolute best of their ability and that ability that they're doing it to is is what poppins needs and what poppins knows so me being there is is thinking about this about it is pointless what are some of the you're not you're now at 75 employees which is mad yeah yeah what are some of the weaknesses you've had to work on from day dot day one opening in islington to i don't know what day it is like a lot further down the line right um what some of the company's weaknesses no no your personal weaknesses because i think founders can get in their own way sometimes yeah i mean definitely the weaknesses is what i just talked about is that trust element i was i felt like i had to be everywhere before i felt like i had to be leading the team i felt like i had to be on site every day and as i said that doesn't help anyone it doesn't help myself it doesn't help the team

1:32:29um there's constantly and and i'm i'm constantly working on how i can be a better leader myself and and leadership qualities in that and and learning how to manage still learning how to manage and learning how to allow people i manage manage their teams and you know we started problems at you know 26 27 where i didn't have loads of management experience at all you know really like managing tiny teams before and i've constantly just learned on the job and i've constantly made mistakes um and i look back at times and and i couldn't believe i dealt with situations like that and i couldn't believe i managed situations like that and but that's just what happened at the time and and you know that's the growth of a young company and that's a growth of someone who's learning through the business and and their weaknesses and sometimes I think they can be um they can eventually you know be strengths where you really focus on on what you want to or how you need to act in that situation next time for example or yeah it's a constant constant development of of myself through poppers and it's it's something that I still want to work on as much as possible I know that I can be and I know I can be so much better and I need to be so much better at times as well one thing again I haven't explored before what i think is almost people set up brands maybe not consciously but potentially subconsciously consciously but it becomes conscious as the brand develops but as much as you're trying to build something sick for people to enjoy or customers to enjoy it's actually probably the greatest personal self-discovery journey you'll ever go on is finding my business yeah you can't you cannot unless you're running like ultra marathons but even then it's like i think it's completely different because it's just you running an ultramarathon not that i've ever done that so i don't know why i'm saying that but no no i mean i'll have to have a few of those uh those pastries mate and i'll be on my way um absolutely loving this but a few more things just just to wrap up on yeah so there's a lot of not well it is a lot of competition now i think in in london bakery bakery's mad you've got dusty knuckle you've got that is that a rom a room yeah i'm so bad of the names are Rome and obviously cross town.

1:34:52There's like, there's a whole plethora of bakeries popping up left, right and center. What's your view on them and how do you take inspiration from what they're doing, but not, not become them, if that makes sense. Cause I think it's really easy to look at your competition and be like, Oh, Dusty Knuckle have just launched this banging sarnie. Let's launch a banging sarnie. Did you tell it? yeah i to be honest uh to answer that question uh i'm really i'm just a believer in the baking baking community it's such a like you know it's it's it's a lovely group of people that are involved in the community and i think it's when it comes to competition if you mentioned dusty knuckle for example like for me king of sandwiches king of bread that's what they're amazing at and they are that's where you go you know for us we we i see us as pastries you know if you go to violet bakery if you want your cakes you go there and so i think everyone can have their little niches of what they're what they're really good at and i think it's it's enjoying that and i love you know people come to our site in london fields and they've got an e5 bakehouse bag they've got a dusty knuckle bag and they're coming to us that's really cool they've gone on east london baking tour and they're enjoying all different sorts of products and it's you know people say oh there's a new bakery up around the opening around the corner we don't look at competition because it takes your focus away just look at just be better yourself focus on what you're doing if you start looking at what they're doing and sorry if you start if you start looking at what they're doing then that takes your mind away from what you're doing oh that's selling really well for them should we try that if that if that's their thing do your thing do your thing really well focus on your thing and then you can it's a community and there are so many new bakeries open and there are lots with concepts as well that it's reassuring I think there's two parts, I think for people listening it's more of brands trying to get FMCG brands in supermarkets it can be quite easy to look at your competition and really and truly kind of have to to get your products on the Sainsbury's shelf or Waitrose's shelf.

1:37:10Actually zooming out and viewing it as like, a bit like all these different bakeries with their different niches, is the category's growing, growing. I'm really struggling today, mate. I'm free, I'm growing. So that's bringing, you know, everything's growing. And, but then, so that's, allow that to happen, but then actually just focusing on yourself. Bob Dylan's got a quote I actually love, which is like, I was like no one else. So he's like, I don't give a fuck. I'm just going to be Bob Dylan. I'm just going to do me. And you can do you, but I'm doing me. And I kind of try and remind myself of that frequently.

1:37:45What are some of your... I interviewed Joe Caravan Coffee. Yeah. Interviewed Laura and Chris. They're absolute legends. I live on the same road as Miles, the third guy. Oh, really? There's a third person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Well, yeah, he was. He's a legend, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Laura and Chris are like just Kiwis. He's a Kiwi as well. yeah yeah so interviewed them and one of their things is like we will go to different restaurants for like just try weird places to pull inspiration into their brand and they'll take one of my mates is the sales director there for the retail side of things and they'll like go on these mad trips like wherever and be like right i want the inspiration what are some of your favorite restaurants in london i'm like asking this for my own personal gluttony reasons that you go to that like give you inspiration i meanst john's one of my favorite restaurants in london i just i know it's a classic but for me if you want a consistent you just want a guaranteed really good meal um i go tost john um what do you get what do you do you get the um the bone marrow thing bone marrow is classic and any of their specials they have on will be spot on um i'm a big fan of Elliot Cunningham Legon at Hackney Church Brewery everything's cooked on fire and the meats there are just amazing so good, highly recommended Popham's inspiration I think that's our inspiration comes from what's in season, our inspiration comes from a baker saying I want to try fig leaf custard with some peach and schnapps and who does peach and schnapps compote and cooks it with a fig leaf custard you know and and you know i'll be i'm i don't i had a lot more say in the development back in the back in the day and right at the beginning now i'm very much on the end of that in terms of i'm at the testing stage when it comes to the beginning of development i don't have the as good creative head as the bakers do i don't have that you know that knowledge i guess of of of those amazing combinations that they have as much now as i did then we've moved on from there we've got better from those early days so it's you know when it comes to inspiration a lot of the inspiration is around the bakers and the bakery and and i guess i just try and lead that through our our exec and our head baker but yeah i go around to lots of bakeries and i try things and they're they're great and i'm there's so blessed in london for our for our bakery scene but i don't like yeah yeah no have you seen that new Japanese one in Notting Hill.

1:40:24There's meant to be this new Japanese because the Japanese do this like, I don't know what it is. It looks like a clown. Well, no, I suppose any bun looks like a clown in respect. But it's, but I just think Shokopi, I think. Shokopi, yeah, yeah. I mean, well, I think you can put Japanese in front of anything to do with food and it just sounds better. Like literally and Japanese knives. In fact, Japanese anything sounds way better. Yeah, Japan's a great country. yeah final question mate so what is this can be business life what is one belief you hold strongly that sorry what is one belief you held five years ago strongly that has radically changed so one belief that you've held really strongly at the start of poppins and now as we sit here today it's radically changed

1:41:18that's a tough way to end yeah start with that

1:41:26what's the belief that it's radically changed I don't know how