The £300m Brand Exit Expert: Tyrrells, Crosta Mollica, St. Pierre, Lily’s Kitchen

28:44And it will then be sold into all the markets in which they operate. Ditto Australia, ditto Canada, sometimes even America. You're plugging it into their matrix. Yeah, that's the synergy that really matters. And that's why they pay so much for a business, because it might be a 50 million pound business when I'm struggling to run it with my tiny team and my three countries in which I operate. But they look at it and go, well, he's doing 50. But when I own this, it'll be 300 within three years, because I just plug it into my network. it's so i want to just discuss this with you because again i've done hundreds of these conversations it's just i love picking at the nuance some people have said to me like as a brand you should only build you should really build in the uk to begin with and then one other market to show um you know you work in another market like go narrow and deep and then so that's one sort of school of thinking the other which is i think you can go to scattergun where you're exporting into a gazillion different markets and you're just like what is this like you've got one store in Costa Rica, one store in Japan.

29:43What's your thoughts on brands who just go for those two countries? Or do you think that's actually quite a good strategy? That is, of the two you've identified, that is the strategy you go for. Because the objective of the exercise is not to build a business that you can say, oh, I've got 5 million pounds worth of sales in France. That's not the point. The point is, you need to demonstrate to the ultimate buyer of the company, the multinational, that you have a brand that transcends boundaries. It's not a national brand. It's an international brand. So if you're based in the UK and you launch in France and Germany, which are the two biggest countries in Europe for business anyway, if you launch there and it works, they need no more evidence that this is certainly an international in terms of European brand.

30:26No, it may not work in Africa. It may not work in Canada. Who knows? But it's certainly working in Europe, and that's generally enough. And so my approach working with Thomas in this instance is always to keep it fairly tight. So if you take another example, which I'm always talking about, if you took St. Pierre. Yeah, that's what I wanted to do. They were massive in the States, right? Well, that was the market that we were able to, when we sold that business, we were able to say, well, we're the brand leader in brioche in the UK and America. And that was really big. Talk to me about San Pierre.

30:59Because I've always, it's been kind of those wonderful brands that kind of is just like, kind of a bit like Cross Molica slowly just got, was massive. I don't know if that, because obviously, but you don't see the big sort of LinkedIn hoo-ha and obviously LinkedIn is very much a microcosm. It's not reality, right? But yeah, it's a fucking massive brand in America. In America. Yeah. So you come into that, into San Pierre. How big is it when you go there? And then what did you do to get it going? Yeah. Well, Sampierre, when I was chairman there for three years and worked with... What year was that?

31:37Sorry. When did we exit that? I think I started there in probably 2019 or maybe 2018 and then exited about two and a half years ago. But I did three years as chairman, working with the exec team and the founders. And then I did a year where the founders stepped up to chairman, and I became the chief exec. And that year was really to exit the business and let them take a step back. And I would do that. That's the selling part of the role. But well, first of all, I love working there. Because again, if you like a barbecue and you like the burger or hot dog, which I do, You can't beat that product as the as the bum that goes with with the burger.

32:25So I always liked the product And and there wasn't anything quite like it and and it Is a it's a big market obviously the bread market the rolls market, but they're not a huge amount there is branding but it tends to be brandy, you know, hovis or Warburton's which is a sort of an overarching brand and then there are lots of different products underneath that Premium niche brick. Yeah, but there wasn't, I don't think there was much going on in premium there. And no one was doing brioche, which I found extraordinary because I always thought brioche was, you know, the ultimate premium bread treat.

32:59Anyway. Yeah, with a burger, you can't. And once you've had a burger with a brioche bun, you are not going back to that crusty white roll. Or a hot dog, actually, for that massive. No, you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So love the product. When I was first involved there, first when I was chairman, it was more than half. it was private label. So they were making products for other people's brands, typically supermarket brands. In the UK? In the UK, but also in the States. So it was already in America before I got involved. And we had a big business, but it was private label. And then what we, again, if you think about the end game, you're going to want to sell this to a multinational.

33:36They don't want to buy private label businesses. There's a number of things they need. So first of all, it needs to be an international brand. Secondly, it needs to be one brand. Now, people will disagree with me on this, because lots of people build up their company by making acquisitions. They end up with a stable of wonderful brands they'll describe. So when you say one brand versus a house of brands, examples of that would be? Well, so St. Pierre's one brand. Everything I do is one brand. They start off with more than one brand. So we've got more than one brand at Costa Malika. We have more than one brand at St.

34:08Pierre. but when it's a multinational they don't want three really good sort of medium-sized brands they want one you say so what were the different brands across the molika uh but i'm a great believer in focus you mentioned it earlier on you can't focus on your main brand if you've got three main brands okay so so in order to get the best out of your business you need to focus and but more importantly i think selling a business that's made up of two or three or four brands to a multinational is going to be really hard work because they don't want that they want the struggle you have with the multinational is if i'm going to buy you are you big enough that i don't crush you so there are kind of rules say that again if i buy you i'm big enough are you big enough yeah so i love your brand you grow fast you're cool you're in the right category but you only turn over 30 million and i turn over 50 billion the the biggest failing or the most frequent failing of a brand that gets acquired by a multinational is it's so small that it gets crushed.

35:03It gets ignored, it gets stepped on, people forget about it, all sorts of things. But basically, it's not big enough to worry about. So the challenge, so they really like to buy businesses at least 50 million and pushing towards 100 is great, because then that's big enough. If you've got three brands that make up your 50 million, they're 15 million each, that's just not, that's gonna be very hard to sell. So I have this argument up front, because usually the entrepreneur has built up this you know two or three brands and they all do something different oh we love it because this covers this part of the market this is the premium bit this the cheaper end this is the you know i don't want to do that i want to make it one brand so it's only my personal opinion i mean people have sold businesses that are more than one brand but i think it's it's not the right approach so what did you at saint pierre you consolidated it into Well, there, we were in three hours.

35:56We were in private label, so no, someone else's brand. Then we did Baker Street, and then we did Saint Pierre. The company was called Cars Foods, which I could never understand because everyone went, oh, Cars Foods, is that like the water biscuits? And no, it's not the water biscuits. And after explaining that for about 10 times, I thought, why don't we just call the company Saint Pierre because that's our brand. And actually, changing the name of the company, changing the letterheads, changing the branding of the office, so it was all orange and said Saint Pierre everywhere, did something to help everyone focus on the fact that it was all about Saint-Pierre.

