#84 - Lucy Williamson - STOCKED [Brand Manager]

0:00Lucy Williamson:Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to Unfounders. Today I'm joined by the lovely Lucy Williamson, who is the brand manager at Stocked. Now Stock make innovative meal cubes. So these are frozen meals in cube form. You can cook, super convenient. You can have one, two, three, four, as many as you want to make your perfect snack or meal. I really love what Charlie and Sal have been building here. It's amazing to see the brand grow. And it was nice to get Lucy's perspective on why she loves the brand so much, how she's enjoying the marketing, her experience doing a Unilever graduate degree and everything that taught her and how she's able to then transfer that into a challenger brand.

0:33Lucy Williamson:She is super passionate about Stocked and Frozen as well so it was nice to touch on their latest out of home campaigns celebrating the Catholic degree. There's so much in this, Lucy is a joy and you're gonna love it. So without further ado let's get on with it. 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%. Against Ordinary are a brand agency who help founders, marketing departments, scaling teams ensure their brand is the most powerful tool for growth. From brand strategy, tone of voice and visual identity to helping you get retail ready with ongoing brand growth retainers.

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1:30Lucy Williamson:hello and welcome back to unfounders today i'm joined by the lovely lucy williamson so lucy can you please let everyone know where you work and what your role is yeah so i'm lucy i'm the brand manager at stock so i'm overseeing some all aspects of marketing socials emails brand partnerships um basically everything we've got a community of our blockheads so managing them and then obviously what comes with brand is sort of shaping the brand's voice and growth, taking on new opportunities and challenges, obviously because we're a startup, everything's new, growing and obviously no two days are the same.

2:05So yeah, I basically cover all things marketing and social at Stocked.

2:09Lucy Williamson:Love that. And you've recently done a big out of home campaign, but before we dig into that side of things, for those who have never heard of Stocked, like what is it? Who are the founders? Like all that good stuff, like who is Stocked? Yeah, so Stocked is a high quality frozen meals brand, but we're a bit different. So instead of freezing into sort of traditional plastic trays, we've done all of the batch cooking for you. And then we freeze all of our award winning dishes into portionable blocks. blocks so obviously our blocks they're quite unique but they're amazing because they're designed for busy lifestyles and they sort of offer a blend of convenience premium ingredients they're all chef cooked and they're obviously great for sustainability there's no food waste yeah there's no compromise on the quality or flavor of them or anything so for example with the personal personal portioning I would have two or three blocks for lunch or if you're a bit more hungry you'd have four blocks or if you want a quick snack, you'd have one.

3:04So there's eight blocks in a pack. And yeah, you can basically portion them out however you like. The brand was started by Sam and Charlie, our co-founders. They went to school together. That's how they met in Kent, down in Tunbridge Wells. Sam was originally in consulting. So he worked for Deloitte. And then Charlie left school at 16 to be a chef. So he was a street food chef. He had his own sandwich company. And they basically came together because Sam used to prep his meals for work and did it in sort of Ziploc bags and how most people do it or used to do it. But then he thought there must be a better way to do this because he had Ziploc bags exploding in microwaves and splitting in the freezer.

3:46And he was just like, there must be a better way to do that. So they teamed up and put their heads together and that's when Stocked was born. So that's kind of the story behind the brand. And now we've got over 16 ,000 subscribers nationwide, 30 different dishes. We do lots of different dishes. We tend to release new ones as and when we can. We've done a brand new collab dish recently with Sorcerer and Tom's Pasta, which was a great collab. And it just made sense. I actually met him from Sorcerer at Meals Collective. And I tried one of his sauces and I was like, God, this just makes so much sense to do a collab.

4:22So we did a hot honey ragu. And then also we've got a kid-friendly range. and yeah we're mainly DTC but we've launched onto Ocado and recently into Waitrose as well so yeah we're growing which is great.

4:34Lucy Williamson:Amazing yeah I think it's such a clever concept I've been friends with Sam and Charlie for a couple years now like I think from my post Mitch's kitchen days and seeing what they were doing we were talking about frozen delivery and all these things and just to see how the brand has evolved and grown and now to have stockists like Ocado and Waitrose yeah it's just testament to what people are looking for the convenience the flexibility like all these things that people who want real food um and obviously i'm an advocate for frozen so there's no preservatives it's just cooked and locked and it's amazing in terms of like the kind of meals that you do like what are some of the the best sellers or the products that people can find yeah so our best seller overall is our chicken tinger which is sort of like a mexican style dish and it's shredded chicken and sort of like a chipotle sauce or black beans but what's so great about our blocks is you basically pair them with anything you've got in the cupboard so So, for example, with our chicken tinger, people could have them in tacos or in wraps or with rice.

5:28You can basically have them with anything. Another one of our best sellers is our beef chili. That's kind of like a standard dish. And then also our curried chickpeas, which is a plant-based dish. That's also really popular. Our chicken tinger and beef chili have gone into Waitrose. We've got more SKUs on a cardo as well. We've also just done a recent dish launch. So, as I said, we try and keep the menu sort of fresh and exciting, bring out new dishes and that sort of thing so in our latest release we did a jungle pork which is like a really spicy curry it's our spiciest dish yet which is really exciting so that's a thai inspired curry we've also got like a sag tempeh and we've got loads of dishes which are plant-based meat-based and obviously our kid-friendly range is low in salt um mild and spice so yeah suitable for kids as well but we've got over 30 dishes on the menu so you can find everything really my personal favorites are miso beans it's really really delicious and I literally can't get enough of it I actually eat stocked every day myself so I'm a big advocate as well because it's just great um but yeah Charlie actually started sort of developing the recipes in his kitchen in his flat so that's kind of where all the recipes have stemmed from but now yeah obviously we're on a bigger scale so the recipe development is slightly different but it's still done by Charlie just in our office so they're all still chef cooked really nice yeah i love that and one thing over the last

