#83 - Louis Bedwell - FMCG Industry Advisor

0:00Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to your founders. Today, I'm joined by my good friend, Louis Bedwell. And we're digging into his 10 plus years experience working across a number of sectors within this industry. Whether that's the early innovation platforms working with major retailers bringing the newest, most exciting brands to them. Whether it's backing early stage founders at Mission Ventures, helping brands grow. Whether it is actually working with top level brands on their sustainability and their health strategy, the membership community is building food and so much more. I always learn something from Louis.

0:30He has great knowledge on all things to do with trends, insights and actually helping retailers, brands and investors make better decisions around foods. There is loads in this. It's a bit of a different take to our standard format but Louis is a great guy. He's super knowledgeable. Sign up to his newsletter and without further ado let's get on with the episode. We all know that brand is important right but what if I told you it can impact growth and customer acquisition costs by up to 50 percent. Again Against Ordinary are a brand agency who help founders, marketing departments, scaling teams ensure their brand is the most powerful tool for growth.

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1:32hello and welcome back to young founders today i'm joined by my good friend louis bedwell i always joke that i don't actually know what louis does for work so for the listeners at home you get to enjoy understanding what it is he does so louis welcome to the show and let everyone know what you

1:46Louis Bedwell:actually do i i don't think my mom knows what i do for work you know or my wife so thank you for having me. I've spent the last decade or so working in all areas of the food industry, whether that's been running big innovation programs for some of the major retailers, investing in early stage brands and supporting those founders through investment programs, or most recently, leading a membership community focused on climate and health strategy. I've kind of summarized my job across all of those of helping brands and retailers and investors make better decisions about food is that good enough is that helpful yeah that's uh that's very helpful i'll just whenever my wife's like what does he do again i'll be like actually listen to this um perfect i've got my soundbite now but no i think for from my side i've always seen on linkedin you sharing thoughts around you like the industry what's going on around trends news all sorts from from your experience then like what is it about everything going on in the industry that you're so passionate about like why why do things like glp1 matter why do things like animal welfare like the things that you talk to and almost hold brands responsible for what is it within you that you're like i need to do this i mean responsibility i think is a good word maybe come come back to that but you know the food industry for all of its flaws and all of the things people criticize about it unbelievably capable you know feeds 60 plus 67 million people in the uk every day and the infrastructure that sits around that, the supply chain, the logistics, the talent, it's genuinely incredible.

3:17Louis Bedwell:Therefore, I think we should all think of it as something very important. But with that capability becomes or comes a huge amount of power and responsibility. And I think a lot of the time within the industry that power isn't being used well enough. The big questions that we face keep getting parked in terms of this, in favor of this kind of short termism. And it's been very easy for that to happen over the past five or six years we've had the pandemic and inflation and the cost of living crisis and just around the corner you know there's another kind of huge economic shock that that that will be coming in in the next few weeks i think over the past decade when i've sat within those some of those rooms and with those teams in the food industry it's not through lack of thought or lack of intent it's that the system and the industry of which we work in is just hardwired to favor those short-term outcomes you know people's bonuses they've got targets based on a quarterly quarterly cycle but actually some of these challenges we're thinking about are much much longer term and i think they're getting to a point now whether if we don't take them seriously they're really going to kind of hit us like a brick wall um and i think writing about that or thinking about that or talking about that forces me to to take a position and see through some of that short-termism and think actually about the future of this industry the future of food the future of how we recruit people into these businesses is going in that direction therefore to still be resilient and competitive and have growth within your business not next month or within six months but maybe in five or ten years what are the things that you need to do now in order to to take that position in the future and i think you know that that's not anti-industry or being even kind of anti-sitilism or anti-commercial i think that the industry we have should be so proud of what it's capable of doing but it should just hold itself to a much higher standard than for the most part it does at the moment i think one one thing i like about how you position it or the way you comment on things is a lot of the time your your kind of thoughts and opinions are kind of like is this the right thing to do what can they do better and then you're not afraid to also celebrate like pepsi have acquired a big brand and it's a healthy bet for you thing like this is good or is this good like you there's ways you kind of work around it but the the kind of key difference and why i thought was interesting to talk to you is you then can speak to some of the key stakeholders or decision makers or the teams of sustainability within these companies who are huge rather than just kind of having an outside opinion that gets pushed down the line like you actually have that physical impact like how have you built yourself to this position where people go oh actually this this is a guy someone that we should probably speak to about our sustainability or about our welfare about these things what i mean i think it's that's something we probably have in common common ground is being curious about stuff asking lots of questions and they buy by large the food industry and you know just got to listen to a couple of episodes of your podcast to get this is very friendly people want to help each other you know everybody's doing the best they can within the confines or the rules of their role or their business and actually they want to learn about other ways of doing things about other different perspectives from across the supply chain from the value chain.