36:26It said it everywhere rather than Carl's Foods. So we focused on the one brand. And as I said, the business was more than half private label. And we basically turned it into a branded business. So by the time we exited, I think it was over 80 % brand. And in America, the brand did brilliantly. So it's the number one brioche brand in America. We had a very good distribution partner there. And we spent a lot of time over there. I mean, the thing about the US is it is the most attractive consumer goods market in the world. There's 320 million people, they have plenty of money, and they love a brand.

37:02Private level's relatively small there. So if you can make it work, that's the gold medal in what I do, if you can make it work. Usually, it doesn't work, because you can't be a part-time competitor in the world's most competitive market. You need to focus entirely on that. And usually, in a small business, you've got other things going on in your home market, in your near-in international markets. So usually, either it doesn't work, or you don't go there. But in this instance, we were already there. We changed the emphasis around the Britain to be more unbranded, and it did work very well. And we got a fantastic exit.

37:38We sold the business to the biggest baker in the world. How much for? I don't think I was supposed to say, actually. I think I signed a non-disclosure game, but it was a very large amount of money. Pardon the pun. It was a lot of money, yes. Okay, wonderful. And the focus and the brand thing is amazing. What were some of the other massive unforeseen monsters or challenges on that Saint-Pierre journey that kind of you weren't expecting to face and how do you overcome them?

38:18I think one of the challenges is when you go properly

38:23intercontinental. So I did this at Lily's. We, no, actually at Tyrell's, we bought and acquired a business in Australia. And here we had a business in America. I suppose the unforeseen thing is that when you are taking, when your team are running a business that are operating in a different time zone. And there tend to be small teams in these businesses. It's very demanding. So if you're on the West Coast of America, it's eight, they don't get up until eight hours after you've got up. And they're awake eight hours after you've finished work. So you end up straining the team because they're having to work very long hours.

39:00Australia's even worse. And then when you go there, you have to go there. It's one of my other rules is that you can't run these things remotely. You can't run these things remotely. You have to, you've got to go there. Well, sending people to Australia every two months or sending the team every two months to America every month, not only is that a week out of your life, but when you get back, you're not quite up to speed because you're jet lagged and tired and it takes you a while to get back into it. So it's very demanding on the team. So I'd say that was the most, the unforeseen cost of doing business in those far-flung places.

39:36they're wonderful and both of those examples work very well but it's very demanding and in the end you have to hire more people yeah you can't expect someone to sort of work 18 hours a day because we're on two time zones yeah so i hadn't even thought of that no neither did i i can imagine the the the just you're not fit the stress as you come back and and just the sort of the yeah what's the and i'm asking this selfishly david because i'm got sort of a scatty adhd brain which a bit like poor perry runs off like a like a wild dog into the woods of curiosity but um i'm not very good at focusing and i think lots of founders or on and businesses on and i like you know with this we're trying potentially to a production business uh consultancy podcast sponsorship there's like 10 different things we could do.

40:28What's your sort of either framework or process to say, right, this is our sort of buffet of options to grow. We're going to go for these two, the electrical, the lights. Well, first of all, you've got to decide that's it and stick with it. So first, we're going to work out what it is you're going to focus on and get it right because there are lots of choices and not everyone gets it right. So work out in the right, intelligently, what it is that matters. So there are lots of things you could do, which are worthwhile in their own right, and they seem good. But some are essential to success. And you can achieve success sometimes without some of them.

41:11So if you can get where you want to get without doing some of those, don't do those. Just do the ones that are necessary and essential to your overall goal. So it does start with a very clear focus on what you're trying to achieve. And I often start my leadership meetings with the phrase, which is, we're only here to do one thing to make the business more valuable. Because there are a million things you can get caught up in as to what really matters in business and what our role truly is. And without going down the various rabbit holes you can end up in if you're not careful. But if you remember, and if people sit around the table and say, I don't think we are here just to do one thing to make this business more valuable.

41:50I think we have many other roles in life. Well, they need to go and do that then because that's not what we're doing around this table. If you're working with me and we've acquired one of these businesses, I don't own the business. We are executives working on behalf of the shareholders and all they want is us to make the company more valuable. So that's what we have to do, not get confused by many other things. So that's just - That's a real art though. And that's like, because I think the other thing is distractions sort of masquerades opportunities and it's like oh yeah and it's like but that's what i'm trying to get into is how your brain uh and i think the first way of doing this is like what is the end goal yeah like how do you work out like i know there's the 80 20 rule i think jack mentioned at dash about when you came in and they were trying to do the big bottles of water and you're like again does that grow the business like what are these how do you get into saying this is what we're trying to do.

42:41Do you know what I mean? Well, I think a lot of it does come down to discipline in that you might have the kind of brain that flips around and you can cope with lots of interesting things all at once. In fact, you like that. But intellectually, you're smart enough to know that what success is not about doing 27 things, it's about doing two or three things really, really well. So if you've got a smart team of people, intellectually, they'd know that. So they just need help in doing what they know is right. So the way to do that, so if I was working with you, I'd say, well, if you were to right now in order the top 10 things you think you could do in the next year, which would make the business more valuable, and then you did the exercise, I'd say, you're absolutely sure they're in priority order.

43:25Yeah, I've gone through it, and they are. Well, I'd just tear off the bottom seven, give you back the three, and say, right, those are the things you now need to spend all your time on. And then within a week I'd ask you to come back and say, can you bring your diary with you? And then you put the diary for the week there and the three things there and then say, now put a tick against everything you're doing in the next week that relates to those three things. Wow. And if there's nothing, if it isn't 100 % of those things or let's give you 90 % of those things, then you're not getting it. And you typically, you'd fine, I'm not going to get you, but you'd fine, I'd do it myself.

43:59So let's talk about myself. If there were three things that I had to do to make the business more successful and my diary was spent, 50 % of my diary was doing something else and I've got the wrong business plan. I'm spending my time on the wrong things because you need to spend your time on those three things because those are the only three things that matter. We've already intellectually established that. Yes. But people are, I mean, what could be more interesting than you saying to me, do you know, I've just come back from a holiday in Portugal and there's a massive opportunity there and I think I should go back and do this.

44:26Oh, that's very exciting and fun. Of course you want to do that, but we're not doing it because it's not in your three things. Yes, I love that. So that's one of the ways of doing it. And then picking the three things out of that. Well, you've already done that because I asked you. How would you do that yourself? So again, with Saint-Pierre, right? I love this as an example. It's like those three things, there's probably a whole list of different things you could do. But how did you get set on the three and what were the three? Well, Saint-Pierre already was quite big. It was over 100 million when I got involved.

