What’s Stopping Kombucha ACTUALLY Going from “Niche” to “Mainstream” - Freya Twidgen, Fix8 and Fibe

0:00Hello there and welcome to Hungry. Hungry is the podcast for the next wave of challenger food and drink brands looking to pour gasoline all over their growth. Each week we'll interview successful founders, thought leaders, unpack their lessons and provide you with a toolkit to scale super fast. I am Dan Pope, I am your host and without further ado, let's get started. Where I want to start is take me to Shanghai or take us to Shanghai. It was Shanghai. what was it like when you first where was it set the scene paint the picture the first time you ever sipped kombucha so I remember 2014 landing in Shanghai airport getting in a taxi which I had to hustle for and looking at my Pret-a-Manger bag with my mango and lime pot in it and thinking oh my god home is so far away right now where the hell am I couldn't see out of the window because it was just smog um so it was a rude awakening when I arrived and I was studying politics over there and had quite a lot of free time on my hands as such and so I took a course on Chinese medicine and it was when I went to one week they were speaking about your stomach and digestion and in Chinese medicine they call it qi which means energy and it was a lecture entirely around your stomach energy and my Chinese doctor brought in some kombucha I'd never heard of it before had no idea what it was and you've seen it brewing it looks like kind of an alien in a jar stringy gangly bits of yeast and bacteria floating around not that appealing so I was a bit hesitant to try and then in the spirit of being in Asia and trying all new things with an open mind I said give me some of that and it was love at first sip and love at first sip so you're in the lecture theatre like talk me through the steps of was it Dr Chang yeah Dr Chang yeah it's more of a It was more of a cafe workshop vibe.

2:20Wasn't really a lecture theatre, but... Oh, of course. Sorry, sorry. I was getting so confused there. So you're in this cafe. What is it? On like a busy street? Is it downtown Shanghai? I mean, I've never been to Shanghai. Yeah, yeah. It was in the French Concession, which if you have been to Shanghai, you'll know is quite a cool, trendy area. Let's compare it to Shoreditch. Oh, shock. You're in Shoreditch. I'm in Shoreditch. You're not too far from home. I tried to be tried to be cool there but um it was a cafe and it was set up by an Australian expat who was running the course with her Chinese doctor and teaching basically western expats all around traditional Chinese medicine because so much of Chinese medicine is woven into culture in Shanghai for example you'd go to a park and you'd see people singing and dancing they say that's very good for your mental health um if you have some spit or phlegm in your throat it's very known there you would spit it out on the street doesn't matter if you get it on someone's foot it's very kind of that was a sort of big shock but they're clearing the phlegm from their throat so they can balance the elements in their body and make sure everything's in balance so basically chinese medicine weaves into chinese culture so by studying chinese medicine i was under i was able to understand my surroundings that's mental yeah because i think why i'd love doing this podcast with chefs is because i think it's the same thing food into ease with culture and actually if you ask about the culture you understand the food and if you ask about the food you understand the culture super interesting like that pie guys was telling you about yeah like he was telling me about how pies back in the day i mean this guy went in on learning how pies were made pies were like chicken shops pie rooms like chicken shops they over time got decimated and eaten up um but you understand our culture through that you said medicines interweaved was interweaved into the culture the people singing in the park or dancing in the park like what other lessons go into that a little bit further like what else did you learn about medicine and the culture piece I think you know coming from growing up in England in a nice little countryside town just things like if I had a headache I'd pop a paracetamol whereas in China or Shanghai if I had a headache they would say maybe there's an imbalance in your body you know First go to food, first go to hydration.

5:02There might be some herbs, there might be some natural ways to cure your ailment. You don't have to just suddenly reach for medication. And I think I'd always grown up just, if I had something wrong with me, stick a plaster on it, it will go away, instead of thinking about the root cause. So I think Chinese medicine is all about thinking, how can I be in balance and how can I get to the root cause of it? we don't think we didn't think like that i think growing up here and that's where the kind of east meets west comes into it yeah i was listening to a podcast yesterday um joe rogan with whitney cummings just saying no as at school you saw a kid you always just see there always be a kid in the class with a bat in like a plaster yeah you don't really see that anymore i'm into that you don't why i don't know i don't know what i mean well i suppose what i'm trying to go with i don't know if i can say that but what i mean is is is we always trying to put things on people we're trying to um medicate before actually looking internally and solving the the issue through as you said the word balance i think obviously we're going to get onto it um kombucha and gut health is is one part of that puzzle but i think yeah growing up we were i was always just like you have a fucking bit of cowpole mate and have a kitkat you'll be fine I'm a bongo kitkat and I was great you know but I think if you go a little bit deeper in um there are there's like a whole myriad of different ways of looking at how to solve things what what other um what other lessons did you take from your time in China that changed the way you live your life back here in London um I think I just had to be really curious because I had no mates I was on a different time zone everything was foreign to me tap water you couldn't drink I couldn't access the news had to use a VPN really yeah Facebook BBC news all blocked out there so my life was just constantly about finding a solution to something or finding my way around something.

7:15I remember trying to get a taxi in my first week and they wouldn't take me because I couldn't speak Mandarin. So I'd have to do sign language or, you know, try and write it on a piece of paper. Will you take me to this restaurant? And there was never going to be a moment where I wasn't going to get in the car. I was always going to get in the car. I just had to find a way to communicate it. So I don't know, I think it really taught me to think outside the box, to have an appreciation for a culture so different to anything I've known before and have a bit of a humbleness around that. You know, going back to the spitting thing, when I first arrived...

7:52You're still on the street now, and now you're back in London, you just went... I did try it out when I was there. When I first arrived and I'm walking out and everyone's spitting everywhere, you know, in my mind I'm like, God, that's gross. What on earth is going on? and actually it's not gross it's just a very practical way if you've got something in your mouth why don't we spit it out why do we just you know going for a run probably you know flammy mouth or something it would be natural just to spit and actually sorry you like to come this way slightly yeah yeah yeah i'm good so also realizing in a post-pandemic world probably not good to advocate spitting oh no it's so it's um it's all good it's it's um but i think what you said there about the taxi and being forced to be curious curiosity is the birthplace of thinking outside the box i know that sounds so david brent but like it but it is right it's like if the more curious you are the more different ways you find into things and out of things and the way you hail down a cab is and we can't talk about the example but what you've just done as of yesterday with a buyer about getting their attention it's the same it's the same lesson obviously we won't say what that is but those principles of being super curious forcing yourself to think out the box you've got to do that with building a brand super interesting what did what did you we're going to get onto this don't worry onto the brand but I'm just this I'm trying to get kind of understand the foundations because it's very different having a sip of kombucha in a in a french court or french connection whereas french connection french connection i'm always thinking about fashion mate always thinking about fashion mate um french connection that's jokes fc uk mate um but So you're in the French Quarter.

9:52French Quarter. Concession. Right, French Concession. We're in French Connection in Shanghai. I'm in Kombucha.