6:26Louis Bedwell:I've been quite lucky to work, you know, whether that's in the very earliest stages of food startups, kind of all the way up into big businesses, into the boardrooms and kind of everywhere along that value chain. And I suppose the power of asking good questions and just saying, I don't understand that, tell me about it, goes a very long way. And if you can soak up all of that knowledge, it gives you the ability to kind of translate some of these big issues. You know, you can take what's happening with a startup and go and tell somebody, a CFO in a very big business about why it matters and why they should take it seriously.

6:55Louis Bedwell:And you can think about a price rise for that CFO, but actually go to a startup and say, okay, well, this is where your value is now. These are some of the problems that you can help these big businesses really solve and some of the things you should be thinking about within the next period of time. So I suppose, you know, just talking to people is the real kind of powerful thing there. And let's turn the clock right back because I think it will give a bit more color onto your experience and why you know so much about the industry and especially from challenge brands to big brands like when you were young growing up what were you like when i'm older this is what i want to do was there any particular passions or anything that you influenced from family or was it just a i think this is what i'm going to do and did you do it i can't well no i didn't do it but i stayed close when i was when i was really young i wanted to be a chef um you know really I suppose curious about food and its potential pulling things together my dad spent and still does now he's retired even more time far too much time my mom would say on his allotment kind of growing stuff and where does that come from and what do you do with it we didn't grow up in a very affluent kind of household so spending time doing things like that was kind of what we did so I always grew up kind of with my hands doing making kind of cooking eating things didn't didn't you know, obviously be a chef, had a love of kind of sport and played at quite a high level when I was young.

8:16Louis Bedwell:Thought I then wanted to be a primary school teacher. And my first job was being a teaching assistant, but actually didn't really want to do that either. So I got a first job in London, not knowing really what I wanted to do. And I was a community manager within a workspace. We had about 300 desks, about 150 businesses. And my role was to kind of go around this building, get to know all of the startups, their founders, their teams, figure out what their problems were, and then pull together a program to kind of help them fix some of that. And some of that was them coming together to talk about stuff.

8:47Louis Bedwell:Some of that was, you know, they're all raising money and they need some legal support. You know, they're all hiring teams, but they've never done that before. So get a HR consultant. And so my job was always kind of to curate some of the tools and the services that these businesses needed. But actually it kind of supercharged my network of investors and interesting people who, you know, their businesses didn't work out but they went on to do something else equally as interesting and and that was kind of my my first my first job one of the businesses that that was in there was an early kind of version of mission ventures it was then called grocery accelerator um and that kind of passion for food and new ideas was still very much there and they needed somebody to join their team and that's where i spent kind of the next eight or nine years after that i think that's when we properly started speaking whilst you were at mission ventures and it was like oh check this brand out or do that um this random field for ideas first i think you were judging a competition for entrepreneurs or something at that period and for for you what is it about the challenger brands or the that stage of business that excites you or you think is a nice place to spend your time and energy you know i think challenge brands if you take one step back just entrepreneurs in general they have real power to kind of reshape the way that we do things reshape products reshape categories.

10:03Louis Bedwell:But if you think about startups just in food, when they're good, when they're really, really good, they reframe a problem. They look at a category and they ask why everyone just accepts the way things are. I think an example of this at the moment might be baby food or infant feeding. I think it's going to be a real reckoning there where entrepreneurs are just looking at that category going, we want to feed our babies, our children, the best thing possible. Right now, the stuff on the market just doesn't meet those expectations it's not as good as we could make it or it should be or that we deserve to to give our children and within that is then you know a huge amount of of opportunity and the speed at which entrepreneurs and startups compared and i think this is changing but by and large compared to big corporates can bring stuff to market and make decisions i think is quite like addictive to to be around the way that you can you can switch that insight to something that's on the shelf in people's hands within a really short period of time.