44:57So it was big and it made a decent amount of money. So it's quite profitable. um but the problem with it was that it wasn't a wholly branded business wholly branded as in as in mostly private label okay oh sorry yeah so the brand didn't make up most of the revenue and so if we're going to maximize the value of saint pierre uh the key was to make the brand uh very successful and well known and uh and i don't know if you can pick up there's the packaging behind me here's what we made earlier so that branding there that's not brand he had when I arrived. The Saint Pierre name was written in a script, very attractive script, but it couldn't actually read Saint Pierre.

45:35So we were in a, I was with Perry in Los Angeles in a supermarket. And we'd gone over there to the natural food show at Expo West. And he went up to the chap loading the shelves up with this orange packaging. And he said, you seem to be busy doing this with this brioche. You know that comes from France. Yeah, it comes from France. He said, do you know the name of that brand? And he He said, well, no, I don't. We just call it the orange one. And so Perry came back to me and said, I told you that bloody packaging was awful. They can't read the name. They call it the orange one. So that's no good.

46:06No one knows a brand name. So Perry redesigned all the packaging. So my start point on brand recognition is always packaging. And so we changed the packaging so you could read. It was called Saint-Pierre. And then we went from there. We had a brilliant marketing director at Saint-Pierre who'd come in from the Happy Egg Company. and she created some brilliant online ads and social media stuff. And we did very good PR and built the brand up from there. But that was the one thing I had to sort out in that business. A lot of that business was already good. It was big. It was profitable. It had a US business, but it wasn't a US branded business.

46:44Not to the extent we wanted. Everything to that, how do I get value for the shareholders? How do I get it? It was about the brand. Holy brand. Yeah, because if you got a private label business, and you turn over 100 million, and you make 10, well, it's changed slightly. But you used to get sort of eight times EBITDA. So the 100 million power business worth 80 million. If you've got a branded business, and it's 100 million, and it's all brand, you can get 15 times EBITDA for a really cool brand. So that's 150 million. So by going from private label to brand, 80 to 150, it's almost twice as valuable.

47:17So you've got to have, if you want to - This is what Giles said to me on a similar sort of conversation. I've seen businesses on paper be able to exit for two times. I've seen worse businesses on paper with a really strong, holy brand exit for significant multiples of revenue. Or EBITDA, sorry. One thing I love about you, David, and I think extracting kind of one of your superpowers is, again, Giles said to me, founders can never think like consumers in board meetings. they're so I love that I think founders can't and it's hilarious because in some respects the founder to get the little fucker off the ground you kind of are the consumer you know you're scratching your own itch but as you get to this much bigger brand and Giles Giles gave a gorgeous example of Vides Coco being like should we reduce they were trying to compete with Innocent on coconut water should we reduce keep reducing and almost doing deep promotions but every kind of couple of months it was basically creating this consumer cycle of junkies basically which wasn't driving the total revenue because if you actually think of it like it's like a consumer then like just just think about like a consumer and what you've detailed to me david is the the you know going into la as as a consumer like oh that's the orange one okay well we need to do saint pierre i buy this dog food i'm going to buy this through amazon and i I think there's a real superpower in that.

48:45Well, I think it's a bit like you can be baffled by intellectuals, but you always have to remember just to use your common sense. And you hear these things and you think, God, I'm not really understanding where they're going with this argument. But my common sense says that's a stupid idea. I think that's a stupid idea because of this. So it's always better to sort of try not to get lost in the intellectualization of whether it's a bit. That's what I do all the time. I get lost in my curiosity seeds of my own brain. But in terms of effective board meetings, and again, we will jump around here, as I think this is a big part of building these brands, how do you prepare for a board meeting?

49:24What do you think is the most one, two, three important things on the agenda? Wow. Well, I think meetings generally, whether it's a board meeting or it's a leadership team meeting or you're going on to the marketing meeting, they you it sounds obvious but having an agenda is quite a good start because not everyone has an agenda but if i was thinking about my monthly board meeting i again i normally start by you know reiterating the point we're trying to make the company more valuable so everything we're going to decide today just bear that in mind um and then we start always start with the numbers so how did we do last month financially what did we say we were going to do and did we do it because that's sort of rule one in business.

50:09It's if you say you're going to do it, you have to do it. And if not, why not? What went wrong? So an analysis of how the previous month has gone. And then we look forward financially to the month we're in and the rest of the year. And so it's, I said I rely very heavily on having very good finance people. Yeah. This is how we do it. They tend to do that. Sure. But we all listen because that's the scorecard of whether you're doing it right or not. The finance, the way I look at it is that's the scorecard of the business. You can talk a good story, but if it doesn't come out of the numbers, it's not real.

50:40So you start with that. And then each person, and we've got the sales head, the marketing head, we've got manufacturing, we've got new product development. Every head around the room has their own session. And they say, well, here's what I was going to do in the month. Here's what I did, back to the priorities. And here's what I'm going to be focusing on in the next three months. In a way, it's to keep people's objectives, keep them honest with their objectives. here's what I was going to do and here's what I did have you done what you said you were going to do but also I think one of the most valuable things which I try and do in my board meetings is I want everyone to have an opinion so I started my life in multinationals and 20 years working for the big food multinationals and you know marketing would stand up and say I've done a new advert and we'd all go oh shit and then they shut and then but no one ever said don't do the advert we just said oh then aren't they useless in marketing or their manufacturing would say what they've done And you think, God, they're not very good, are they?

51:36Or why don't they just fire all these people? Or whatever. But no one ever said anything about it. We just let them get up because it was all in silos. So in the multinational world that I worked in, people worked in their silos. They were good at their bit. And they tended not to have much respect for the other areas. And I always thought, what a terrible waste that was. Because just because you're in sales doesn't mean you haven't got a really good insight into finance or into marketing. Of course you have. So I try ice I say to the team just because you're in charge of marketing doesn't mean you can't say what you think about Manufacture if you think that's wrong You need to say it if you think finance are not measuring your business correctly or they're unfairly Treating your fight your marketing spend that should be spread through the year rather than in lumps each month say it so So I really encourage everybody to have an opinion on everything which takes a bit longer Yeah, it would do if you just shut up But there's nothing worse than sort of just being quiet while someone presents them, muttering about it later on while you're having a conflict.

52:33And how do you manage, like, conflict in a productive, focused way without it getting into sort of the, you know, argy-bargy of like, oh, that's a shit idea or... I think maybe I'm just lucky. I've worked with people who are good. And I do have a no-wanker rule. I mean, there are lots of people in life who are very good, but they're awful. And I don't work with them. so only hire people that are good and actually nice as well because you spend an awful lot of time with them so maybe we've ended up with people that are decent and nice people but I do want to come back and talk about entrepreneurs talk about decent and nice people I do want to say about entrepreneurs because I've worked with a number of entrepreneurs and you were saying that I think it was Giles was saying that you need to sort of deal with them they are fascinating people and they're different and what they do most people could never do In fact, people often say to me, because they're a bit odd, aren't they?

