#65 - Luke Byrne - THIS [Innovation & Sustainability Director]

0:28Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to Young Founders. mysterious nature, working at Unilever and developing things like the crackable Magnum ice cream. There's so much in this and it was really nice to kind of have a different perspective rather than always be in sales and marketing, actually understanding the product side because ultimately that's what we're selling. We're selling products, food and drink. Luke is super charismatic. He's really, really passionate and I think you're going to love this one. So without further ado, let's get on with the episode. Are you a founder of the next exciting food and drink brand are you looking to scale and grow well let me introduce you to mission kitchen london's home food and drink entrepreneurs and sponsor of the unfounders mission kitchen gives you the equipment support and community to take your business to the next level with flexible access to commercial kitchens expert mentorship on site and a network of hundreds of like-minded founders this could be exactly what your business needs to level up if you want to find out more why not book a tour today at missionkitchen.org forward slash unfounders

1:32hello and welcome back to founders today i'm joined by the wonderful luke byrne so luke can you please tell everyone where you work and what your role is there amazing thanks for having us here mit um yeah so i'm luke byrne i'm the innovation and sustainability director at this and this is a plant-based meat brand but also working into more the veg lead and the whole food area as well and so my at this basically i look after when i say innovation i look after the product development but also now the product marketing side of things so everything product but also on top of that i look after the engineering the technology side and also the science and academic side so bringing through from the core principles of science right through the product development for launching on market amazing and for anyone who has been living under a rock and has never heard of this how would you kind of describe the brand what are some things you guys are known for and how did you even discover the brand and go that's where i want to work yeah i absolutely love the brand i would say there's a new thing we're starting to think about but it was always seen as edgy and cool up and coming you know and doesn't hold back and tries to be playful and tries to be you know a bit outspoken as well at times on things and they sort of said you know you've got superman you've got batman superman is clean well-dressed you know always the really good guy and sort of has a heel around and batman is sort of like that underground darker side doing it for the good but also maybe bends the corners a little bit and has that sort of coolness and energy to it and that's sort of what we see this as uh which yeah we're we're traditionally in the plant-based meat area so mimicking uh meat but we also in the last few years we've been working in new areas to create new alternatives to mark for the market but also looking into the whole food and beds outside to bring our expertise and and knowledge to that area to expand as well yeah i'd love to dig into that because obviously i saw you just won an award from the grocers uh for one of these products i mean i i obviously worked at aura or hura um a few years ago and so this was always one of our like what we call partners and missions i've always loved the brand and what you guys have done and i think the the latest kind of transition to more of the veg led and the veg forward products it seems to be perfect timing and what people are looking for from a product development side like how different is the process to when you're saying trying to make a chicken versus going how do we make something that is from veg that has this texture and flavor and all of that i'd love to have a look into that section yeah no definitely so just to go to the very start our vision at this is to you know a world where animals aren't food and the environment is protected that's our mission and obviously traditionally we would have been in the meat alteratives were making a chicken chicken is like people think it's so far away when you're trying to mimic something that's seen as bad because you're trying to could potentially be fake could be you're trying to do something that already exists why it already has a negative connotation getting behind that it's very simple in terms of like how a plant-based meats made it you know a cow eats grass that's where the amino acids and proteins come through and it goes into their stomach turns it up heats it up unfolds the proteins and we then use those proteins in our intestine system goes through our blood and we build our muscles we basically do the same thing for plant-based meat that's made through taking those proteins those amino acids and putting them through a simple process that heats it up churns it and then aligns it so that it basically is aligned like a muscle and that's where you get the similar taste and texture so it's not all that alien to people when actually you get in the details really simple um so we've been doing that for quite a few years and we're getting so much traction we've been amazing and we're doing great things and that is really delivering our vision but then when we've been looking we've been like what is the next thing we've got the veg lead we've got whole food we've got tofu we've got tempeh but is there there was a lot of things coming up about ultra processed food you know being brought into that you know plant-based needs to nearly be that halo effect of being healthy being great for animal welfare being environmentally perfect also tasting good also being nutritious it's got like every it has to have everything and you're not allowed to lose on one of them um which is really difficult so as we've went into that age and as you know maybe there's been some lobbying from the other side to push that forward we've said what can we do from listening to consumers to understand what we can truly give them so we knew that maybe you know pure veg like a bean burger things like that it does something but it doesn't give the taste and texture necessarily at certain times um maybe for some people that does exactly what they do want meat alternatives maybe are too close to that ultra processed not sure what it is how do you get to that even though it's a simple process so we basically took all those together and we created a new product which is not doesn't exist in the market which was a bit crazy because how is that going to land and we created a we call it our superfood protein and basically that's taking protein but then creating a new technology to give a closer bite and texture of meatiness towards meat but the label is extremely clean so all it's made of is soy protein or pea protein and then you've got mushrooms you've got seeds you've got basic ingredients which are coming behind that which basically really elevates what people want and then it gives them a new option of market that is clean but also has the taste side of it and that's what we've done in our uh superfoods which just won an award last week at the grocery, which was really exciting.