10:58Louis Bedwell:I think one of the things that a lot of startups get wrong, and I think with food, you know, sadly, the barrier to entry is quite low. We all eat food every day. Therefore, we have lots of opinions and we think we can do it better. Therefore, this kind of actually being good within challenge brands, within food is quite a hard thing. And I think the founders that have done that best is when they can match that kind of energy and that want to do things better with real like commercial rigor like how are we going to make how are we going to make money how are we going to scale this how are we going to scale it beyond our kitchen table and you see so many brands and i think especially in the in the age of ai as things are growing that are a nice logo you know very pretty instagram probably talks about lots of them um but there's not a proper like robust bang your fist on the table plan to to make money so i think hugely exciting lots of power but at the same time you know got to direct that that power and energy in in the right way is there across your career and working with all these different challenger brands any examples of a brand you worked with say a few years ago or many years ago who have gone on just to have phenomenal success that you're like i remember this like this period of time whether that's i don't know someone like ollie's or i don't know ray snacks i know is one that we've kind of seen that kind of progression of their brand and what it looks like and i think their current branding is absolutely gorgeous i remember when i think you showed me like early mock-ups of what raise was doing i thought oh this is quite interesting yeah i mean chester at race who we work with with him at mission ventures on a program called thrive and that was about taking black owned businesses and kind of shortcutting supercharging those businesses chances of getting on on shelf at sainsbury's and and chester got into lots of sainsbury's stores you know just a smart guy wanted to listen had a brilliant product was kind of onto something but but had his head screwed on the right way kind of take advice from lots of places and and then make his own decision in in the middle you know probably another example of what i was talking about the guy the better nature then we met them during the pandemic that kind of protein alternatives plant-based meat sector was was not really as i suppose mature as it then became and these guys were coming out with a really clear kind of story about being cleaner better you know better for the environment more flexible you could use it in lots of different ways totally sure and also it's in the pandemics we don't know what consumers are going to do beyond that point in time how his behavior for consumers changing now but how might it change within 18 24 months time when things have kind of settled down a little bit but you just spoke to them as a team and you're like i don't know but they're going to figure it out you know chris he's he's gone on to be a billionaire doing whatever he's doing in in tech now but just like a total commercial animal you know could sell a vision seller story and and eleanor and the team you know deeply passionate about about what they were doing i think that's a really you know strong example of what i was talking about where they were just looking at a category and saying this isn't good enough and we think there's something really simple that could make it better but then they just have that kind of you know do or die kind of never take no for an answer attitude to to get it to market and then from the like the complete other side of the coin where you've been working with some top level brands or these kind of multi-conglomerates is there anything from working with those or speaking to people within those teams around their view of challenger brands or their view of the industry is there any different take you can get from that because it's like a lot of the big brands they already own the shelf space they've got their mpd pipelines they know what they're doing or they're just like oh i can buy this brand over here but i mean a great example of one that's come to mind from like post is like seeing Greg's actually saying, oh yeah, GLP One is not too much of a problem.

14:34Or like there's been these statements from ours or other brands who've just kind of said these sweeping statements of like, ah, yes, it's not that important. People will get over it.

14:42Louis Bedwell:Whereas in America, it's like literally changing the economy. So. Well, I think two things somewhat linked to that. You know, the one that the obvious one for startups is they're so much closer to their customer and to their consumer. Just before we started, your doorbell rings and someone sent you a bunch of samples. You're going to give them, And you're going to give a feedback straight to them about that. And they're going to take it into their mind and probably make changes to their products. That's the difference. Again, you can't just because your mom and your grandma says it's a good product, you can't believe them.

15:12Louis Bedwell:But if you can use that kind of proximity to your consumer in the right way, it's very, very powerful. And I think kind of building off from that is also authenticity and trust. And I think they will become table stakes and huge superpowers for businesses of any size, which is people don't trust institutions and governments and food businesses and kind of big businesses anymore. There's a huge amount of scrutiny on the food industry, old processed foods, you know, that debate is not going away and people are much more educated. But at the same time, misinformation online is ripe. You know, you ask the same question to three or four different people and they will give you three or four very detailed, equally kind of well thought through answers, but they can all be very different and all of them might be wrong.

15:55Louis Bedwell:So I think that the ability to have a product which is transparent, you understand what it is, where it came from, kind of who's behind it, and therefore trust is going to be very important. But to be able to do that in a way that doesn't feel kind of manufactured or contrived and be authentic, very obviously small businesses that are founder-fronted and have an entrepreneur who can tell their story in the right way have much more power and are going to win within that space. And I think as both AI, but also seeing a huge boom in kind of founder-led brands via LinkedIn, if those things come together, it becomes much easier to kind of play on a level, even alongside big, big brands and get noticed by the people that are important to grow your business, whether that be partners and manufacturers or retailers and investors.