10:05That's hilarious. So you're in the French... French... Concession. Concession. What does it do to you, the drink? what makes you suddenly think i need to start brewing this how does it start brewing in you the idea does i mean talk to me about that um i think firstly it was theoretical it was oh my gosh i've just learned about the theory that fermented food and drink

10:41so you're in uniclo so i've been top shot yeah yeah sorry i'll try and just trick face

10:55okay

11:01yeah so in wherever you're in yeah um she basically my chinese doctor taught me all about why gut health was so important your immune system, your serotonin, your mood, your libido, your energy, everything comes from your gut. And I was like, oh, I didn't know that. This seems pretty important. And I remember then trying the drink, almost thinking it was a medicine. You know, this drink can do certain properties for me. But then the fact that I enjoyed the taste was what blew my mind. Because you think of medicine as you know a wheatgrass shot or a you know green juice you have to hold your nose and glug down when actually this was something that was really enjoyable and I think that for me was a really aha moment of oh my gosh I can have taste and refreshment and functionality in a beverage because I'd grown up drinking soda so you know cereal diet coke lover love my can of pop and even in shanghai i would you know find fizzy drinks and drink it so to find something that was fizzy refreshing soft and functional in kombucha was just mind-blowing was kombucha big over that no and that's the interesting thing as well so it comes from asia thousands of years ago and it traveled along the sink to 21 bc to be specific although there's lots of myths and legends around it legends

12:40well it's a fermented tea right and tea comes from asia so where there is something in abundance usually a product will you know come out of it um but i've always referred to kombucha like the pizza effect have you heard of this pray tell so i can't remember i heard of this but essentially pizza has left italy gone to america and is now coming back into italy but americanized so young kids in italy are growing up thinking dominoes or you know american style pizza is what traditional pizza is but it's not if that makes sense and it's kind of happening with kombucha i think it started in asia traveled along the silk road into eastern europe this is way back when and then ended up in america where it's now a billion dollar industry and now it's working its way back we see it massive in america weaving into europe and i bet you in 10 years time kombucha will be be in asia again hi there guys super super quick one um i write a weekly newsletter called Hungry Friday Feast.

13:50It goes live at 8am every Friday. I'm pouring my soul into this bad boy. It's probably my favourite creative ender 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 1 ,200 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 the bit about it being small in asia and it becoming big in the uk and i want to i think the pizza effect's really interesting so i've sort of whacked lyrical and already bored people to death it's talking about how some some ideas work in america doesn't mean it's work in the uk i've talked about that and i think um as much as i i think kombucha is a category it's got a is it's got a way to go in terms of people really understanding what it what it is yeah i think i think it's it will happen but it's it's going to be a much slower process than absolutely as we were saying like i know the kombucha world's very friendly like josh used to be a sponsor from momo yeah yeah like he was saying it's going to take a while obviously william was saying with la like it's there's the category he's got to do the work as much as it as much as the brands that in within that category yeah and it might not be the same as well kombucha might never look like the us and i'm not talking about size but actually product you know in the us you can be niche and mainstream because of the sheer size of it you know california is what three times the size of the uk yeah whereas in the uk you need to i think be very accessible and that's why taste in kombucha is probably the number one barrier the um we'll get on to that because i think there's a really interesting thing of what brands are doing to make it more mainstream and i think how i think as you said in in in america you can be niche and mainstream whereas how does that happen in the uk you've got brands like perfect ted who've who've kind of crossed that chasm like where does that look like in kombucha but but back back to china so um what what else did you kind of learn from being immersed in that culture uh or like what's one thing that kind of chinese people understand that people who are not from china would never understand um it's a great question one thing i loved was that there was no direct translation for please you know they were just very very pragmatic with you know if they wanted something the translation in english is give me this you know they they manners may be a less of a thing and i i liked how in china in china yeah whereas i think you know i felt really prudish over there the whole spitting thing the pleases and thank yous the you know you've come to Glastonbury no but over there people are just very rational and direct you know a plus a equals a I don't I don't know but there's essentially there wasn't a word for please and I liked that I liked how just I could walk into a shop and go in and get what I want and say give me this thank you bye probably shouldn't say thank You've probably come back to your village as a sort of reprobate, just spitting and not saying thank you.

17:27But it works over there. I think they just get it done. That's what I liked. There was no fluff. And what are the lessons you applied from your time in China to brand building with Fixate fibers? I don't know, really, if I'm honest about that. I can't think of one or two things directly, but I... But I think the word that you're talking about, the story about being direct, there's no please. Oh, yeah. But I've learned that as I've got older, I've just got to, you know, I think at the beginning of this journey, I was very woolly. I remember especially actually when we were first raising investment, I was so woolly.

18:05What do you mean by woolly? Just, you know, oh, so you've got this thing, doing this. Instead, it's like I'm raising X amount at this valuation. We're turning over this. Are you in or are you out? And I just remember a friend's dad actually sitting me down and being like, Freya, when you get to the end of these meetings, you have to, blooming, tee it up. You have to say, are you in or are you out? Whereas I was such a fence sitter for so long because I didn't want to have those tricky conversations. I didn't want rejection. So I would just walk around the edges. And I think that's just a natural human thing to avoid rejection.

18:43Now I almost seek it out. I love that. and there's a lot in that for the people listening who have to get rejected you know by buyers by investors i was speaking to a mate last night he's going through the ringer getting investments and like concert rejection you so you let's talk about going from woolly to direct um because it's a valuable skill how did you what happened internally in freya to get change from going woolly to direct and what advice could you pass on to listeners who are maybe a bit on the fence in a woolly hat do you know what i mean i don't know why i said it like that but yeah from french connection yeah from french connection so if you're wearing a woolly hat from french connection yeah on the fence i don't think there's one magic solution what i would say is time and confidence knowing your own worth and also knowing that you don't need everyone to say yes and rejection is part of the building blocks that makes you stronger so I love the idea that rejection is not a bad thing it's you know not to get too woo woo but it's the universe pointing you in a different direction and I think when you can hang your hat on that you know this person or you know whether it's an investor or a partner they were not right for me my path was not with them it's with someone better something bigger is coming so I think you have to discern in your mind that something greater is ahead and trust in that process yeah I know I've never been good with rejection I got sacked off by some girl the other week I did not take that well at all no it bruises your ego that's why yeah I was like why don't I get my clothes from French Connection but um yeah it's it's and also just just i think separating your worth from your work's worth is a really interesting thing um i'm meeting this footballer a couple of weeks he's now got a food brand not some random footballer um thomas robson canary tim turmeric shots yeah yeah and i listened to a podcast he was doing about about this about how he got over the fear of not rejection but not being selected getting injured it's the same thing you get getting a buyer saying no to your investor saying no it's a bit like taking a knock or you know not being picked it's the same fucking feeling of rejection and he had this ability to um to separate his worth from his work's worth which is really hard especially as a founder when your soul is in was in the product yeah um and i think what you said was super interesting about kind of the universe pointing you in a different direction so let's use that as a as a kind of a a delta to kind of traverse that's what i'm saying but um so the universe pointing you in the right direction so you're in china you've got you've tried this magic potion by dr jang chang chang and nfc uk china was also never the plan by the way the dream was georgetown in america so when i talk about rejection and being pointed in the right direction why georgetown because i studied politics that was any political georgetown's in america yeah in washington uh i think so yeah somewhere didn't do geography yeah that way so that way yeah yeah i don't know funny um okay interesting so then so then that rejection points you to china yeah i got an offer from fudan dash way and i was like oh what that in california where will i be spending my year abroad sounds quite like yeah it sounds like you're in bali yeah um okay that's interesting so then the universe points you away from quite geopolitical call this podcast um point you away from georgetown washington to china um and you're there you've tried this amazing drink what are the the first one or two steps you take to actually turning this into a brand because i love that gestation period yeah well i mean at the time my focus was on getting my degree so there was no there was no business idea i really would not say I was a born entrepreneur, you know, with this wanting to do a business.

23:15It was pure passion. My fuel was passion. And when I got back to university in my final year, I tried to find kombucha. I think I found one bottle with stringy bits in it, collecting dust in a very sort of old health food shop. And I thought, oh, that doesn't appeal to me from a brand, from a flavor, from a product point of view and then I just started googling and realized I could make it myself so like any final year undergrad bought some bacteria on the internet and all my mates were going to bed watching Netflix and I'd be reading Sandor Katz the art of fermentation and teaching myself how to make kombucha that's Ben's book isn't it the art of fermentation no no Sandor Katz No, sorry, carry on.