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7:37How, like from a like technical and actual physical standpoint, like how do you go, okay, we want to make this superfood block. Like what's the actual process of going, okay, we know soy protein is high in protein or pea protein is, and we want nutrition from here. Like what's your kind of like rough process in terms of going, okay, let's get in the kitchen. Let's combine some stuff. Let's smash it together. and here we go like it's obviously gonna be a lot more methodical than that but um yeah i'd love to kind of get into the weeds of that because i i personally think it's fascinating like the i know the plant-based meat side it's a fairly simple process but it's also very complicated um at the scheme the scheme of it and another thing i'll come back to is like your views on ultra processed food yeah it's one of those things that i'm like if i want a burger i just want a good burger but i don't want to be an animal at the end of the day but yeah let's let's get into the how you're making these like superfood products and your kind of process for that yeah so it it takes years of like work and dedication you know we've got that science team that understand the building blocks of protein amino acids and how how proteins actually work together so we've been building that science for years yeah and that's the same as what happens in every other it's the food science that's really really critical to create those building blocks and we basically understood about how do we make the right structure of texture with very simple ingredients and we created a new novel process to do that and so using those basic principles of science we then just used really simple ingredients that people recognize and brought those two together it took so long in terms of development and like so many things went wrong and also in that moment um i obviously own product but obviously you're working with the founder andy who's amazing and he wants that dedication of exactly what he sees and envisages and what he wants and you need to work between that at the same time to understand how to make it feasible to produce very simply but then also deliver something that is going to elevate the experience for the consumer so it's those few things but it's like the dedication to understanding the basic science and really applying that well in new ways.

9:41I love that I think it's great to see the range expand and to anyone listening oh i haven't seen these products like what are the the actual products you're you've created now and where can people find them yeah for those superfoods they are it was one of our best ever launches we put this proposition to all the retailers and tesco sainsbury's waitrose everybody and they said they said it's clean label the nutrition's amazing and it tastes great and they were like wow so i think five retailers lost it in one window which is the most ever i think it was nearly 2 ,000 distribution points, which was like amazing.

10:13So we've got these products in all retail. We're in some food service as well, breaks and bid food and things like that, and then some restaurant groups as well. But mainly we're dedicated into retail. Amazing. What of the products themselves, obviously you've got the block itself. What are the other products? Because I've seen some even more recent ones, which I haven't yet tried. Yeah, the more recent ones that we're moving into, we've done a lot of meat alternatives, but I'm ready to eat because we were traditionally in the chilled area, like center of plate things. so we've done some snacking products which is really growing at the minute and in the whole food in the veg side we've created the soup food protein which basically has it's got a block it's got marinated pieces and it's got breaded pieces which give different options and then on the veg side which is bringing similar technology but really heroing and doing the success of veg we've launched our super veg bites which are now in the frozen and they're absolutely delicious but with more of a nut it doesn't need to be taste and have the structure of more meat lag but it more heroes the veg and gives really high protein but in a different way no brilliant um and yeah regarding the the processed food side as i touched on like for me it always angers me that over the last year or two the the notion is kind of if it's plant-based meat it's ultra processed ultra processed is bad and that's not always the case like ultimately if i want a burger i don't really care what it's gone through like if you're buying a sausage and you want a fry up in the uk whether that's meat or plant-based you just want a fry up like no one's going oh actually what's in my sausage like it's it feels like plant-based in particular gets judged on every single criteria like it has to be higher protein it has to be lower fat it has to be this that and oh no now it's too processed so what's your view on this whole labeling of so much food is now ultra processed and and what that means yeah i think more understanding for consumers is a good thing But a lot has happened in the last few years where too much narrative has come in, which then is trying to alienate some decisions and push a narrative in too much direction, even then confuse people.