16:41yeah no totally agree and i think and we touched on it at the start but you said let's come back to it but responsibility like it seems as challenger brands we're the ones coming in and saying i've got a great idea how i can fix this thing i can make this better for you i can make the packaging better and it's almost like the bigger companies are just sat at the top watching going okay where can we do it or what can we do but who do you think actually holds more responsibility because obviously the big brands they're serving millions and billions of people and the challenger brands are just trying to get in but they're showing there's a need for it i

17:11Louis Bedwell:think it's a good good question and i think one we could probably talk for hours on but i you know i don't think it's an either or i think when you think about reframing or kind of changing course for the food industry is a combination of all of those things what we actually need to do is do things in a very different way but we can't even know where we've come from or what we've currently got and that's a very kind of as i said powerful finely tuned highly optimized food food industry food system with food businesses in it but actually mainly now need to do things in a different way and some of that's about partnering some of that's about acquiring some of that's about talent going to work for these businesses some of that's about kind of absorbing and internalizing those new ways of working and new ways of doing things but kind of standing on opposite sides of the dance floor and wondering who's going to kind of move first that's probably not the way of doing it actually there needs to be a lot more kind of coming together and a lot of these challenges we're talking about you know they're almost what we might describe as kind of pre-competitive you know there's not a winner in in them actually the way that you win is by everybody doing it you know it's a rising rising tide so there's huge spent the last couple of years on bringing all sorts of people together whether that be a small tenant farmer and you know board level a big retailer and manufacturers and startups and everybody in between to just say actually what what are we going to do about this and in all cases there's something to be learned from everybody.

18:34What about the input from the retailers themselves? Because obviously, you've been involved, as you said, with like Thrive and what Sainte-Bus have done in that side. There's lots of these accelerator schemes and apiaries and whatever they're called nowadays, where retailers are backing challenger brands. But is there anything more that retailers can be doing to support challenger brands? Or do you think actually the balance is actually pretty good given what the average consumer actually is looking for?

18:57Louis Bedwell:I mean, I think you think about the progress in the last 10 years so one of the first things i did at grocery accelerator as it was called down was run something called the discovery shop this was before all of these kind of supermarket programs and that was ocado had figured out that they wanted products that you couldn't buy anywhere else within every consumer's basket and my job was to go out there find every interesting brand you possibly could kind of consolidate it pitch it to ocado and then i'd be that single point of contact so it was ocado wanted new but they probably realized that there was a massive knowledge gap between where they were and the startups and understanding how they could trade the platform and actually for the value they would get back in terms of sales at their size and they would spend a huge amount of time so our job was to sit in the middle and kind of smooth out each side of that deal we kind of put that together in a really kind of quite scrappy and very almost unprofessional at times way i think they've now seen people knock it out of the park with the different programs i think tesco's is is the one that's really kind of making moves and they've got it i think between taking interesting on-trend kind of growth areas a volume of brands which i think is always challenging how do you do this at scale you know 20 plus brands at a time and brands that go from ones that probably do a couple of million already down to ones that are very new and i think that's that's you know that's a really smart strategy so i think it's come come a long way i think you know two things spring to mind when you're asking that question is that it's always changing.

20:24Louis Bedwell:The best design programs, they've got to have some element of flexibility and agility within that. The pressures of which the food industry under are fast and they will probably hit the smaller suppliers either harder or faster than it will the big ones. The big ones are much more resilient. They've got more money. They've got more people, more diversification within their supply chain, but the small businesses are going to get hit really hard. So how can retailers support that? And that's both with knowledge and just picking up the phone and being there to support, but also things like payment terms and how, you know, making sure that money is flowing in the right direction.

21:00Louis Bedwell:And then the second one is then about scale. Like, how do you make sure you're doing enough of it all of the time and helping brands that are within these kind of like greenhouse areas where they're kind of growing, that they don't suddenly then just kind of fall flat on their face when they're left to stand on their own two feet? But what's that kind of transition period? I think that, you know, two things that spring to mind. Yeah, there's definitely been some brands in the last year who have unfortunately been on the tail end of that period where it hasn't come through or a listing hasn't materialized at the end of it and they're no longer around, which is a real shame given all the time, money, effort, resource, energy going into building these brands.