24:05He's meant to be the father of fermentation. Got a great story. Sandor Kraut is his fermented name. Sandor Kraut? Sandor Kraut. It's what he goes by. Is that because he did sauerkraut? Because he, yeah, he's a fermentation obsessive, basically. And he knows everything. He's written a lot of good books. So he's around? Yeah, yeah. Oh, right. He travels now, but he lives in Tennessee. he's got an amazing story I think he actually contracted HIV back in I want to say the 80s and he then got into sort of natural way of living and healing through fermented food which has prolonged his immune system for a very long time alongside I'm sure lots of other things like medication but he's got a great story anyway I started reading his book like the holy bible and was so inspired I'd never really come across fermentation before and yet when I was reading the book all the best things were fermented wine coffee cheese you name it all the best things and when I got to the chapter on kombucha it said like ingredients list you know it was nothing like an otterenghi recipe it was four simple ingredients water sugar scoby and tea and I thought can't be that hard to make so I just bought a little heat tray because I was at Edinburgh so our student flat was freezing bought a little heat tray got my brew station going and just started fermenting kombucha under my uni desk very uncool made some horrific stuff and slowly engulfed a corner of my uni kitchen my housemates thought what on earth are you doing but they let me roll with it and it was my best friend actually who said when I started making some half decent stuff you know you should do this as a business idea and I was like what no one's gonna want my hippie juice and here we are delighted to announce the extension of our partnership with the wonderful billion pull from Mackenzie Jones but even more exciting they have just launched a brand new brand as part of Mackenzie Jones called MKJ Ignite.

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27:43why why on planet earth should you be getting your mitts on these gs1 powered qr codes well look very very simple mate gs1 will help you drive revenue upsell and cross sell your amazing products boost your bottom line boost your bottom line yes please where do i sign enhance customer engagement look delight your customers with dynamic content that captivates and keeps them coming back for more more more please sir can have some more yes you can comply with regulations look you want to be building your brand you don't want to be knee deep wading through a deep river of legislation aggrovation these barcodes allow you to stay ahead of the curve look don't allow this beautiful boat of boundless opportunity to sail away into the malting sunset be on that boat join GS1's UK's free pilot program today yes it's completely free there will be a link in the show notes thank you so much so then going from your room with hippie juice to your first stockist your first deal like what does that yeah oh my gosh the funnest wildest year ever what year is this so i graduated in 2016 same as me went to india for three months trained as a yoga teacher namaste namaste bro and uh we should say namaste this time of year apparently namaste namaste Santa's sleigh.

29:03Oh, sorry. Yeah, you're way more Christmassy than I am. And then it's sorry. And then when I was in India, I had a lot of time on my hands and was doing lots of meditation and, you know, in a very spiritual country as well. So I was very reflective about what I wanted to do after university. And I was applying for the Barclays grad scheme. And I just thought, oh this just does not ring true on so many levels and the friend i was traveling with was going back to a super solid law job and i remember super solid law job i love that and every time we'd meet that's how they said it to university this is a super solid law yeah she's now publishing so that didn't really last too long but every time we'd meet people when we were traveling they'd say to us oh what do you guys do and I was always uh you know I was sort of woolly hat in French connection vibes it was just did my yoga teacher training I like this kombucha thing just graduated with a politics degree but I've got no idea what I'm gonna do and I'm cool with that I'm actually happy sitting in that discomfort for now because I know that whatever I go on and do will actually ring true to me and I'm not just gonna go to Canary Wharf and you know work at Barclays if I got accepted and that reflection time just allowed me to be really concrete in okay I'm gonna give this a crack and do this as a business and so when I got back to the UK 2016 still I was actually introduced to my then co-founder who said to me he he met a friend of mine doing a leith's cooking course and i got a very formal email very formal email direct completely out of the blue very direct and super solid super solid yeah and he basically said hi frere i've heard through your friend that you're thinking of starting a kombucha company I am too want to meet up and I was like oof this is a bit random but always up for a chat and I remember vividly we met at this coffee shop just off Regent Street and he arrived with a briefcase of home-brewed kombucha and I thought I highly rate that and we did a little tasting of each other's home brews across the table and it was so bizarre and it was just you know he was a lot later on in life as well so we were total strangers meeting for the first time but there was the shared vision and shared possibility of what the kombucha category could be in the uk so after after doing a myers-briggs test together by one of his friends who is a psychologist we thought great on paper we've got complementary skills in practice we get on let's go for it and then we had about a year of r &d in which time I convinced my mum to fly to Portland Oregon with me the kombucha capital of the world where I could go and hunt down any commercial kombucha brewer and pick their brains and we did a whole tour from Portland down to LA just meeting kombucha brewers I'd find them on Instagram I'd message them on Facebook I was just that weird person popping up in their inbox hi i'm frayer from london here on a bit of a kombucha research mission tasted yours absolutely love it want to meet for a coffee and surprisingly people said yes so paint the picture of oregon uh sorry portland in oregon i've got family friendatives there but i've never been around them anyway um but i'm trying to understand the difference between the uk and kombucha in america because well i went over to a podcast over there with athletic brewing brewing um to new york i walked into whole foods i was like fucking hell yeah it's like gargantuanly bigger than narnia yeah it's not narnia like literally talk to me about Oregon Portland so I mean I think Portland Oregon is one of the most future thinking places I've been um isn't actually I won't get into that but yeah what I was gonna say isn't it like it's very like sort of blue hair and stuff like that but yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah um i was well when i went to portland i was actually vegan at the time and you had blue hair and i didn't have blue hair then um yeah i was vegan at the time and i'd never been somewhere and felt so welcomed you go anywhere veganism was normal you know they were way ahead of it so I just loved how open it was there on every shop window it would say you know we welcome black hispanic indian they were just so welcoming everyone is welcome here there was just this amazing culture of craft craft breweries were the norm and therefore craft kombucha so it was just such an inspiring place and everyone just I'm sure that you know I was only there for a week so I'm sure there's lots I didn't see but in terms of that initial feeling it really was the and probably still is lots of people think it's LA it's actually Portland that's the capital of kombucha in my eyes what was the most interesting conversation you had out there with one of the brewers actually a British guy who had set up a kombucha brewery in Portland and he was my first meeting so it was kind of a nice bridge and my mum and I drove to his brewery and he showed me round just I'd never seen a brewery before let alone a kombucha brewery so all these you know corny kegs his brand yeah it's called happy mountain kombucha right and he was just such a nice guy the thing that struck me the most was actually how kind and open people were I think that very much speaks to the culture of fermentation it's all about sharing you know when you brew kombucha you start with one scoby and you get two through the brewing process so why would you throw the other one away you'd pass it on and that's how it traveled and people are just very open so I was really welcomed in and it was it was amazing to see it at commercial scale and it I think painted a picture for me of okay it's happening I could do this back home this hasn't been done yet and I can see it I can physically see it I can touch it I can talk about it I can smell it I can be in the space where my dream is actually happening just in another country so how can I bring that back home and do it my own way in you know my own city with different consumers so I ended up working in a pickle shop in Berkeley California for a month just learning everything about fermentation and you know one woman invited me around her house and was dehydrating some apples and we would speak about sauerkraut and kimchi and she made me kombucha shandies and it was the most bonkers year probably of my life of just researching everything about kombucha and fermentation but it just inspired me so much that when I came back to the UK there was only one thing on my mind and it was starting this business what else did you learn at the pickle shop like told me through like what that looked like because in my head i've got bearded fella for some reason yeah no that that so they make the best pickles ever where where was it in berkeley like on a busy road in berkeley yeah it was no not a really busy road um can't on the road what it was but the place is called the cultured pickle shop and if you're ever in berkeley then oh my gosh you've got to go they make the best pickles kombuchas sauerkrauts kimchis in the world they have like a cave where they store things and i think when we were there we tried some miso that had been fermenting for you know over 10 years or something and it's a family-run business pure obsession they get there five in the morning they're shredding the cabbage you know and it was so humbling I was a university graduate suddenly found myself on my knees with knee pads massaging cabbage on the floor in a Berkeley fermentarian it was really bonkers but I loved it were you still meditating during this period yeah I was very into my yoga so so I meditate daily and I was speaking to Renee earlier about this the episode went out yesterday actually and we were talking about how uh