53:31So, well, the reason they're odd is that this person here started with nothing, just a genesis of an idea, but nothing. And they've just sold it for 150 million pounds or 300 million pounds. That's not normal, is it? No, well, don't expect them to be normal. So entrepreneurs aren't normal. They're very abnormal in a wonderful way, in a creative, intelligent, stimulating, and ultimately, you know, wealth creating way. they're amazing people but they're not normal as well yes well that's a challenge so that almost kind of to explore that through the lens of the specific lens of a board meeting where it's like let's get everyone's opinion and because it's so you're not siloed off but then the founder can come in like a bullet in a china shop and and be like well that's fucking shit like or get into the weeds and that can be cantankerous to say the least how do you sort of uh kind of keep the bull in check well that was no anchor rule well no you don't have to work with them I mean I'm sure there are some entrepreneurs out there that are impossible to well I would find it impossible to work with but I've been lucky that I've always ended up working with people who I respect and as I say they do things I could never do I couldn't start anything from nothing all I do is take something that's already going quite well and make it a bit better that's my role in life they've created it they've got it going it's doing really well how can I make it just a bit more successful and that's where I come in so I suppose I probably self-select the entrepreneurs out that I can't work with because I can't do my job unless they want me there and typically I get approached I don't bulldoze my way in and say well I think your brand's lovely can I buy it why don't you push off and let me run it for you typically people in almost every instance people have approached me and said, I've heard of you.

55:24None of the people really want to work with us. Do you actually buy the brand off them yourself? Or how does that work? Typically, they are at that point where they are so smart as an entrepreneur, they've created the entity, it's gone very well, but they know there's more they could do, but probably it's not them doing it. So the really smart entrepreneurs are able to spot that moment where they go, I've got it to 40 million of revenue. And I think it could be an international business of 200 million. But I'm not sure I've got either the, I'm not sure that's me. Maybe someone else should come in and do that.

56:01So that's when they get in touch with me. So often what happens is they would approach me or they would approach a bank or both, or they'd be in the process of bringing investment into the business. So if a bank, a private equity firm is asked, would you want to buy half the business? store drawn out by 80 % of the business, they're not going to buy it unless there's a proven exec that comes in as well. So they'll say, I'll buy 80 % of your business, I'll buy your business, but we need a chairman to come in and who's done it before. So David will come and do that. So I buy a bit of the business, they buy a bit of the business, and I come in as a chairman or chief exec.

56:38Okay. So this is a long way of answering. How do you deal with an entrepreneur who barges in and says, that's all terrible, do it my way by the time i'm involved they've already decided it's probably a good idea to ask someone else's opinion so that does how do you deal with like this the again and multiple people have talked to me talks me about this do you know libya piper perry's friend i have met her yes so she was talking about how you sort of keep the get the managers in but also keep the founders magic and kind of abnormalities if that's right we're saying it abnormalities abnormalities yeah because that's you kind of want to keep some of that spark and twinkle in your eye like what's the do founders should founders get out of the way and just let someone come in and run it or like what's your experience with that no I think I think you you'd worry if the founder was running for the hills the moment he gave him his money him or her money so I think no you do want them to be engaged engaged, and in my experience, they all are, but you want them engaged in the right way.

57:48And you do need that balance of their genius and the experience of a new exec team. But as I say, typically, I've been lucky enough to work with really smart founders that know that they are good, and they have a lot to add. But they also know that there are better ways of doing some of the things. and that's why you're there in the first place. So yeah, I mean, I can't say I've not had the odd difficult meeting. But usually it comes back to why did you bring me in or why did you bring this extra investment in? It's because you wanted to sell the business for a lot of money at some point in the future and exit.

58:31So let's just examine the problem you've got with this situation at the moment. I'm trying to make the business more valuable. That's my idea. Any examples of that that you can talk about? I had a situation, I won't say the business, but I had a situation where we had a third party manufacturer that made the product. So we didn't manufacture it, it was made by somebody else for us. If you're a challenger brand that's absolutely killing it in D2C, but you're struggling to crack retail, then you've got to listen to this. Maybe you've got an Ocado listing, maybe you've got a Whole Foods listing, maybe you're absolutely killing it in Selfridges, maybe you're absolutely killing it in your farm shop and your Indies.

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59:48Northstar are not like another data company that force feeds you data like Foie Gua that act like a NASA space mission. It's super, super simple to use. Their team are amazing and they actually get the challenger mindset. Northstar are your shortcut to smarter decisions, stronger pitches and investor confidence all built specifically for challenger brands like yours you don't need a massive sales team you need north star link in the show notes click that link and you'll be able to book a free demo with north star highly highly recommend that and thank me later and i wanted to be quite aggressive in driving that cost down because i think when we started working with them we paid x price and then here we were a few years later buying 50 times more paying the same price so i thought quite reasonably we should get a better price that we were now a very big customer and the founder i worked with um didn't really like didn't really like the idea of that because i just wasn't really the way they did things right so going in and saying can i have a cheaper price or man or manufacturing a situation the abnormalities Yeah, it just wasn't the way that you know, it's been very successful without us having to resort to those crass tactics of trying to get a better price.

1:01:00So we had a bit of a disagreement on it, and in the end, we did it. And they were quite uncomfortable about doing it, but it worked. And in this particular business, it transformed the economics from being a - How did you broach the conversation with the manufacturer on the price? Because that's another, again, I've got something I've got work with in terms of pricing and negotiating and stuff. Well, I mean, that's a whole massive topic about how do you negotiate a better price? I mean, but one of the rules is that, one of my rules is that if you're going to negotiate a better price, you'd need an alternative.

1:01:31It's very, so if you want to buy better microphones at a better price, you need to have gone and found an equivalent microphone somewhere else cheaper so you can at least start the negotiation. If you don't have an alternative, you're going to be a crap negotiator, unless you're some kind of genius. Because you've got nowhere to go. so i think in this instance we had an alternative that we could have worked with if we wanted to so it gave us a very strong negotiating base what about i know as i say we all jump all over the shop but the what about in terms of negotiating the big deals when it comes to the exit Is that the same sort of principle of like having to would you have two nationals up against each other or like uh well if you're selling anything whether it's um your house your car or your business um the best thing is to have more than one potential buyer so it's basic stuff it's common back to common sense but this is um but it's weird yeah so the trick with exiting your business at the best possible price apart from is it in a big category do you have a superior product have made the brand highly recognizable does it have international potential, et cetera, you need to have lots of people wanting to buy it.