21:36But ultimately, I mean, you probably know the percentages, but so many businesses will fail. So many products that you may buy one day may not exist another day for a multitude of reasons. And especially right now with rising costs and here, there and everywhere, you're being hit with new taxes or new concerns. I think it is a very tough period and tough climate to win in. But there's also the opportunity. Is there any particular kind of trends that you think right now you're going to see growing over the next 12 months, 24 months that you're like, yeah, this is an area that seems to just be absolutely booming right now?

22:08Louis Bedwell:Well, I mean, protein is the obvious one. I'd like to think we're at peak protein, but I don't think we are. I think that we'll kind of evolve into moving away from protein and everything to actually thinking about where it comes from, kind of the quality, what you do with it, how often you eat it, you know, the impact that it's having on you as a person and kind of the planet and the land and et cetera around you. So I still think that's a growth area. I think protein will follow that thereafter. But then I come back to, you know, I was talking about it earlier, trust and authenticity. I think that's twofold.

22:42Louis Bedwell:So it's in terms of like a product. Actually, what's in your product? Where does it come from? Is it saying what it's doing? Is it telling the truth? We've seen some of this with M &S and their simple ingredient ranges. They've got it right in some cases. They've got it really wrong. They've been called out on it in others. And then authenticity, and I think that's in terms of a business. We've seen Waitrose most recently, they've taken macro off their shelves because it's being overfished and there's kind of damaging kind of issues related to that. And businesses talk about having principles, but I think the principles, they're not principles until they cost you money.

23:18Louis Bedwell:And to take a product off a shelf, that's going to cost them money. So I think there's two trends there that kind of link back into everything, which is, okay, well, if you're being authentic and trustworthy, then you're doing the best for your consumer. So we're probably going to see a shift back to kind of, I would hope, whole foods, fruits and vegetables. How do we make them cool? I think bold bean have led that space. But what is the bold bean mark to? What's the ingredient or the product that that's going to kind of go after? you know you'll laugh when i say this but i think frozen will probably play a big role within that you know i don't think that's going to be the next year i think the transition to get a lot of people eating frozen is going to be over like a three five if not longer year year period you know you've got big brands like bird's eye you've got you guys kind of coming up with the insurgents doing things in a different way but you've also got huge space and opportunity there for a private label to really give food which is in most cases way better quality probably in a format which is probably more convenient you know you can cook more complex things in a faster way but actually is it's better for the planet it is easier to store it's easier to work with uh you know it's just making people make it much easier and accessible to put to put food on on people's plates yeah and i think obviously alongside with frozen it's the processing side obviously i'm very biased with pact and what we're doing and i'll slip you that tenner tomorrow but yeah from the like the convenience piece of frozen it is just then actually consumers the biggest barriers they haven't got big in a freezers freezer space is always going to be an issue when you've got kids and it's like well actually i've got my chips my nuggets the stuff that's the staples in the freezer that is just taking up that's freezer space so i think that's always going to be a continual barrier that we're trying to readdress but as you said with bold bean people are getting used to scratch cooking people want those more premium tastier beans in their cupboard so that when you're short on time you go oh actually i can whip up a pasta and whip up a quick dish in a few minutes frozen veg frozen fruit is exactly the same thing to me and it's just getting that occasion well i think and i think there's some commonality there as well which is using using bold bean as an ingredient you know probably quite a difficult customer journey you know where do you put that within within the retail environment but you've seen retailers who get it and i've got behind it you've seen bold bean merchandise than the end of like the meter or something like that so you're making it easier for people to find it and that discovery you know i don't think frozen is quite there yet but again you just need a retailer to get it and get behind it and really invest in kind of pushing people over there you're starting to see some of that happen there's some of that's retailer led some of that as i said is the big brands like properly investing in price and volume and kind of signposting signposting people there um but i think i think that will come in in time and there's i think it's a big opportunity for yeah well obviously i'm very aligned there But I'd love to now think about across the whole kind of entrepreneur and challenger brand space and even like big insurgent brands.

26:14What do you think are some areas that brands spend too much time, effort, money focusing on that don't move the needle versus the areas they should be actually focusing on that is how they're going to win?