38:17i was asking her i knew she meditated daily i've spoken to quite a few times i was like so during that period in planet organics and administration i was like what meditation allows you to do that's this kind of universe piece and it's a bit woo-woo but fuck it um but i genuinely believe that like meditation can provide like is it as a way to access external answers internally and I think with it allows you with that meditation period it allows you to realize I don't have to go and do the Barclays job in Canary Wharf I'm going to follow that the universe is going to pull me towards this from China back to the US ironically to this pickle shop in Berkeley I'd love to know in again looking into this sort of gestation period this beginning of the brand like when you were meditating what was kind of coming to you what answers were you landing on um i'd say for me meditation wasn't about finding the answers externally it was around creating a space every day where i'd wipe the foggy window clean and actually see what was already there so it was less around searching externally but seeing what was already in front of me and trusting that so you know for me it was very much around trust and stabilizing really I just it grounds me and allows me to just be with myself and not suddenly be in this hamster wheel of thinking okay all my friends are on grad jobs I'd be at a dinner party and someone would say so what do you do and I'd say oh I'm thinking about starting a kombucha company and they just you know say ha ha ha ha ha yeah yeah yeah so i i've really had to almost just let that slide a bit like they say in meditation you know just think of it like clouds passing by and the clouds are your thoughts we're all the blue sky and the blue sky is always there we just have to let the cat the clouds clear and so watch those clouds as if you're watching tv or you're watching a mirror and just let them pass you by you are not your thoughts and that was probably a foundational training that I had to learn when I was in India and actually in my final year of uni and probably nods back to Shanghai where I already discovered yoga as well and that all kind of weaved itself into okay my first year just trust the process keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep being curious boimi 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 boimi are the platform to categorically speed that up but if you're a big brand wanting to get bigger boimi are also insane they make field sales marble smooth silky slick they're just epic ollie's ollie's been on this podcast twice actually they saw a 29 uplift in sales when using boemy to check major malt listings availability insane 29 uplift by downloading an app insane lucky saying my boy duff is coming this podcast in a couple of weeks weeks he uses it to manage the team of 30 people and they've lucky to have unlocked 500 draft listings by using boemy look you've got to get involved with this stuff it's absolutely insane and it will categorically change your life it's just the sickest platform i use it all the time at ireland 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 ireland's chocolate we've had a great time over the year we've won listings at a load of wholesalers we've got 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 my 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 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 i think we are seeing from the same hinge him sheet but we're seeing in different tones here in that like in that i i was like oh the x the i the answers come externally uh because i even when i took the jump on this or the leap on this it was i was going doing a lot of meditations about is this the right thing to do and i feel like the answers are coming to me yeah whereas what you're saying is like if you polish polish it up or it's that the clouds are people's expectations the clouds are your mates laughing at the dinner party the clouds are the fucking email from barclay say you've got a grad scheme job if you allow them to pass the answer's right in front of you yeah as i say yeah as i say we're singing from the same hymn sheet the it's gut instinct right gut and everyone talks about that follow your instinct let's talk about pretend i'm a well i am an absolute luddite and but pretend i'm a three-year-old and or four year old explain to me the benefits of living cultures and the benefits of um that's pre-bastic isn't it that's pre-bastic it's pre-bastic yeah so so i suppose first question explain to me what the benefit of drinking kombucha is because i see a lot of the brands um or i see a lot of not just in kombucha but a lot of brands talking about the features like we've got loads of prebiotic we've got loads of probiotic we've got loads of living as a um yeah imagine i'm a three-year-old explain why that is good for me if i drink it um okay so kombucha 101 yep four ingredients tea water sugar scoby the scoby is the symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast it's the mother culture that essentially eats the sugar the yeast eat the sugar and convert it into ethanol and co2 that's fermentation so if you were a three-year-old i'd say kombucha is a sticker after this yeah yeah you're gonna get a cinnamon bun yeah jolene baby um kombucha is a fizzy delicious tonic sparkling drink which is really good for your gut and why it's good for your gut is because it's rich in probiotics which our microbiome need so we are more bacteria than we are human scientifically there is more bacteria or in terms of percentage of cells and numbers of microbes we are physically more microbes than we are human and we need to feed that those microbes our microbiome with probiotics prebiotics fiber to create a very diverse ecosystem which allows our body to thrive you know in the east they say all disease starts in the gut or all disease starts with bad digestion it's what they say in ayurveda which is the system of medicine in india and your digestion is therefore it's the epicenter of your well-being gut health is the epicenter of your well-being so if you're not looking after that you're going to really suffer and that's why we see a massive rise of allergies and illnesses and you name it because our microbial health is on the decline because we're eating ultra processed foods and we've got no connection to french connection we've got no connection to the french so that all makes sense to me but what i suppose i'm trying to get to from the brand perspective Like not just not...

46:55You've just told me that in like a couple of minutes, right? On the shelf edge, it's always been hard is how do you convey that into almost like a word. So Trip with CBD, yes, Trip with CBD, they did a really good job. I think one of the reasons they've become like a huge success is because I remember going to NOPE. Nope. Nope. Were you there? Nope. and um i was walking around and it was like you know either some medicinal shit or snoop dog trying to sell some wacky backy like you're walking around it's all wacky ganja kind of vibes yeah 25 grams of this 25 grams of this we've got all this cbd cbd cbd features features features features features features features everyone's like what is this cbd thing trip came in and instead of talking about features they talked about the benefits yeah calm in everyday chaos so i was like if i drink a trip i'm gonna feel calm and i suppose with kombucha what i don't understand with kombucha is i understand the living cultures bit i understand like the epicenter bit but is what's is it a preventative thing or what is that word i know it's really hard no it is and you know it's something that i reflect on daily how can i the thing is about gut health as well is it's not sexy yeah the gut is not sexy people don't like talking about digestion it's not cool so i'm up so yeah it's just the cleaner oh right i thought i'm gonna be like some sort of robber trying to get in and ruin this podcast so yeah i find that really challenging how do i sell the benefits because there's a massive i said to my mom the other day because she used to take simprove and simprove which is like a liquid probiotic shout out um hungry podcast yeah um made in farnham actually near near you if yeah not not a gazillion miles away um it's liquid probiotic and it's actually why we put science back to probiotics into it because there's not really much science behind what is working in terms of the probiotic lens and also kombucha there's not much science behind it so my mum said to me I've stopped taking Simprove um you know yada yada and I said why did you stop taking Simprove and she said because I feel good and I said that's why you need to be taking Simprove because you're preventing yourself for future illness it's like meditation why would you just meditate when shit hits the fan actually if you're meditating for five years before that maybe the shit might never hit the fan because you've built that mental muscle to stop it getting there likewise with your immune system your gut health is preventative most of your immune comes from your gut so if you're feeding that daily with you know rich probiotics fermented foods fiber diverse plants nuts seeds you are preventing future illness you will never know about because you'll never get it so how do i put that on a label yeah it's mad that's what this is what i'm trying to find fascinating and we do now actually so we've we put immune health on the label yeah and that's something we did post pandemic because immunity was hot topic and actually your gut health is intimately connected to your immune system and your mood but i also don't want to overclaim i I don't want to say one can a fix, eight or five is going to, you know, make you invincible, make you never have mental health problems, make you, you know, I, I don't want to over claim those things.