1:02:44And it sounds bloody obvious, but a lot of people just run the business, get to it and go, I've got to the size I want it to be, we want to sell it now. And so if you want to sell to a multinational, there aren't many of them. How many are there, would you say? Well, you've got the biggest ones. There's probably 10 of those. And then you've got smaller. of, there's all sorts of smaller ones that turn over sort of 6 or 7 billion that you've never even heard of. RAOUL PAL Yeah. So there's a lot. RAOUL PAL There's a lot. But that's part of the challenge. So we would always work with a third party banker whose job it is to flush out all potential buyers.

1:03:22So I might know the big ones. But if you went to see a banker, they might say, well, there's about 12 people in Asia who are of that size, who like your asset that you've never heard of, but because they've only been going a short period of time, or you don't know that part of the world. So part of the way you flush out as many buyers as possible is you work with a banker. And so all these businesses get sold through, and they're going to hate this, like an estate agent for businesses. So it's like going to an estate agent and saying, I could just put a board up as on my house, but I'm going to go to you because you're an estate agent.

1:03:53They're like an estate agent for businesses, and they'll hate this, but they're far better than that, of course. Some of them are. And so they flush out as many buyers as possible. The other point on getting the best exit is that you need to give it time. So let's say there are two people that are the perfect acquirers for your business. And let's say we're in the microphone business. There's two big makers of microphone, and I've got this cool new brand here, which has just got to 100 million of sales, highly profitable, growing like a train. One of them might have just bought a microphone business, and therefore he's not in the market anymore.

1:04:30Because that happens. There are other microphone businesses out there, and one's just bought one six months ago and he's having indigestion trying to absorb that into his business. So you think, oh, it's great. I'll go and sell it now. And then you find out that this one here of the two can't buy you because he's busy absorbing the previous business he bought. So now you've only got one buyer and that other buyer will know that that buyer is not in the market. So you've got one buyer and he knows he's the only buyer in town. How would they know? How would that know? Because in the industry, they saw in the microphone equivalent of the grocer, they'd have read, And confetti number two buys new microphone business.

1:05:03So they'll know. So they know there's no one up against them. Fantastic for them. So you don't sell the business then. So if you're not a forced seller, you do not sell the business then. Okay, so your patience is a massive game in this. Yeah, yeah. Time. If you've got time, you'll do fine. Oh, I made that up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Time. This is brilliant. That's great. If you've got the time, you do. If you're a forced seller, you never get a good price. When you say forced seller, sorry. Well, okay. So often a business could be doing well. but one of the investors in the business needs their money out.

1:05:34So you could have invested in Costa Malika, it's doing incredibly well, but you might have invested in five other food companies that have had a disaster and you need to show a success for your fund. So even though you could hang on to Costa Malika for two more years and have an even better outcome, you could sell it now and double your money, you might sell it now because you need to show your fund that not everything you do is useless and you because you're four other failures and you've got the cross so you sell across the business early to prove to to your investors that you're not everything is bad that happens all the time things get sold early so that's a forced seller a four okay for you're forced to sell thought of that yeah and i suppose if you're in that situation you're kind of up shit creek as a founder or like you're not going to maximize your return yeah otherwise say what you said yeah you're not gonna get the best outcome that's the best outcome is to wait until all more potential buyers are available and then you get some tension like selling your house you want two people to want your house and then otherwise someone puts in a ridiculously low bid and you go well if i've only got one bid what are we going to do yeah if you've got two buyers someone puts in a low bid someone puts in a reasonable bid and then you hope they kind of escalate and you get a great price this is what i was trying to like yeah this is where we where we are I'm absolutely loving because it was trying to get to this sort of uh this nuance of this almost exit El Dorado where the where the fucking dosh is mate and it's like I think that there's lots of guile and skill um in in patience and luck and luck yeah yeah luck but I think you build your own luck personally but like patience and um and focus are two of those things uh what what are some other sort of ways in terms of the sort of people things that you didn't really necessarily think about that weren't obvious in terms of the exit stuff, kind of a bit like the link it back to the team stuff, the time zone?

1:07:28Yeah, well, I think one of the key things in life is empathy. So if you want to successfully sell something, whether it's your first box of soap powder when you're a salesman or you're selling a business for£300 million, the key is to empathize with the buyer and understand what their motivation is. If you're the buyer of business in a multinational, so you're head of M &A at a giant business, you want to buy businesses that do well, are a success, and they reflect well on you. That's sort of obvious. But you also don't want to take too much of a risk because you've got yourself into this wonderfully elevated position in a large company.

1:08:07You're well-renumerated. You've got a great life. So people tend to be quite cautious. So one of the ways of dealing with that is to give them a really long runway to the business becoming available. So if you just turn up and say this business which you've never heard of is going to be sold the next three months I think you should have a look they're thinking well I'm the head of M &A you've told me I'm gonna need to review that get my team looking at it I've then got to present that the next time our company has a board meeting and there's a there's a slot for Potential M &A. I'm gonna have to bring this to the tip to the board If you went from multinational probably not maybe only four times a year would they have a meeting on M &A so if you come and say it's going to be sold in three months there's no way that's good they're going to bid for you because they they're not going to interrupt the board doing what they're doing and say i want you to look at this you've never heard of the business frankly i've never heard of it but it's for sale so what you do is about 18 months before you sell the business you go and meet these people and you say look you we're not for sale today we haven't met before you might not know the brand let me tell you a bit about it and they go and maybe you're lucky and they go well that's interesting and then that goes on their list of things that they might acquire at some point in the future.

1:09:15And then when they have their quarterly M &A presentation in front of the board, up goes your name. And someone goes, well, I've not heard of this one here. Who's that? And then, well, it's this. It's doing very well. It's in our category. It's quite small at the moment. It's not for sale today, but one to bear in mind. And then six months later, when there's the half-ealy review of M &A, you're a bit higher up the list. Oh, it's that one again. How's it doing? Well, actually, the guy, David, he came in to see me. He happened to be passing our office, so we had a coffee. I've made an appointment to go and see him.

1:09:41But you say, I'm in your city. Can I come and see you? It's doing even better. It's now brand number two in the category. We really should look at this. And then about six months later, a year after you first met him, when you go to market and the banker rings him up and said, have you heard of this business that David Miller's running? Yes, we have actually. Well, it's for sale. Someone's made a bid on it. If you are interested, you'd need to get your act together. He puts the phone and thinks, great. I've been looking at this for a year. The board know about it. They quite like it. This is going to be easy.