12:13So from an ultra-posis perspective, of course, most of it is processed. And as you say, the health halo of plant-based has been brought into it because there's a lot of ingredients that you need to use, specific functional ingredients to make something look like a burger or look like a sausage. and that's natural but what is not being looked at is the is that's the nutrition side of it and how nutritious those products are like if you look at it from a fiber perspective like fiber is going to be our new superhero and i think it's 90 of the population is has a as a low fiber intake and these products are something that can be actually a success we're we're looking at seeing if we can do some work with the uk heart logo who are really looking at cholesterol and benefits for that and partner with them to showcase to counteract this to showcase the benefits of plant-based food and how actually they're really healthy and and it's really against that ultra process side which goes in a different direction so it's about heroing the success of the benefits rather than looking at okay it's ultra process but that's not necessarily meaning that's a bad thing um and i think for us as a business what we've tried to do is we've like you said having a burger people go want to be indulgent and but don't want to have the environmental or the animal impact.

13:25So why would I go and recreate a new burger that is of very simple ingredients, but doesn't have the same taste and texture and doesn't deliver that want and need? So we are obviously going to try and look at that. We're already doing it. Look at that core area, but actually let it sit as it is and let's see it as that success of what it's done and then create new areas that those consumers that are worried, create new areas of the whole foods, the veg net, you know the tofu is the tempest where people can find that in different ways and also elevate them to give better taste and texture as well to give new moments so it's not about reinventing it it's about heroing that part and then for the people who are worried about that or who do want different choices give them different options because then that's how we pull the whole category forward not about trying to change what we've already done it's about adapting and moving forward and progress and everything forward no absolutely agree and i mean everyone loves beans nowadays and i love butter beans and things but there's no way i'm slapping a tin of butter beans in a bun and saying that's my burger for the evening like if i want a burger like give me a good plant-based burger like that's my view and i do think that the whole food section will come even further you know with how can we hero beans and increase that taste and texture even more i'm telling you in the next few years we're going to be all over that i you're going to be the first person to try in terms of a bean burger that is wow yeah i'm i'm i'm in i give give me a send them my way now i'd love to dig back into your background because obviously you're clearly very passionate clearly very intelligent and switched on in this area but where has this passion and drive come from like growing up i can't imagine you're ever like i'm gonna be making plant-based meat so what did you want to do when you were growing up and what was your education and journey to where you are today yeah so i'm from ireland grew up in ireland little small country town by the sea from one behind in actually northern ireland um and didn't have much growing up to be honest like my family was my mom was the brain winner so my dad had some mental health problems so he basically was the house husband and that's what i knew as a kid and i think seeing that figure of my mom like being the driver and then realizing that that wasn't normal sort of made me think differently a lot about life and how how i moved forward and i think on top of that i was always the kid that was like inquisitive so i remember i was always asking what's that why why and even like you know we're driving to your granny's or whatever and i'm like what what's that why is that outside my brother going why is he asking so many questions and my mom was like because he's inquisitive you know adam is my brother and i think that's what always driven me i was always curious about the world and curious about like how things work and then you know my career took me in different directions i think the big thing that moved me towards this area of like more environment and my welfare was unilever because they have the most amazing ambition of when i joined in 2010 was you know it was halving the world halving your your footprint and enlivening the livelihoods of a million people so like that really stood with me in terms of how they did it you can create products but you can help people as well and that then over time really sat with me and I created the first uh uh we worked with Ellen MacArthur Foundation to create the first circular economy project within Unilever and I was so lucky to give them that project and that like stayed with me and drove with me and then I just moved into the area of trying to be within the sustainability area which is what drives me amazing so with Unilever then like how did you get the opportunity what did you study university were you like i know actually i want to be creating things i want to be looking into this like what was your kind of view into going actually this is where i think i'm going to be most passionate and yeah it was a bit of a quirky one so i absolutely loved history and politics at school then i went honestly i went straight into i went straight to belfast lived with my mates didn't even go to halls it was just like i'll do that history and politics at belfast queen's university and then after three months i was like what am i doing with my life I do not want to do this that I do not see a job coming out of this so within three months I had chemistry and maths anyway so I went and I said what am I going to do I didn't have chemistry at A level yes level but I looked and I saw this chemical engineering sort of degree that's starting to become more popular and I was like I want to do that that looks really cool you get job out of it you've got some purpose behind you I was like that's what I want to do so I changed over with it I finished the year because I always want to finish things and even though I could have just dropped out but i finished the year history and politics then moved over to chemical engineering and yeah i actually when i met the head of school he said look you don't have a level chemistry so i can't put you on the master's program and i said i bet you if i get over 80 percent in that first year if i do that you're going to put me into the master's course and i said right so we shook on it there and then i got like 84 and he moved me into the math and it set me up for life because in that like master's you got a you got a like a sandwich year a year in industry and i got into unilever with that and then from that i'll get into their pro their graduate program and it set me up for life in terms of seeing things differently moving around the business and supply chain r &d marketing i did all within my first two years at unilever and that sort of like drove me forward and the ethos of that business at that time was like amazing that sort of drove me in terms of what i was doing within unilever like i've had a few guests over the year or so that i've been doing this and a few who have been in like the unilever route some of the the standout parts that they've said is like the the ability to kind of push you put you in different departments put you in different leadership moments like for you what were some of like the key lessons and learnings like during your time there because you were there for quite a few years yeah it was over seven years yeah it was amazing so my first like i was a global process engineer first so i was actually given the job to create magnum's new newest innovation and this was just thrown on me put into pilot plant ice cream factories and I had to invent this new line and I basically created this new line I got two patents for it it was the magnum pints where you have the cracking the chocolate on the outside you crack it it's like a very experiential market was how do you create a magnum that is that cracking moment in a pint and so yeah I invented that and that actually went on to you see the highs of it where you're at the center of it but then you see that that goes on to make the business three or four hundred million turn that magnum brand into two billion and you get a penny for your literally a penny for the weird patent that you've created um but it showed you the expanse of what you can actually do as a person and it gave me i then moved to italy for two years and then ice cream factory and with cornetto and ben and jerry's and created more processes and that really drove me and i understood the science how you create food and how those two worked really hand in hand and then I moved into more the management side of R &D and innovation and product development and from there then that drove me into.