50:35So on pack, it's very difficult, but that's where the brand world comes in. And that's where the category comes in. And we've got a lot of work to do there. How do we sell the benefits of gut health in a hot, sexy way? And in one word, I think it, or not necessarily, I believe a brand can be boiled down to one word, like you do think that i i think my after every guest i've interviewed is my belief of how and it's just again i'm not i've never done any marketing agencies or anything like that i'm saying it but it's after speaking to loads of these founders a brand can be boiled down to one word so what is your one word as a brand so uh pret was fresh it's who is beautiful uh uh trip is calm um i think some others i had this on the deck which i should know this anyway it can boil down to one word then the question you ask is who is our friend i who's our consumer our target consumer so um the example i always use is minor figures and rude health their friend is very different minor figures hipster dawson ends yeah rude health Parsons Green yeah the way they speak and if you look on their social channels is very unique like I think Mind of Figures is super like kind of very hipster whereas there's Brood Health is like the yummy mummy bunch bunchy bunchy kind of autumnal whatever like if that's described me a cup of coffee but the way they speak is very different yeah but I think it goes back to one word and that one word can be the benefit and but it's just with kombucha not not your two brands, but I'm talking about the category in general, do you know what I mean?

52:17So think, as you say, you can be niche and mainstream in America. America, you get a whole food listing in America, it's 250 stores. You get a whole food listing in the UK, it's seven stores. I always think brands should potentially do their NPD meetings in a car park in Sainsbury's in Hull, just to be very blunt about it. but so what's the word to convince the do you know what i mean but i think what you said there about immune is but is that that's your your interpretation of that do you know what i mean it's like people get immunity like the cultures and the living things and the it's it's yeah i don't know it's a really interesting thing about how the category moved because it is going to go there it's just but i think it's a category thing not a brand thing yeah kombucha also is you think about what it could be replacing for me it was soda and at times booze yeah so yeah maybe that word is better it's just a better alternative for those moments where you don't want sugar or artificial sweeteners in abundance or you don't want to drink alcohol kombucha is your better option because it's really blooming good for you and it tastes great if it tastes great yeah if it's fixate over it's five the i think the other the other example of this is you know this like mushroom coffee and stuff yeah um i had a guy on called matt kelly he's got a brand called space goods okay sick like honestly um it's the packaging looks all kind of lurid and um esoteric and a bit weird but you knock some of that back it's got like lion's mane again it's like imagine trying to explain this like it's all these weird fucking mushrooms chaga lion's mane in this thing taste the hot chocolate explain that to me mate like imagine i'm a three-year-old really hard everything he everything he tested on his dc big dc brand nothing worked nothing worked nothing worked didn't land have us instead of coffee coffee replacement suddenly like wildfire but it's these little things again back to the meditation sometimes you've got to take away all the confusing things and the answer's right in front of you but you know we were speaking earlier about ben branson's new venture and i heard him on a podcast genius just saying that sometimes the best innovation is something that is you know just one percent different it's so familiar and look at what he did with seed lip looks like gin smells like gin tastes like gin positions like gin priced similar but it's not alcoholic so everything was familiar about that product in the category but he solved for the one problem that you know gin had which was that there wasn't a good alcohol alternative well that's really what we're trying to do more with five is solve the one problem have you got any because you know can i have one yeah yeah yeah what do you want I'll take it any of those all sound amazing oh yeah I mean the fast is more it's more stopping myself eating that Jolene donut until later on oh my god I am so so so excited it feels like Hungary is finally swimming in the big leagues I can't believe this is absolutely mental but delighted to announce that Big Fish yes Big Fish are part of the podcast Perry's been on the podcast three times listeners absolutely love it some of my most downloaded and cherished episodes of all time but big fish are behind literally so many brands in your cupboard in your weekly shop charlie biggum year valley tyrells clippity goo rana i mean make the list is longer than the river nile but they also share risk and invest in brands that they really believe are a force for good that brands that they believe are going to be the next big thing like how the snack that gives back but even more exciting news big fish want to speak to the next wave of small challenger food and drink badgers that are destined for big things the raconteurs the movers shakers buccaneering visionaries so look if you want to speak to big fish and just have a chat get your brand in front of them then drop me a message my mate louis from local beer amazing beer was in their office aka la fish bowl uh last week chatting to perry freddy and the big fish crew so drop me a message if you would like to speak to talk to me about why you've got two brands like i find that fascinating as a why yeah um quite a simple answer really well initially i was looking to do npd under fixate but when i was getting the same responses from buyers basically they were there was a huge kombucha surge in the uk when in 2000 or well around 2019 2020 actually and suddenly landing on our shores all these brands from abroad and you could not get an elbow in edgeways and if a buyer so saw the word kombucha in their inbox numb they would not even look at you they wouldn't want to speak to you it was i've had this pitch 20 times i still get that sometimes today and so when i was looking at doing new products firstly i was and i still am very obsessed with gut health and all the latest science is nodding to fiber massive fiber problem massive fiber gap we're all in a fiber deficit it so fiber is different from prebiotic probiotic no so fiber is prebiotic right so just to clarify again i'm three year old no great yeah probiotics and prebiotics are different things pray tell prebiotics are fibrous foods molecules that are non-digestible by the system and they feed the probiotics probiotics are the living bacteria so they need things to feed on and if they're starved so i you're not having enough fiber then they will just die and they will not create that healthy microbiome that we need so you have to be feeding the probiotics with prebiotics think of it quite easily as prebiotics are the fertilizer for your gut garden if you're not pouring fertilizer over your lovely gut garden it's not going to grow it's not going to flourish it's going to be like that plant you bought over lockdown that you're forgetting to water yeah okay so fiber we need fiber in our diet um hence why the brand is called fiber it's got fiber in it obviously i'm not trying to tell people because it's not sexy i'm putting fiber on a can so we've tried to play into i'd say soda the soda category norms tasting like soda price like soda yeah yeah but totally natural and with five grams of fiber in for a happy gut what's been the challenge so so you're going to create mpd sorry i i took us down the garden path there or you're on garden path um the gut garden path so you're going to create mpd fixate the buyers were numb to you what made you not to you but to convert your brands yeah what made you pivot into the different brands i just thought that if i well firstly i've been doing this now for you know three-ish years so if i was to almost go again with a blank canvas what would i do that was quite an interesting place to dream and secondly i think they needed different brands because I think a pre-Bartic soda like Vibe is a gateway for the soda customer to eventually end up on kombucha and I wanted them to be different products there was a lot of synergy in-house you know in terms of production capability same head office team you name it I'm speaking to buyers about kombucha great I can weave in that I've got another gut health brand are you interested so in terms of already getting a foot in the door that was also helpful and actually i find that five and fixate help each other out interesting because the other one is um is it james cadbury he's got the two brands he's got love cocoa yeah yeah hip hip yeah um it's not easy and actually What are the unforeseen absolute throbbing headaches with having two brands?

1:01:18I think, I mean, when I launched Fixate, maybe I could compare it to having two children that I haven't had, but I imagine it's like this. Your first one, you give all the attention to, oh my gosh, they're so spoilt, sole attention. And then when you have your second, that attention is divided in two. so that is definitely a challenge and the other is really the brand world so I'm writing the copy for both of them but I've got to be really careful that I'm speaking fixate language and I'm speaking five language they're two different brands they're housed by the same limited company yeah but they're two different brands how how are you um

1:02:06doing that with the tone of voice because i think tone of voice is this weird that's the friend thing i was thinking about the really great brands have this ability for the not doesn't have to come from the founder it come for the core team but basically the first five employees know that tone of voice in and out and they can weave into the brand and it's kind of like a connection to the consumer yeah like with camilla for example rude health the way that brand speaks because it's just so Camilla, right? You just know it a mile off. How are you doing that, again, dividing your tension between your two babies?