1:10:12so that if that's how you do it yes a long runway don't be a forced seller if you know you can't always choose that in life but if you're not a forced seller and you can have this long runway to exit then that's very much advantageous particularly if you're trying to sell to multinational and i am because they tend to be that's the perfect outcome because that they'll spend more than anybody else what's the deal with cross molokov if we can talk about that what's the game plan to get that to where it's going? I can't talk about that. All I would say on that is that I've only been involved for a year and the business is going very well.

1:10:48We're over 40 % up year on year at the moment. So we're having a great deal of success. And I'm quite enjoying it, actually. So we're not in any great rush.

1:11:02The runway thing is, again, I think a lot of it is just obvious things. Yeah. Well, it's obvious there's common sense, really. There's common sense, yeah. Any other sort of things? I think if you can build a personal relationship with the people that you're trying to sell it to, that helps as well. if you can get the chance to meet them with some time and talk about what you're doing and tell them, we're just about to launch something new with the business and here's why we're doing it. And just build that relationship so they understand who you are. I mean, I have to say, it is a help sometimes.

1:11:48Certainly mine, because I'm not an entrepreneur, it's it's actually a help for me because i'm talking i used to be in the business the type of business that these people work for so i'm an ex-multinational executive so i talk their language and i probably seem a bit like them whereas sometimes when they're trying to buy a business direct from the entrepreneur that's quite scary because entrepreneurs probably didn't work for a multinational and are quite different so i think that it that's an advantage kind of I interviewed Barney who sold Fuel 10K, that brand. And he was saying, again, the empathy thing and just having those, again, brilliant basic things.

1:12:28I want to talk about data as you scale. I think intuition will get you to that. William Chase has been on this podcast three times, I think. He talks a lot. One of the very clever entrepreneurs. He's a rarity because there are entrepreneurs that have done it once. There's a few. there are very few entrepreneurs that have done it two or three times very few he's in a very small club yeah well he's about to do it again with the well he's going to do it again with the willies the prebiotics yeah well done him but he you know his whole thing and kind of to be honest it's the thing i've changed my mind about the most now i've had more of these sort of conversations on that sort of six to a hundred million yeah but i was like oh fuck data intuition intuition go with your gut blah blah blah that works to a point how do you use data to make decisions as you go on that journey from six to a hundred mil

1:13:23um well we've got an interesting example at costa actually because i'm more of an intuitive person in some respects so i like going around supermarkets here i like going around supermarkets all around the world because somebody wants to know what's the opportunity to go and launch in America, go to America, go walk around some supermarkets, look at the size of the category, and you'll know if it's big or small. I know this sounds really obvious, but the amount of people that say to me, you've got to buy the IRR data, it costs 150 grand, that'll tell us how big the market is in America. Do you really?

1:13:57Let's just go on a plane there, go and have a look. And then we can draw a little picture of how big it is, how many linear feet it would be in America. If you want to know how big the brand shares are, But actually, if you work out that 25 % of the fixtures in store on average were Joe's brand, then it's probably got 25 % in the market. I know it sounds obvious. But so that's sort of intuitive. It's sort of it's a way of getting the data without spending any money. So I'm a great believer in that. With Crosta, and I'm pointing over there because the Crosta packaging is over there. I went into lots of supermarkets and realized that garlic bread is sold alongside pizza.

1:14:36and it's got about 20 % of the space of pizza. So I thought, well, this has got to be about a 300 or 400 pound market. And we bought some data. 300 and 400. Three or 400 million pound market. What, the garlic bread? Yeah. Okay, yeah. Actually, I can't remember the exact numbers. A big category because it's got about 20 % of the space of pizza. Pizza's massive. So this is going to be a big category. But we didn't have any data. And everyone was saying, no, it's not really a very big market. and then somebody said, I think it's 20 million. So, well, this is the intuition, but it can't be 20 million because it's got 20 % of the space of pizza and pizza's at 1.5 billion.

1:15:14So that can't be right. Anyway, it turned out it wasn't right because we then bought the data, which said it was 20 % the size of the pizza market. So that's an argument in favor of using intuition, actually. So I think there's a role for both. I tend to be more intuitive. However, if you're trying to persuade a retailer to do something, they're going to want you to share the data. And actually, buying their data is even more likely to persuade them because they very much rely on their own data. They're very data-driven as buyers. So if you get to a point where you are considered someone they can rely on for advice on the category, then you do need to buy the data.

1:15:54And it's very important. And then so what was the decision you made with the garlic bread situation? Were you thinking, right, we're going to go after this? Well, I already wanted to go after it, but I wanted to be sure that it was a worthwhile category. And you first do garlic bread, right? We've launched it, yes. We have now launched it based on all this work. So this is a real example. Yes. So we have launched one garlic bread. I don't think I've ever had that. No, it's new. So you probably haven't seen it yet. But we've launched one and we've got two more in the pipeline. So we're going to have a range of premium garlic breads, all slightly different.

1:16:26So one is sort of round like a pizza and that's got cheese and garlic on. one's going to be so like a focaccia with rosemary and olive oil i mean they're really they're really well you love that one that's really nice in fact i'm going tomorrow to venice to the factory and we're going to try that one wow yeah it's interesting because one of giles's things he was about the exit thing is saying innovate close to the core and he was again common sense so he was gave the example of innocent with the veg pots and it's like well coca-cola don't want to buy a veg pots business they want to buy a juice business this links back to everything we're saying empathy focus halo brand yeah so they so they fucked off the the they didn't do veg pots yeah and then they've i think bowls now done that and again i suppose with what you're doing the cross and cross the molokar as well if we're going to innovate because i know you the other thing that's interesting with cross molokas you've got like a gazillion different uh products in different categories yeah is that something you'd probably cull and cut back or well because the garlic bread is the example of innovating that's a genuine innovation that we didn't do before so yeah so when i first um got in touch with the business we were in eight categories yeah so everything from coffee to sweet biscuits savory biscuits gelato um desserts breads um and actually what i one of the sort of strategic things we decided up front was it's going to be very hard to win in eight categories because we're quite a small business.

1:17:56And to win, you need to focus. You need to be really good at one thing. And we were really good at the eight things, but not as good as we could have been if we'd focused. So we looked at it and 65 % of all our revenue came from pizza. So we decided that because it filled those criteria ahead of being big market, et cetera, that that's the one to focus on. So we've focused our energies on growing pizza, we still run the other categories. Some we've de-emphasized, let's put it that way. So most of our energy now, 80 % of all that we do is making pizza successful. And our objective as a company is to be Europe's most exciting pizza company.