20:29So it must have been quite a swap from a huge company like Unilever with 1 ,000 employees to this like when you joined this how big was the team and how big is the team now? Yeah so the team when I joined was I think it's six people so i was number seven number eight uh at the business uh that was back in 2020 july 2020 as it started in 2019 and it was just pete mandy doing the r &d or innovation or product stuff so i joined as head of innovation first person in product or development or anything and yeah they basically give me a task of in july i want 10 people in your team by the end of the year i was like jesus christ what have i gotten myself into here but honestly i've had the best five and half years of my life at this business.

21:13Adley and Pete, you know, Adley's very expo-kid. Some people, you know, marmite at times. He's a lovely human at heart and he's a really good person and he had a really good eye for marketing and for development as well. So he's great to help shape me in those early days of a startup and what's important at that moment. Pete was an absolute machine. He's the guy that is the unsung hero in the, of course, in Hero. He's amazing. He's an engineer. He's in the background. He did a lot of the financial side and a lot of the groundwork, whereas Andy's more the face of the business. He really helped me, and it was me and him together basically built a lot of the infrastructure that we have.

21:53But myself, I just developed that whole team. I brought with me from Unilever, such a big business, about how they had these massive departments, like 1 ,000 people in research, 1 ,000 people in design, and 1 ,000 people in the last 60s of product development. And I basically brought that concept to this. So I brought in scientists with PhDs. I brought in engineers and I brought in product developers and people from different backgrounds, not just food, like from GSK, from, you know, Unilever and things like this to then help us have this holistic approach of big blue chip, but also people who were ready for the next step that hadn't been given it.

22:27So they were like, really, really wanted to make that win. I built a team of, it was up to about 17, 18, we're about 14, 15, 14 people now. And that is across scientists, engineers, developers. and now I've taken over the product marketing side, which helps me to look after most of the product side as well in terms of the marketing side. And yeah, it's just continued to expand and get better and you just need to keep learning and keep moving forward. Brilliant. Yeah, I imagine like obviously through that time you would have been through COVID as well. So that must have been an interesting period and it was a very strange time for the plant-based world, but it was also at that cusp of the boom.