1:02:37How are the tone of voice going to be different per brand? I think they've both got different personalities, right? You know, Fixate's slightly more premium. I was just thinking of that. They're literally just, if you're looking at them, as you're interviewing your kids. They are. This one likes going out in the garden. There's so many gaps in my life. I mean, look at our mugs. Yeah, sorry, gap. um they've got different personalities right yeah so i've got to be a chameleon i can't you know do the same thing for both of them fixate slightly more premium it speaks to the more educated customer perhaps who knows a bit about gut health they're interested in kombucha to even get to the point of buying a kombucha you've got to have gone on some kind of functional journey or be curious about your health whereas with five we're speaking to the soda customer we're speaking to that orange fanta customer that cannot get off it and we are offering them something which tastes really identical that's fruit twist to me and i don't mean that in a disparaging way no no i i kid you not when i was recipe developing for five i would sit there with you know 30 different soda brands next to me just taste taste taste taste and i would not stop till we hit the nail on the head the hardest part was doing it all naturally because there are so many different like potassium sorbate and all those things that they add which give you such a great mouth feel that soda does how can we make that the same so it's really challenging but how did you do that or can you talk about that um

1:04:17I don't know how well I do know how we did it but trial and error really and we worked with an absolute shit hot recipe developer who's developed products for Diageo M &S and we just said we will not stop until we land on it it's a combination of tweaking I mean you look at the ingredients of five it's all natural but we've got a bit of calcium in there also I would say the actual fiber the chicory root has a really nice mouthfeel to it so we could get a lot of that we basically pulled the levers that we could because the brief was this is an all-natural drink this is new age fun with a vintage feel yes tell me about that it's new age fun so this is a this is a brand for future soda drinkers sorry for listeners that's on the back of the vibe packaging yeah so new age fun with a vintage feel vibe is a soft drink for future soft drinkers let's say but it's vintage because it tastes like classic soda it's a nostalgic taste it's your do you remember in the 90s when soda was just carefree and fun and you would have a can of pop and you would not know that all the sugar and all the artificial sweeteners were doing you harm so you were just carefree so this is basically saying relive that moment be carefree again because it tastes super classic it tastes vintage old school soda that you know and love but it's just made for modern day drinkers so now i can say to let's say charlie who's drinking his fanta orange try five zesty orange and tell me what you think what are they manufactured in the same place yeah okay so that's not an absolute headache then no a lot of things we consolidate interesting credit terms you know supply set up we're one limited company even now when i'm saying to a retailer you know set me up we've got two brands one limited company less of a headache for you they like that yeah it's it's i just liked like testing what i think so i would have always said just do one brand get that yeah go over now that's what i've been told as well i've lots of people have told me don't do that you'll create double work yeah who's who's told you not to do that what do they say remember one person who i deeply admire who i won't name okay you don't have to whisper because i'll take that out i love how you whisper the nice little one take out what did that person He said, you know, don't do another brand, do it under Fixate, save yourself the headache.

1:07:10And I said, no, I'm up for the challenge. And I think I need a blank piece of paper for this. I think basically Fixate is the engine right now for Fybe. But I think Fybe could very quickly overtake Fixate. And I think prebiotic soda is landing in the UK. It's a really exciting market. Who knows how it will resonate with the customer. but we launched Fybe in March this year and the rate of sale has been astronomical. I mean, in Selfridges where we launched into, we were doing very well. We were their number three best-selling soft drink and that's overtaking, you know, a couple of key big names in there.

1:07:48That was from the outset because people get it. It's not like kombucha where they're suspicious because they've tried 10 different brands and they all taste different. five tastes like a classic vintage soda with new age feel hi there guys thank you so much for listening as always means the absolute world to me before we jump into this episode i need a really big big big big favor i have pitched to some massive guests humongous guests and unfortunately they've said no because my subscriber count isn't big enough please please please just hit the subscribe button on apple or spotify or follow ultimately it helps all of us bigger guests equals better conversations equals hopefully better insights for you which means you can scale hopefully faster with a little less stress as well so please hit that subscribe button and yeah enjoy this episode the other thing with kombucha that's always going to be a hurdle is the customer has to be patient what i mean by this is you know the first time you have a beer as a kid or a glass of wine not saying it's disgusting you're drinking it and you're thinking what is that and by the time you've had your fifth beer you're like oh yeah that's delicious same with me with Guinness first time I had Guinness I love the stuff now especially on a day like this called Guinness

1:09:11it takes three or four to go kombucha has that journey not for all but for most but with this, bosh, I'm in, mate. That's Fanta. 100%. Fibes. Fibes Cartel. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, yeah. And actually, when I was getting Fixate off the ground, and the litmus test was always my parents, right? Would they drink it? Dad loves his wine. G &T loves Pepsi Max as well. So if my dad wasn't going to drink it, how was I going to convince John in Hull to like kombucha? Yeah. And the moment my dad started to like the Fixate we were producing, I thought bang we're onto a winner but with five he instantly loved it and I think to be truly mainstream you can't always divide a room you have to be unanimously loved and that I think historically has been a challenge for kombucha I don't think it will be going forward because there's a huge array of brands and you've got a whole spectrum now from your quite chewy vinegary kombuchas to your really mass market almost like a sparkling water kombucha so there's a huge range so i don't think it's patience that the kombucha consumer needs i think it's curiosity to keep trying until they find one they like because when we when i sample and i still do it one of the things i love most is standing in front of that customer saying go on tell me what you think and the amount of people that might say to me i tried kombucha once before i don't like it and i just have to say hold your breath try this again and the amount of people whose minds i have changed that for me is inspiration because i see people when they try fixate it doesn't have that vinegary bite to it that traditionally kombucha does have and that is bringing people into the category and hopefully growing it but we have to be careful because I was pitching to a retailer recently and I thought before the meeting oh let me just go and have a look at their online reviews for what you know their customers saying about kombucha at the moment and I was shocked I thought oh my god I never even realized this so I am now as of about three weeks ago a firm believer I should say from the outset I'm not anti-stevia I think stevia is a phenomenal sweetener derived from plants very valid in a lot of things in fact we use it in five but I think the kombucha customer is anti-stevia they don't want it in their drink and there's a real issue with a lot of supermarket brands in the kombucha world having stevia in their product and I think putting people off the category because they don't like the taste of it yeah it's it's just it's so interesting teasing and pulling out all the complexities of the category it's it is like the complexities of your and try telling that to a buyer yeah how do you microbiome it's just as confusing getting it as as confusing it as it is and complex it is maybe it's a better way for your actual body getting that it seems like this is riddled with complexity in terms of speaking to retail as well out of your two babies which ones get some more love now they both get love from different customers i'd say like you know let's say jack and jill married couple this is actually jack and jill well no but you know i spoke to i spoke to jack and jill and i said we're not making up there sorry sorry i should have chosen different names i met a couple what's the other one i met a couple villain ben yeah sorry um i spoke to a couple once when i was sampling and she was a massive kombucha drinker and she was like oh you know love kombucha love this love fixate blah blah and you know her husband partner jack

1:13:27i love it also like you know when people try something that's like a bit new like every because obviously every time i've sampled everything yeah there's always the early adopter and with food and drink the early adopter always has a oh before they oh yeah i know all about conversion yeah my stupid husband jack who should be carrying the uh the shopping knows fuck all about it but yeah but he just you know he was he's red coke through and through and red coke as in a red can of coke oh so yeah yeah yeah um he just doesn't he won't veer from that functional drinks sparkling waters no he doesn't want any of the wacky stuff he wants no hibiscus in his drinks he wants no ginseng he just wants classic soda so kombucha for him he's not there yet so jill's knocking back kombuchas jack is massive skeptic of anything other than mainstream soda and i say just taste this vibe he has a sip oh my gosh but this just tastes like soda you know there's nothing there's nothing really wow about it apart from oh my god it just tastes like soda and therefore we see basically two different customer base really speaking to the different brands yeah it's interesting and i think you're right in having the two brands do you why why do you think because i i'll be honest like on my way here in the fucking rain as i was getting slammed on um one of the things i was kind of thinking about is oh god i surely my piece of resistance is do you want piece of resistance like you can be my french teacher on that is do one thing well just focus focus focus focus i i did think there's going to be a why behind freya doing this but i can't think of the answers in my head as a why would you create two brands i don't i don't well the mission but now you've told me the mission's the same is actually they're manufactured in the same place he's like less of a headache they're um they're ultimately solving two problems and speaking to two customers one's speaking to jill the other speaking to jack they need to be spoken to differently i don't know why that's funny um point one one's prebiotic one's prebiotic five is the gateway drug to full-blown uh yeah kombucha it makes sense and actually this is one thing that hasn't been talked or has been briefly touched upon in this podcast and maybe this didn't happen to you but what you said about is as being a blank slate slate of paper slate slate slate of paper piece of paper yeah yeah you don't use slates do you it's not caveman times but is laura from caravan coffee said to me what people don't talk about is found as not getting bored of their brand but you've got all these ideas bubbling about it's like could you put it into something new and i think it's interesting because obviously if you were to go and launch a chocolate bar, well, that is not stupid.