26:25Louis Bedwell:It's trade show season at the moment. I think trade shows. I'm not saying they're a waste of money, but quite often people spend a ton, a ton of money on a stand, a lot of people, a lot of products. But actually it's not translating into anything that's commercial. You haven't met the right people. You're not activating in the right way. You're not following up. And I think that the world is much smaller in the way you can get hold of people now. There's probably in the very early days of your business a smarter way of doing that. That's one. And I think related to that is kind of chasing just broad brush awareness for your business.

26:59Louis Bedwell:You know, if people have heard of you, but they aren't buying, that's not a brand problem. You don't need to do more advertising. It's probably a product problem. It's a more fundamental issue. You see quite a lot of that, you know, two big fantasy things, brands that feel they need to be there will be doing something. But actually, it's often it's the ones that are kind of pushing away and grinding, you know, optimizing their rate of sale that are winning. and I think the same you know that awareness piece probably goes to rebrands as well you start to see when a brand is in trouble probably when it like iterates their brand every 18 months or so you just see these constant kind of refreshes you think well that's only going in only going in one direction I think they're kind of the big things I suppose like a summary is is wasting money on things that seem like activity you know lots of doing lots of busy work but actually mistaking that for like proper progress in in your business being a busy fool is the kind of overarching phrase but yeah i think miranda from nilsson is very much the same of like focus on your rate of sale focus on getting people actually buying and buying again watch those numbers watch the stores that are doing it well how do you double down and optimize that and i think that's where things like data are so important and so vital and just keeping an eye on the reports the trends that the things going on in the industry that do actually translate and and show the way things are happening like we've obviously touched on frozen and the soil association report came out and it's frozen is the fastest growing within it but it's only half a percent of the whole organic market so for me i'm like that's opportunity like it's great it's growing that's still so small to go after like textiles is bigger i think you know and on on that in your question before about trends that are growing i think the the ones where things are kind of the supply chain is short or it's localized or there are fewer inputs you know that leads ultimately to something that's probably more resilient and that means that you can that you know the price is perhaps more stable, the supply is more stable, you know you're going to get it on time in the right way with the right products.

28:52Louis Bedwell:I think the business case and the argument for doing more things like that, I think that will be a trend for the next two or three years. The harder the external world gets and the harder it becomes to operate a food business, you want things, you want some certainty. And that might mean thinking kind of smaller or more stable, but ultimately I think we'll be hearing a lot more about resilience over the next kind of one to three years i think that was definitely was that word of the year or there was definitely resilience was mentioned in either the word for this year or the word for last year and it's that kind of ongoing thing of like yes it is the resilient brands are the ones who are weathering the storm finding ways to get through it still know who their consumers are still know how to get products to them or have their appeal versus say a private label or a slightly cheaper option it's like how do you still have that value in the market well and yeah and i think opportunity is a big one.