23:04Like I remember when I joined Aeora in 2021, it was that real like plant-based was just unstoppable like it just became absolutely madness and we'd see Andy at most events and yeah it was just so much fun but I think it's it's amazing to see like where we are now and how as we've already touched on like perceptions are changing the product offering and everything you're doing is changing for you what have been some of your favorite projects or things that you've worked on during your time at this good question um honestly every day is so different and that's the best thing it's like gives you so much energy sometimes anxiety but you need to deal with that and i can talk about that as well how i deal with that but the most exciting thing is building that team seeing them care seeing them grow develop them then letting them take over those projects and deliver them i think my my favorite products that we've developed we created you know thigh which i don't know if you know we have this thigh product in market and it was you know nobody had ever done that before how do you create a dark meat technology that has succulents juiciness but also the bite and we invented a like a skin as well chicken skin and that was a product that we actually 3d molded that we created it we took it from a different machine from a different world and brought it to ours and said how can we make this so realistic that we get it to that level where people are like this is exactly the right innovation for us and that became like a million pound skew within like you know eight months it was amazing and superfood has been super interesting because it's the first time where And this is what we need to, as a plant-based category, get behind as well.

24:39You know, traditionally, we've leaned on already having the brief of a burger or a sausage or what it tastes like. You don't need to create that. But now as we're going into what's the next experiences that consumers want, how do you create that brief of, you know, a superfood? And how do you really get into the consumer's mindset and deliver what they want? I do feel we've maybe on the superfood, it's been quite challenging because the product's amazing and it's really good, but people don't know what to do with it or they don't know what it is. And it's like it's nearly dagger to your heart because people taste it and they're like amazing, but people walk past that area of the store and it's how do you draw the attention?

25:18And we'll learn from that. And maybe it works and maybe one product fails, but we will learn from that how to bring in consumer and what's right to them. we've answered all the questions in the product that's what they wanted but actually how do you tell them what it is and that's our next step as well so yeah i think that's the exciting bit about always learning always trying to like i just want this category to do well i want all of us to do well if i can try and help find ways then other people can also take that in and we can all go together to like move forward so yeah that's what i love brilliant no i love that i totally agree and I think it's it really is like the the category needs to be working together still it's yeah it was always my view of like even if we're not the brand that's on the shelf as long as there's a great version of that like if I'm going and I want a vegan chicken and there's an option for me and it delivers great the issue became back in the day like a few years ago was just all the unlabel stuff came in all the really cheaply made like rushed r &d came on just to kind of tick that need a lower price point and then consumers would try it and then go this is awful like vegan chicken sucks and then they'd leave the category and that was it it was game over so i think there was a need for consolidation just of the good stuff and i think what you're seeing now with the ranges and the propositions is there's very clear brands like this like a few others in the space kind of very much like okay they're known for doing this part within the sector yeah so i think yeah it's testament to what you guys are doing and i love the the move with the the superfoods and everything so i'm excited to see what else is to come i know christmas is around the corner and i just spotted a new christmas launch so um yeah i'd love to touch on that one yeah we've got a christmas uh not roast which we're really excited about it's not traditionally how we do things so very much we've uh had lots of disagreements what should it taste like what should it be and i've had to i wanted more time on it to make it like even more amazing you know it was an opportunity where it was an exclusive with tesco's they wanted us to do it we said okay let's do it and we didn't have a tight we didn't have a lot of time we had like 12 weeks to turn this around so the prop but the product the guys have done an amazing job it's really good so it's once it's gone it's gone basically it's it's a selling for three or four weeks but i bet it's going to do really well like it's that more a whole food it's that more natural people are used to the consumer perspective on that is really clear and easy so i think it's going to be aware so it's really exciting yeah no brilliant yeah i saw and i was like that looks like a centerpiece for us this christmas yeah when i had my mitch's kitchen brand i used to have a i called it a lentil loaf because it was like a nut free nut roast yeah and i was like how can i create that thing which is like the taste the texture that all that kind of like goodness you want that is nut free and it had like loads of seeds and mushrooms and chestnuts and loads of things in there and i saw it and i was like oh this looks great so um yeah i'm excited for that and i'll be i'll be grabbing mine along with my packed veg of course happy days no that sounds good good christmas day sorted then and now this has all been very exciting uplifting and positive i'd love to touch on some tough days at the office i know obviously just before we hit record you mentioned one which was this week or last week but yeah there must have been a few in your time there's been a few yeah um yeah we had a product recall last couple of weeks ago and it's just like that moment where you know it's simple things go wrong you know where somebody's put a wrong label on something and then you get a couple of market but you don't know how many's happened and it's a risk to consumer it's an allergen risk so i delete that internally which is so stressful because you need to move fast you need to make the right decisions about the brand as well in terms of and what's going to happen to the brand but the first thing is consumer and consumer risk so moving fast understanding what's going on understanding what's what's affected talking to the local authority and getting all that together it's really stressful and as a small brand everybody's in it and everybody's together but that makes it like even more intense because you don't have all the solutions all the time because there's no expert in that like we have in bigger business very much so it was our first one that uh we've had to be honest around time to deal with and it was really challenging but we moved really quickly we had everything like off the shelf within a couple of days the retailers completely understood it there's no questions disaster and yeah we're back in stock and we're we're in a good place but those are the days that you're like how do we get this right how do we get make sure this doesn't happen again because number one the consumer risk is there and number two you know that's not what we want to see and not what we want to do so that's one recently i think another one which is a tough day i think it was back at the very start with this or um i joined the business we had our chicken and bacon we'd no other products really i was to pete and andy i was like i think we should do you know bacon a burger sausage mints things like that and they were very much like no we need to do these niche areas uh because that's what works for bacon working with founders like they're amazing and they're pete so they ended up in my first six months our three first four products were bacon lardons which makes sense because we were big in bacon i really eat cocktail sausages and then two chicken skewers were our chicken with peppers and onions skewered on a stick possible to make but we had to go ahead because we needed to do that very much founder led you need to go towards that the product was amazing there was a barbecue chicken there's a lion and herb and they actually the reviews were great in the end but we were working with a new we had to set up a new partner nobody knew how to make this there was no machinery to do it it's all by hand we found this partner because it was, as you said, in that growth where even like everybody wanted part of it.