1:16:30That's really harsh. But as in, why are you doing that? But it gives you a whole new canvas to paint on, which is really interesting. So it makes complete sense. Which one's performing better? So where are they both distributed? So Fix 8 is in Waitrose. We're going into a couple more retailers this year. um five is still kind of in wholesale out of home we're in the virgin clubhouses we're in we work selfridges whole foods um we should have a retailer coming on at the start of next year but we are waiting how are you driving the rate of sale tasting well for both of them actually and that's the other beauty now whenever we're doing samplings we're bringing both brands and mostly in food service this is working amazingly well i mean food service has grown this year to be a huge business offices yeah yeah food service is absolute narnia but you know offices contract catering right so now you know for example we're at microsoft doing a sampling for fixate i've got a couple of cans of five here speaking to the catering manager do you want to taste it so you can upsell them oh we're constantly playing and they speak to different audiences in fact one of the things that i didn't discover about five which i'm loving at the moment is how it speaks to kids and then how it speaks to parents of kids so this tastes like soda right and your kid who is drinking a load of soda that you don't want them to be drinking because it's not good for them in fact actively bad for them we now know great have a can of five so i was literally talking about this on my newsletter this morning well not to my newsletter but i was writing about this this morning and every challenger brand always thinks they because not all but most founders are probably between 25 and 40 let's just say for example so they always speak to that they they speak to that consumer so usually 30 this is a generalization but i was thinking well why don't why why don't we why don't why are so many brands scared of communicating to either someone who's 65 or 70 or or a kid and maybe it doesn't work with a kid there's always be a dormant market that's part of your brand and actually i think in real life you don't change from the age of i'm now 30 i still think my values and my psychological psychology like in terms of me are pretty similar to when I was 20.

1:19:01My mates who were 40, I get on them just as well as a, even though I'm 30. When you're 57, you still think and feel, you still have the same values, right? But in business, in real life, you stay the same is what I'm trying to say. But in business speak at business university, suddenly when you have kids, you're an alien. Suddenly when you become 60, you're an alien. So don't bother speaking to the old people. and actually i was thinking why don't more brands go and speak to the older demographic and a brand that's doing this so well is dirty you know dirty the mushroom tea yeah yeah so they've got this um really like she looks incredibly vibrant and healthy but she must be a slightly older lady um i don't want to hazard her name as of the age because i'll get crucified the slightly older very you know in very um sprightly spirits basically but it allows them to unlock that dirty which is a brand for say 30 year olds 25 to 40 year olds they've unlocked a whole new market and i was looking today 29 of the population is over 60 so suddenly they've by just but every think of a brand that speaks to a 60 70 year old yeah i can't think of it with this the absolute geniuses you You didn't probably think of creating the brand for people our age, but maybe slightly older.

1:20:24That is perfect for kids. That's David Lloyd. Put that David Lloyd in the kids section. Put it in a vending machine. And the best thing is, is that it doesn't taste healthy. And that's what kids, kids don't want that. They want naughty, they want sweet, they want indulgence. So how can we dress that up in a really healthy way? and actually, you know, each can of fiber has five grams of fiber in it, that can make a massive impact on their life. I think it was Tim Spector on Diary of a CEO podcast. He said five grams more of fiber per day can reduce your risk of death by 10 to 15%. And when he said that, I nearly stopped in my tracks because I just thought, oh my gosh, that is such a bold statement.

1:21:08and yet we're all in this fiber deficit kids even more so if they're growing up on ultra processed food so why don't we just substitute their can of pop with something beneficial think about how good that could be for them what have been the hardest kind of challenges what's been the worst day um gosh in the early days it would be like kombucha leaking everywhere I used to joke that my perfume was odor kombucha because it would smell I would just smell like vinegar all the time I'd be we used to brew in south London so I'd be smelling like the brewery it was yeah I think other I mean deep lows the pandemic was really terrible for us we didn't have any retail listing so I just landed Gail's Bakery and then the next month it's sorry guys we're gonna have to basically change our whole fridge to only stock daily household essentials we're talking butter eggs bread there's no room for kombucha so that really turned the business on its head and I'd say we've emerged massively stronger and again kind of goes back to not rejection but trusting the universe everything works out in the end for the best but there's nothing I would regret as well I'm kind of it feels weird to say it but I'm kind of happy the pandemic happened now because of how it just reframed everything for me um and how it made me think about the business my role in the business and it kind of gave time I suppose you said it reframed everything yeah i think i mean it had to because the world changed the consumer changed all of a sudden we're building a d2c business overnight well hang on that wasn't part of the plan our plan was to grow the product in the out of home oh god that's evaporated where are customers now so we built online that was a big that was a big benefit now we've got a direct relationship with the whole customer base so it really I also met bizarrely so many people over the pandemic because we were also raising money at the time so if you were an investor you'd probably be out at a lot of meetings well I could be certain that you'd be at home so hopping on a zoom call with anyone was so much easier so in terms of network the pandemic was the best thing it could have could have happened because you could just speak with pretty much anyone on a quick zoom call but it was challenging you know I overworked I panicked I didn't know what to do and I panicked then I'd work some more and it kind of just got me to a place where I was really unhappy with the business and actually now that we're through the other side of that I feel the happiest I've ever been in the business and gave birth to another one how did you um what are some of the weaknesses you've had to kind of chip away at because i think one of the the i spoke to the poppins you know poppins oh yeah love are they near i don't want to smash the jolene as well yeah yeah yeah did you randomly did jolene do like healthy salads or anything like that or is it just straight up bakery good um oh amazing sandwiches really what sort of sonnies like like big focaccia ones we're talking uh yeah okay carbs for a bit anyway that's for a different day um but i think founders one of the greatest things of being a founder is is it's as much as it's like you're creating this thing for the world you're solving a problem is you actually go on this personal self-discovery journey that you can't get on a Barclays grad scheme and you can't get you know in the Barclays tower of seven feet up whatever it is do you mean you're just not there what's what have you learned about the Freya how has the Freya changed from being in French Connection in uh in uh the China to now French Concession French Concession when we're sat in um Livington Green Livington Green and um yeah how has the freya changed um freya not the freya has freya changed i think she's braver she's a lot more confident i think she realizes that her strengths can also be her weaknesses you know my i don't know why did that yeah i think thanks sorry i have the same thing it's like the thing you're great at is the thing you're shit oh yeah yeah yeah what's your greatest strength is your greatest weakness um probably that word that i think about a lot but curiosity my curiosity which is my greatest strength is also my greatest weakness because it means that i'll find the solution to anything and i will i will find a way through but also it means that I'm too interested by a lot of things I might not say no to enough someone asked me for dinner on a Monday night sure curious how you been want to see you want to hang out so I need to I think like boundaries are something that I've been a bit better at putting in place still not perfect um the double-edged sword but I think I'm having fun now I feel a lot more playful with the business definitely with five you know i think the first three years were super serious for me and then the pandemic were even more serious for me just for listeners your eyes have gone like voldemort in a nice way it's like super serious yeah yeah but like that just just just let's ease that off like even the facial expression you just gave me just then it looked quite uh like you're about to eat me but it looked like you're this seriousness i'm trying to do that now is have the obviously like this conversation is always going to be super playful and fun well and but but the behind the scenes is like there's so much going into it and i'm being way too intense with it i'm just like just that's why i'm half free i'm fucking off right because it's like just be a million gazillion trillion miles away from it yeah yeah and it will help me have more fun with it how did you when you say you were super serious your face was like all scrunched together talk to me about why that was or what did that feel like I think it was just focused that's how you know I was really that the business was everything to me and I probably needed that because I was digging so deep and hopefully planting the deepest roots for the greatest tree and I needed that level of focus and that level of discipline with the business then but I definitely compromised on social things and you know I was just head down could only see I couldn't see the wood from the trees I could only see kombucha world and now I suppose a lot of those seeds have been planted I can take a step back know my strengths and watch things grow also doing the work but I I'm just I'm a I've spent more days I've spent more hours I've spent more time I've got more learnings under my belt when I left university I'd never really had a job before I'd never had a boss so starting this from scratch was a massive leap of faith and everything's been self-taught really so now I just have the confidence to think oh my gosh okay we've done it when we launched into waitrose that was the biggest moment for me what year was this last year we launched in 2022 describe that buzz yeah how did you get what was the day say on the emails at phone calls oh my gosh ah it was so intense and i loved it talk to me i was in greece it's amazing when you sort of take your foot off the gas finally things actually do so i was on holiday and I got an email from the Waitrose buyer.