1:18:34So we are going to win with pizza. The other businesses will grow, but not as fast. And in the end, pizza will be 85 % of what we do. And when you say grow it, is that just get unlocked more distribution? Because what I don't understand is you're already in shitloads of distribution. Well, actually, we're in less than half the supermarkets in the UK. Really? Yeah. We're not in. So, yeah, we're in less than half of them. So we've done well in that we're in Waitrose and we're in Ocado, all of those. But we're not in all Sainsbury's and Tesco. It's far from it. And we're not in any Asdas and not many co-ops.

1:19:11So how do you fight the tension of going mass market but keeping that premium niche price point? because that's another thing that's like yeah i know i do know i never worry about that i lots of people who like premium brands go in all supermarkets not just waitrose so i i and i don't i don't think it makes your brand look any less premium if you go from being in sales with tesco's to being in another supermarket also i think people are shopping you know some will do the bulk of their weekly shop in aldi but then go into waitrose for the sort of those like like you across the molecules. So yeah, so talk me about the supermarkets and how you fight that tension of premium price versus still going mass.

1:19:56Yeah, you were saying, do I worry if my brand is anyway taken down market by being in all the supermarkets versus just a few, just a smart few? I think my approach to that is that if you want to build a big brand, you have to be fully available to consumers. And the kind of consumer that wants to buy or is currently buying across the Malika and Waitrose, occasionally goes to other supermarkets. People are promiscuous when it comes to supermarkets. And so I want to be available for them to buy whichever supermarket they're shopping in. And if you want to have a big brand, whether it's Tiroz or Saint-Pierre or Lily's Kitchen, you have to be fully available.

1:20:32You can't do it by being in 10 % of the supermarkets. You've got to be in as many as you can be in. And you've got to be in Europe and you've got to be in the other markets as well. So I think, yeah I never worry about that I the key is be fully available and then you maximize the potential size of your business that's fascinating and the the in terms of brands that get a lot of again I'm just putting stories from so many people I've interviewed is you can sometimes get into too much distribution whereby you just can't get the average rate of sale up so for example I think even the head of buying at co-op said this to me um that was like if you get into it's better to be in 200 stores where you can build a real burn-up hot rate of sale versus 1 ,000 stores where you can't actually get that average rate of sale up.

1:21:20How do you fight that tension of like be everywhere? I completely agree with that. But then if you're everywhere and your average rate of sale is being pillaged because you're in too many stores and then again the buyer looks at the data and gives you... Yeah. I can honestly say I've never had that problem. Really? Never ever had that problem. Wow. It's always the other way around which is we really deserve more stores and we're still fighting to get them. So, yeah, I mean, if you've got a product, actually, that's the worst case scenario. So let's say you and I were going to buy a business. We're going to buy a food business, which has got, I don't know, 50 million of sales.

1:21:54It's got wonderful distributors everywhere. If you dig under the surface and find that the rate of sale per store in the new distribution is not very good, there's only one way that business is going to go. It's going to come out of those stores. once you start coming out of stores and losing distribution that's it yes that's it that means you've topped out so we all want to buy so firms do this and at some point they all peak and flatten out if you buy your business and that scenario has occurred you're here and it's going to do that or maybe that and that you want to run a mile and so what do you think a lot of brands will sort of paint the picture it going like that but it's actually it's always you always got today so you got today yeah and if you're there that's not good you're there that's sort of optimistic and looks quite good because it looks like it might continue but if you discovered that data you've just described a scenario where you've got too much distribution that's that's that is an awful situation to be in and i would run a mile so that's where the data does come in in handy i'd rather not know well there's a buyer i'd like to know but yeah that data is telling you a very worrying story which is you don't deserve to be in those stores because not enough people want to buy your product yes you only exist in the rarefied atmosphere of the few stores you're in previously you're a small brand that's that's right at the start you said how is it that some businesses get stuck at five million well if that's a scenario you're talking about that that that tells you everything you need to know the market for your product is not very big it's not big enough to justify the distribution you've got that's it the market isn't big enough okay yeah Because it doesn't, you know, you need to get 10, 15 units per store per week to stay distributed.

1:23:40It varies from category. But if you're only getting three, when they give you all those stores, you're getting three, you've failed. And what, in your experience, are some of the tactics you've done to get it up to 15 across those stores? As you move from, say, a Waitrose brand to fill in the blank, other, more, you know, Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Asda? again it doesn't in my experience what i work with doesn't work like that because the way it works with us is you go into the first set of supermarkets and you get 200 supermarkets or you go into an account for the first time they give you 200 supermarkets it does very well and then all my focus is on more is we usually get 15 or more and then you say well we got 15 in these 200 we think you should give us 200 more so i've never been in that situation it's just yeah well So I don't ever think, how can I get it up to 15?

1:24:32It's already there. What I do do is launch new products. And you have to make sure that if you're launching some innovation, that it doesn't just steal from your existing range. So if you've got three pizzas and you launch another one, you've got to make sure that the other one just doesn't, they just don't all diminish by the same as that. So you cannibalize the... Precisely. And how would you do that? Well, one of the ways we've done that is by launching garlic bread, which I mentioned earlier on. Garlic bread, if people are buying garlic bread, They're not swapping garlic bread for a pizza.

1:25:01They're swapping someone else's garlic bread for your garlic bread. So that's 100 % incremental. Okay, yes, yes, yes. So innovating near the core but not on top of the core allows you to steal from competitors and not cannibalize your own business. Are there any other ways you've used data on the sort of the growth journey and sort of balance it with intuition? because I think this is a kind of, this is the marrying of the big with the sort of the magic of the founders. And not just for like retail side of things, but like in terms of the exit of what you're showing to the people who are going to buy the business.

1:25:46Well, I'm obviously not a very data person because I have to say it does, it's not something I obviously do very often. Yeah. I can't think of any moments where I've sat there going oh that data's really interesting I'm going to do this yes no yes no it may have happened but I can't think of any it's just fascinating when you get different perspectives because you know what Giles was saying is there's like they're going to rock up and know your business better than you who's this as in the big M &A firms and stuff they're going to have a data person who's going to come in and be like right we actually we've gone through your business with a fine comb and actually and it's kind of like, oh, so one of the things we were saying with Giles is how could you potentially use data to when that conversation comes up, you're already ahead of the curve?

1:26:33Well, this might be my own blind arrogance, but I often think when I meet these people, I know more than they do. Yeah. So I don't feel like that at all. I think that when you're small and you've got a really tight team of really good hand-picked people, you often know more than the guys that run the really big business because they're focused on HR and other things which they think are important or that's what you have to do when you run a giant business. Whereas we're only focused on our own brand. We're obsessed with that. So I tend to find we get into a conversation with them about something and my team will know more than them.