30:53So they're like, yeah, we can do this. They give us a space up in bloody Lancashire. So, and it was just me and Pete. And basically it was right to the deadline where we had to deliver the stock on the Saturday to Tesco, like 4 ,000 cases or something. And first production was on the Friday morning at like eight o 'clock. So me and Pete drove up, like started off at 3.30 in the morning, arrived there, the team weren't briefed. We had 20 people looking at us, a package machine, and a load of diced onions, a load of diced peppers, and a load of chicken tumbling in our thing. We had to get people to skewer it.

31:25We found out it was taking so long to do the skewers. We needed one skewer to be done in 30 seconds. It was taking a minute and a half. We weren't going to make the orders. It was an absolute nightmare. Shelf life still was a worry, all of this here. We built it. We literally worked Friday morning, 4 a.m., 3.30 a.m. we left. we worked through the night until day am still no sleep no anything barely any food pushing we were basically the production managers on the line and with obviously the help of the the team there and we got the product to tesco's it was felt amazing but then we drove back home around back in london in london about 10 o 'clock about to fall fall asleep like um and it was rewarding but then as the weeks went by it just bam bam bam we weren't able to make the orders you were you You were out of stock.

32:14The packs were blowing because it was a fresh product. We'd never done a fresh product before. The margin was minus 40-something percent. We lost about£300 ,000 for the business of it that summer. And it was just like, it was horrible inside because you had so much excitement about this was new in this area. We were learning, we were doing, the product was actually good. But everything around, it didn't work. And those moments are really tough, but you learn so much. and you learn about you need to start to build and that's where then we start to build out more we started to get more efficient effective and i learned some more and we went in by september we were doing burger sausage and and mince and our burger our sausage became number one on market in terms of like taste and texture and we because we did the basics and did the right things first rather than trying to go into different things and get that basics right but those were tough days and really tough but at the same time they were so much fun i wouldn't get them up like but it was the stress as well because i was taking it on myself a lot and that really had an effect on me but that also released me to say you've got to use this team more because they were amazing young and ready to go and yeah that enabled me to like really empower trusted that get teams to work more on that stuff and drive forward and then look where you have eyes so great yeah love that yeah i think those those tough moments i think anyone in the challenger brand's been there in those days of like right we just need to muck in and do this it might be through the night yeah la famage was packing the waitress christmas orders this time last year because we had to manually put two stickers on every box put the paper in put the cheeses in it was like we've got like three thousand needs to make and we've got an hour to do it like go and it's like yeah so yeah stressful but like gets it going it's like so good but it is tough at times whenever you hit those little moments yeah is that that pure pandemonium that you can only really find in startups i can't really see that happening at somewhere like you either well you didn't leave where you make an impact, they've got the patents and stuff like that, and you see that you're making it, but it doesn't feel as personal because you're not at that front end.