1:29:46Were you on the beach? Were you getting ready for an evening? Yeah, I think I was sat on the beach having a cheeky, illegal look at my emails, but, you know, I'm only human. Hashtag founder. But when you see a certain name pop up, you think, whew, eyes going in. And it was an email that said, Hi, Fryer, I promised you when the time was right, I would be in touch, true to her word, like that as a buyer the time is now please send me samples and a commercial proposal in 48 hours balls just on my holiday obviously waitrose massive priority for us so quick quick quick whip everything together quick team call the next morning get everything in shape get commercials over get product over literally seven days later tasted all of them on the market yours is by far the best we're launching you in three months time oh my gosh I just remember I think I welled up a bit but also it wasn't the big kind of champagne moment that I get more of a champagne moment when I see someone drinking a can in the wild that for me is when I think oh my gosh it's actually happening you know they are out there and they are selling and people are drinking them and people are enjoying it and they're benefiting from it so that's such an interesting thing to explore because

1:31:17founders think the champagne moment is going to be the listing which don't get me wrong which it is but actually it's more of a prosecco moment yes more of a secco or like maybe a cup of tea from hull i know you said tea started in uh started in china i think it started in whole the um the if you actually zoom out and look at say you're doing this journey for for for 10 years let's just say 10 years and let's say you get six retailers that's six days of that champagne moment on the journey let's say you get the big i know it's the big four but let's say six for a few yeah others in there that's six days it's 300 how many days in the year 365 365 365 365 365 days if you're doing this for 10 years six of them are those big listing moments and actually if you zoom back if you zoom out those moments is so so small that actually it's the small things seeing someone drink your product in the wild that's the champagne moment and i think it's a good reframe for founders who are going through struggle through struggle because it's like this moment you think this panacea is going to happen where it's the weight resisting it's actually not that it's always amazing yeah it's the little things and live from trip they do they do a great job of this she said when we got to 10 000 followers the excitement was 10 times greater than when we got to 100 000 yeah it's always going to be the little things and they have this whatsapp group or slack group they're a startup and uh they celebrate those little champagne moments i think it's really interesting um how you said that what it's like stopping to smell you know that old expression stopping to smell the roses you know just dwelling on that a bit more the amount of time we're just rushing down the street trying to get to the end point but how often do you stop to smell the roses and find beauty in the mundane that i think is a lot more meaningful and makes you enjoy the journey and the process of building because as we were saying before this actually it's such a privilege to do what we do and i'm definitely at a point now where i wake up every day and think wow i don't have to do this i get to do this and i'm so grateful even in those hard days of rejection of nose of sickness or whatever i'm so grateful for that all of this the um so did the how did the four pack go into wait yeah yes what's what's that like driving the rate of sale with a four pack in the other side of the store because again i know the hottest piece of real estate is the meal deal yeah but how what have been the challenge of that because people don't i wonder what the footfall is down that aisle versus let me tell you very small what i will tell you is that i was very nervous initially going into the back of store without a front of store listing our first major retailer and we've been blown away by our sales in there and i and i i'm we're all trying to still figure out why because they see have had kombucha for a while and yet without a front of store presence or any real estate in the store other than the back, we've performed really well.

1:34:40And I think it's a combination of bold, colourful branding, which pops on the shelf, so it attracts people over. Once they buy it, the taste is great. That drives repeat purchase. It's getting liquid on lips. It's the same old, same old in beverage. Get people trying it. When they realise they like it, they'll repurchase you. and then price that's got to be really important right so we had to be really mindful about what price we were going to recommend the retailer obviously it's up to them but working on that and then working backwards to make sure all our commercials stacked up was really important so a lot of things had to align but since we've launched you know we've done secondary space we've done samplings outside stores we've worked really hard on the listing we've got a great buyer lots of things are working out for us what have you been doing outside of london to drive the race out yeah actually when we launched i convinced my mum to come on another kombucha journey with me and we drove around about 10 waitrose stores in the south and it was just buying product giving it to the manager there giving them a big hello so nice to meet you this is one of the greatest days of my life seeing this product in store um really some of our best-selling stores are outside of london brighton amazing store for us jersey a great a great store for us so i think it's you know building your online presence making sure people are trying the liquid and then we're kind of building again off that kombucha gut health category so when they see us in store they want to pick us up tell me about the gut health retreat which is out for my curiosity yeah i suppose that's kind of why i've got podcasts because there's no bound there's no boundaries with my curiosity um yeah so two weekends ago now I was away two weekends ago I was away on a gut health retreat um it's a nutritionist that I've known through doing kombucha and prebiotic soda called Clarissa Lenner amazing Harley Street nutritionist specializing gut health and about six months ago I saw she was running a retreat and just said you know would love to come with my mum and by the way do you want some kombucha I can even teach a workshop for you so we went yeah a couple of weekends ago all the food was designed around good gut health and it was following a low FODMAP diet if you know anything about that what sort of stuff should I be eating then um I think you just want to I am not a nutritionist so you should definitely research this but it's avoiding things like alliums um so like onions garlic anything that can be triggering for an inflamed digestion or digestive tract um so it's low fodmap really simple foods that aren't going to trigger any inflammation in the gut these foods are good but not if you struggle with things like ibs or any digestive health problems so lots of fresh air there was a sauna there was lots of yoga we had a sound bath one night we had a cacao with a sound bath what's that it's essentially a you can think of it like a sonic massage it's where you compared it to a sonic massage i'm thinking what is a sonic massage yeah you're again we're probably going to get a bit woo-woo but we're all made up of different vibrations different things or different frequencies you'll notice how you feel when you listen to classical music whereas when you listen to Slipknot for example and sound has a way it can reverberate within the system and almost put you in a state of rest and peace in a liminal state almost where you're not asleep but you're not awake and it's always on you know liminal on the borders liminal places where change often happens so when it's the same in yoga nidra which is sleep yoga yeah so your body goes into a state of such deep relaxation where it's not asleep but it's not awake and you're in this liminal state of being and it's where your subconscious really rests so it's deep deep rest for the body um you know some people might just like a snooze to music and call it a sound bath, but there are different vibrations of different instruments, you know, like a gong.