1:27:08Wow, yes. So I don't feel that. And what's the story you're trying to detail to these people? Usually that they should buy our business because it's brilliant. No, usually what we try and identify is that in a category, whether it's pet food, which is enormous, or bread, or crisp, which are generally flat categories. So pizza, for example, 1.5, 1.6 million pounds of revenue sold through supermarkets. The category is flat. It's either 1 % up or 1 % down. I can't remember, but it's flat. Our pizza is nearly 50 % up year on year. So we're doing, in a category that isn't doing anything, we're winning.

1:27:51We're the most expensive, the most premium, the only Italian, authentically Italian brand there. I'm trying to persuade them that there's no such thing as a tired category, just tired marketeers and tired businessmen. If you've got a good team who are passionate about what they do, then you can make anything happen. And so I'm forever hearing, oh, I don't know why you bought this Chris company. We're in recession now. We've just had 2008. This is going to be very difficult for you, David. Or we've just had Brexit. it, you'll never sell this pet food business. And actually, I never take any notice of that, because there are all these external factors that you can't control.

1:28:29If you haven't got a good team and you're focused on doing the right thing, you can do well in any environment. So pizza, so the message I would give to anybody thinking of buying a pizza business is the category is enormous, and it's ripe for change, because no one's doing anything very exciting apart from us. And what we're showing is if you get it right, got a really cool product with the right branding, the right positioning you can go 50 % in one year and we're going to go 50 % next year as well so my message is you should you need to acquire brands like this yes final things I know you've got to run but I'm absolutely I'm loving this I'm learning so much I want to talk about Frozen as a category in and of itself favourite category yeah talk to me about that because I think I was in Costa Rica with this I think Frozen in the UK gets a bad rep because of Iceland whereas I think and obviously we can take that out if you'd like but like um whereas i think in i met these this couple have got their own frozen store in costa rica sorry in canada they've met them in costa rica right and they're like frozen is just a thing over there yeah it is like if you get frozen vegetables it's cheaper and healthier for you like how do brands win in frozen it's something i've never really talked about before and i think it's fascinating because you're with cross dominica you're so our pizzas we are 50 of our businesses in frozen i mean we've got a really big frozen food frozen pizza business yeah um well Well, if you travel, and you do, you're just meeting these people in Costa Rica.

1:29:50When you travel, you realize that the environment we have in the UK where if you want to buy really high quality food, you have to go to the chiller cabinet. But if you go to the freezer area, it tends not to be quite so upmarket. That's the situation we have in the UK. That's not the case elsewhere in the world. We are the anomaly. So if you go to America, for example, as I did, as I frequently do, and go look at the pizza category, it's 100 % frozen. There isn't a chill category. If you go to France, there's no chill pizza in France. It's all frozen. You go to Scandinavia, it's all frozen. It's only here that we have this chilled category and this obsession that chilled, which people think is fresh, which isn't necessarily, is somehow better than frozen food.

1:30:30But as you rightly say, frozen food can be equally or better quality than chilled food. So I used to be in the fish industry. If you catch the fish and freeze it on board the boat within three hours of being caught, that fish is probably higher quality than anything you buy that's been chilled all the way through the supply chain yeah but try and convince someone of that very hard yeah i've always thought there should be like a like a like a somewhere in between the planet organic and a basically a planet called planet organic version of iceland where everything you go in everything's frozen but it's high quality well there is in france so picard in france is the retailer that is a marks and spencers quality and it's all frozen yes and you can buy fillet steak giant prawns beautiful cod frozen at sea.

1:31:13It's superb quality food. The problem is here that we've got a perception of frozen food as being somewhat cheap and nasty, because most of the brands historically have sold to that end of the market through frozen. But you can sell, there are some things now. So Costa Malica is a good example of the only pizza in frozen that's doing really well is us, and that's premium. Itzu is a great example of premium bao buns and gyozos that Julian Metcalfe's launched into a supermarket in Frozen, hugely successful. So there are some, and ice cream, some of the ice creams are very premium. Haagen-Dazs, it's an extremely premium product, and does brilliantly.

1:31:52So Frozen, you can have fabulous things in Frozen. And I think it will change, because the other benefits of Frozen are no preservatives required, because the preservative is the freezing. You need less ingredients because it's so it could be less ultra processed If there's much less food waste chilled food If you if you buy a giant prawn in the uk in chilled, which you think is fresh All it is is defrosted. It's got about five days till it goes off That very prawn was frozen before they sent it into the supermarket If you bought them frozen You take them out of your freezer and have them just when you want them And then and then the rest go back in the freezer until the next month that you want some So there's no waste in the supermarket.

1:32:32There's no waste at home So there's all sorts of reasons why frozen is a and you think that's a supply chain Do you think this is like this the System and the way because I swear no one even goes down that aisle in the UK or like a lot of people wouldn't go down there Yeah, just to buy ice cream maybe yeah And how do you think it begins? Is it like brands that lead the change like across? I think it has to be brands you have to have the offer you can have science saying come down our frozen is great But unless when you get down there, you find the kind of things that you want to buy brands that you can relate to products of the quality that you want to buy unless they're there it's not going to work but i think the early there's early signs that it's happening we're part of that across the malika and i think once people get down there and they realize they can buy really high quality products in frozen i think it can do well like the rest of the world have you done different brands in each i think perry was saying that's me sorry as in sorry different packaging for frozen versus we have actually we've just the new packaging design like we've redesigned, which is in store now, just going in.

1:33:29We've done a slightly different design in Frozen for chilled because in chilled, they tend to be well lit and very visible. In Frozen, you often have a glass door or some misting or it's in a well. So we've used a brighter packaging design so that when you, in Frozen, it stands out more. Yes. Because it needs to, which is, you know, it's Perry, that was very smart. Yeah, Perry's genius. David, look, I know you've got to run, but I've absolutely thoroughly enjoyed that. and it's just, yeah, my brain's sort of just bubbling with new sort of ways. I wanted to get to how you take that brand from that sort of 6 to 100 and I think it's just this focus, patience, sort of timing, empathy.

1:34:11Like, they are sort of the brilliant basics and there's just, yeah, I've absolutely loved that, so thank you so much. Oh, thank you very much. Enjoy meeting you. Lovely to meet you. That was everything. thank you so so much for listening to the podcast i really really do appreciate it if you liked that episode only if you liked it please do give it five stars subscribe tell all your friends families foes next door but one cat dog whatever please tell everyone about this podcast it means the world to me and i really want to understand what your pain points are as the new wave of of challenger food and drink brands please do hit me up on linkedin search Dan Pope and hopefully we can together create a more meaningful and powerful podcast for the next wave of challenger food and drink brands thank you so much