29:39Louis Bedwell:We mentioned GLP-1s earlier. So space has done a lot of thinking on and quite a bit of work on. And the level of destruction that's going to be there is still very much unknown. The data is kind of appearing all of the time and the health outcomes of taking these drugs for a long period of time still massive question marks on there. But my view is, we talk all of the time about the food industry as we need policy to do this. We need more money to do this. We need consumer education to help them understand to switch to something. What you're saying here is that all of those things converge and you can switch people's baskets by getting them to eat less change what they're eating but for that to stick and be really successful the food environment and the aisles of which they're shot needs to change around them so businesses have got this amazing golden opportunity to not wait to be changed but to kind of get ahead of that and think about some of the things from a health and sustainability perspective that they might have been planning to do in three five even further afield time to bring them forward um and i think if we can do that there's an opportunity here to you know the people who really need those drugs from a health perspective um that they get access to them in a really kind of easy and fuss-free way but then those around who want want to take them can but they are supported and the rest of the population's dias are changed um that kind of a much more of a macro and a store level and this doesn't just stay as a niche thing i think that's the we can have all the policies in the world but it still doesn't mean necessarily the consumer will change what they're buying like i think these better for you desserts and things there's growth in now say like the frozen fruit snacking because it's lovely chocolate colored fruits and they're delicious but when people have tried to go actually you can have a chocolate bar or a protein bar if you're a chocolate bar consumer a lot of the time you're going to go well i still actually want a chocolate bar so having a slightly smaller one of the same thing is probably hitting that fulfillment point like my mom case in point that's her go-to thing but i think that comes back to kind of the trust piece as well um and we've seen a lot of you know you think about the last 10 years it was kind of free form was massive and then it was added this and i think we're in kind of the peak of that now with added protein actually a lot of it's just window dressing you know i saw somebody had launched a pie over the weekend or some kind of sausage roll pastry thing and it had a protein claim on the front just like we've probably gone too far there and actually it's how do you that all of that will fall out and there'll be a lot of consolidation and it will be about how do you credibly deliver on what you're saying and communicate kind of genuine value and that might be in taste or nutritionals or you know whatever it is where your product comes from and i think they'll be the products that do well again not in the next 12 months but we're talking kind of three five years away and kind of within that now for anyone who is either thinking of kind of oh i really want a business but i'm interested in food and drink and like how do i do it what do i do or to anyone who's going oh how do i work in this industry because obviously the part of what i love about this is i'm encouraging people to go and work for startups work for challenges support these people because actually there's only a finite number of products that will make it so actually getting your experience there and going okay this there is this need or there's a fulfillment it's a great way of doing it and living through that kind of entrepreneurial side but is there anything that you would kind of give advice to anyone considering getting into the space like before they even spend a penny like what's the best thing to go okay let's look at the market let's do this like what would your top advice be to any budding entrepreneurs who are like i really want to do something but i'm not sure what it is i think you know for anyone thinking about food i think it's genuinely one of the most important industries in the world everybody eats every day and it's crying out for people who genuinely care about doing things well it's definitely not as glamorous as tech and man probably doesn't pay like finance or other sectors but the problems that you're kind of dealing with are very real and the impact if you get them right is is tangible and i think so for founders my advice would probably be to to to kind of fall in love and really embrace the problem not just the product talk to people early share lots of your ideas get lots of feedback and understand what's actually needed rather than just building a product or you know an island of one in in isolation i think if you do that and you're in love with the problem you will find a a product and a solution in there that people genuinely want and they're going to buy from you and then for employees it's it's probably the same you know working in any startup is is is highs and lows and everything in between but is i think and this is often rare is well two things i understand how to get stuff done and kind of build relationships and just run through walls but but also be really aware of kind of the commercial side of the food industry as well and ask proper questions before you join the business and i think people who who have a deep understanding of the problem but can attach it to uh the commercial side and understanding how money works within small businesses they're the ones that become really valuable within food companies you said you didn't want to do the music question but you've got to do the music question coming on the podcast any experience whether it's something that brings a smile on your face from a particular moment time it's like what is a song that for you when you're thinking back through your career you're like this song this song this is the one that's come to mind i joked about it at the beginning but you know we're both dads to young children i've got two young daughters who watch frozen at least every day i'm almost quite quite an optimist i don't like confront confrontational to leave things kind of in a worse place than And I found them.

35:07Louis Bedwell:I've heard Let It Go at least, I reckon, six times every day for the last six months. And there's been a lot of change in my life. It's a cliche answer, but that's what you're going to get. Fab, because it's frozen. So I can get a frozen claim from the podcast. That's great. Dabbling down on the frozen side. Very good. And for anyone who likes what you're saying and doing, where is the best place to speak to you? I know you just launched your email newsletter. So definitely, if you're wanting industry advice, go and sign up to it. because yeah i always find it super insightful i'm like oh he does actually know what he's talking about yeah find me on linkedin i write a newsletter that goes it's meant to go out once a week but it doesn't now almost 3 000 people within the food industry across lots of the different roles that we've talked about come on finally there and for you now looking ahead in terms of what's happening in the industry what you want to do impact wise like for you like what is your kind of goal throughout this year like what are you looking to to go on and say like i really want to have influence change here or do this like where where will we be finding you but i think it's going to become harder for for businesses of all size to access the funding they need to do to launch new ideas and to to kind of test out some of these new ways of thinking um i'm really interested in understanding how you can make that easier and break down some of the barriers to getting new things moving yeah and you've i've seen some of your great models and things you're doing so i'm i'm excited to see what this is but um definitely have to give a quick shout out to james hickson we have our linkedin losers group and i'm sorry james you're not in this podcast yet but we will get you on still that is gonna happen but um you need to you need to do a wrap-up when he's back from china with all of his must-see trends from chinese grocery stores absolutely i think um it's been fascinating to be able to finally get an answer to what you actually do for work all jokes aside i really think you've got a great take on the industry you have some great opinions and thoughts and ideas of ways that everyone can be doing better from new challenger brands to big businesses and big industry so it's been a pleasure to kind of see all this insight and learn lots from you thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing so opening with everyone thank you very much Mitch bye-bye thank you everyone we will see you on the next episode goodbye