34:13You don't see the risk. You're not presented with that challenge of it's you. It's nobody else. Yeah, that's the big difference between those two. You can see you launch a product for Unilever on shelf, but it doesn't mean as much. It means so much more in a startup. I don't know if this, that's the difference, and that is what life's about. It's about those core moments that make you alive even for me anyway and that's yeah brilliant final few questions just because i am wary of time from your side obviously you you're mentioning obviously there's a lot more to come with beans and all these kind of things i don't know if you can tease anything regarding like things to look out for have you got any big releases coming for january with like the whole veganuary side or next summery have we got something that's like oh yeah barbecues keep that in mind or is it like just swatches space it's sort of tight-lipped but i can say that very much we're going to um into that veg area veg lead because veg lead doesn't have high protein that's the thing we need options that deliver on that high protein for the the category need as well as the taste and texture which we believe we can really help them deliver amazing products so that's an area we're definitely going to bring into it we are focusing on ready to eat so we've got some really good launches coming up in april and then we've won a really special launch in april as well which is slightly beefy but very good so exciting yeah we're really excited for that stuff brilliant well i would definitely be looking out for it and coming to try it uh final kind of like slight curveball of a question i'd love to know like if there's any brands or products in the market that you you personally either consume or have tried you go this is absolutely genius i wish i was involved in that is there any brands or products that stand out in food and drink you're like i absolutely love this thing or this brand oh that's a bloody question like new brands it could be new old just something when i'm just trying to think for me is there certain like sometimes it's like a chili oil or something i try and i'm like oh my god this is incredible like how do you make something taste this good like i wish i made that um like you have those kind of moments um or you just see a brand who are absolutely flying and oh they're doing really cool stuff the one brand that i see absolutely flying now is surreal and it's like simplicity and picking your target market and going after that in such an incredible way obviously the they've raised a bit of money and they're backing it in that way i just think that area is something that is really popping at the minute and i think they've done a really good job so um yeah i think that's one that i think is to watch out for because they're going to do really good things yeah no agreed their marketing's on point as well very kind of similar to how this were doing all their controversial stuff and just playful i think they've just absolutely nailed their tone of voice their language and the the new refresh just kind of makes it pop even more so simple you know i just love that about don't change the whole world just refresh it and make it more you know relevant to the to the consumers and their targeting is unbelievable like so yeah i think they're going to be on the good growth for the next couple years to be honest so quite exciting amazing this is the music question is there one track or a particular song that comes to mind if you think of your working career maybe during that 3.30 till 6am day of just like a song on repeat or yeah what's what's your go-to song you're gonna ask this because I'd see a new you asked this in in other episodes so I was thinking here and it's definitely Gloria Gaynor I Will Survive because also that's about passion as well and love but also it's about getting through things so that's the one for me yeah and it's a banger yeah you can you can imagine slightly delirious at 4am singing that at the top of your voice my kayak you go to i'm terrible at kayaking but that's the only one i know that honestly i don't know the lyrics my wife goes goes at me because she laughs so much because i don't know the words to any songs even though i listen to music religiously i'm just terrible at remembering songs apart from glory again i will survive i'm absolute champion future christmas parties incoming exactly yeah amazing no it's been super super interesting i mean i could try and speak to you for hours about this because i absolutely love it but thank you for sharing so openly and so much as you can and it's been brilliant to get to know all that side if anyone wants to get hold of you or find out more about the products or go and try them where's the best place to contact you or like linkedin or even just email it's look at this.co so that as well so all good amazing yeah i'll tag you in the show notes and um put that all in there as well as a glory later add it to the playlist uh no this is brilliant really really enjoyed it thank you so much okay thanks bud and to everyone listening thank you so much we will see you on the next episode goodbye