6:49Lucy Williamson:year or so on socials it's been amazing to see the likes of mob kitchen and deliciously ella like actually getting into your freezer block style meals and it's like well that's what stock's been doing for a few years now so people kind of get it it's like actually as kind of rogue as it seems having like a block of your meal it's like well actually it's just convenience and as you already said the the flexibility of going actually i just need a small amount or i want a bigger meal like it's it's great from from that perspective um for you what was it about stocks how did you discover them and go actually i could see myself working there like this is the place for me yeah so as you said like a lot of brands are camping onto what stocks do already so as you said mob do their freezer series i mean they've got a great social series where they're clacking up all the blocks at the start of their videos and it's kind of freeze and eat later another brand which have been doing it at bold bean so bold bean have also been jumping onto this and batch cooking freezing it into blocks and then pairing it with their different cupboard staples basically what's great about us doctors we've done all of the batch cooking for you so there's no need to cook we've done it um but a funny story as to how i actually discovered the brand so i was working at an agency at the time and um i love i'm so foodie i just love food what i really like to do which is quite funny is i love looking through the ocado new in section it's just a weekly habit i'm like oh i wonder what could be on there this week it's like m &s obviously released some really interesting foods and they're always on trend so I love to look at the sort of M &S new in section as well but when I was scrolling the Ocado new in section I saw stock so it must have been when they'd literally just launched into Ocado and it caught my eye a bit so I was like oh I wonder what that is because obviously our packaging has got like really cool characters on it it's quite like out there but also with our product requires a bit of education as to what the product is how you do it and sort of what it does so I saw it and I was like oh that looks great so I was just kind of having a look at the products.

8:41I thought that's such a good idea. So yeah, that's basically how I discovered it. I was still in another job at the time, but I saw the brand manager role come up. And I thought I've seen this brand before. After I saw it on Ocado, I then saw it on LinkedIn. I saw Sam and Charlie outside on Ocado van, celebrating their launch into Ocado. And I thought this brand just looks great. It looks great fun. It's such a great idea. And I just think as the years go on, Frozen is just going to become more and more popular. And obviously, both of us are very keen for frozen as a category but yeah spotted the brand manager role on linkedin and i thought everything in this role is sort of what i want to do it's foodie it's fast-paced it's at startup very social led we do lots of fun recipe content loads of exciting different things on our socials so i've got to go for it and yeah ended up in brand manager and

9:27Lucy Williamson:that's near that's nearly been a year now clearly enjoying it um how big is the team now like you are in the office if i'm not mistaken i'm pretty sure i saw a stock logo behind your head did good yeah it's there um yeah so our team's growing rapidly yeah split across obviously our office and our kitchen so we've got a kitchen in park royal in london but in the office we're now a team of six and which is great so we've obviously got sam and charlie our co-founders and then myself as brand manager we've got kurt as our production manager millie is our customer service lead and then grace who's recently joined as our creative strategist that's the office team and then in the kitchen we've now got 25 chefs working seven days a week to make sure we're keeping up with our demand it's got a lot of demand and obviously january's a really busy period for us but yeah we've literally smashed it out the park this year in terms of demand so it's been absolutely great we've had to well last year we built a new kitchen we expanded our kitchen we're now expanding our kitchen again so adding a fourth cook to our production rotor daily just to keep up with our demand we have a really nice team in in the office so we're in old street um so in shoreditch um we come in most days i tend to come in every day i just really enjoy being in the office really enjoy being with everyone and feel like when you're in the office you can really bounce ideas off each other and it's quite nice to collaborate because obviously we're still quite small and we have a kitchen in the office now so all of our recipe content can be filmed in the office which is perfect um we used to be in white chapel or aldgate east so we were in a runway east which was amazing as well so i do some really fun events it's obviously a really nice place to work but in terms of like the recipe development recipe filming and that sort of thing it's obviously a bit more tricky in a co-working space um so it's been really nice moving to this office and kind of having that freedom to film as and when you want you can obviously be a bit more reactive with recipes and dishes so yeah my head straight where went to i'd love to just see that inside your office freezer because it must just be like beautifully like laid out like perfectly stacked together um and it made me think like do you ever do like mix and match with the different meals to go actually like i want two of those blocks and one of those blocks or one and one like because then you're merging all the flavors as well no someone else has actually asked this before i've personally never done it but i mean you can that's that's the great thing about the blocks you could have one tie green you could have another curry chickpeas you could do whatever you want with them really um but no i've never actually tried it but maybe i should because yeah maybe there's some flavors that would fuse quite nicely together who knows but yeah our freezer packed with stocked very neatly but we get through it quickly so yeah we've got all the new dishes in there at the moment because obviously we're filming all the recipe content and stuff got a nice packed full freezer i think we actually considering we're a frozen food business i think we need a bigger freezer in the office you see a big old chest freezer just always just lined just full of blocks that's what we need i'd love to touch on the out of home campaign that i mentioned um I saw this popping up all over LinkedIn and obviously I was a big fan of the message and what you're promoting there but um yeah how how's that come about how involved were you give us the backstory on what the campaign is yeah so obviously our new out of home campaign has the strapline there's nothing cooler than Frozen because there isn't anything cooler than Frozen um we originally sort of set up with an ambition we were like we've launched into Waitrose and we want to do something a bit different a bit exciting and really just shout about Frozen we were kind of we were actually all sat in this meeting room here having a brainstorm we were like what can we do that's obviously gonna get everyone's attention bring attention to the category as well originally we thought we can just promote us as a brand a product but then we wanted something bigger we wanted to shout about the category as a whole and kind of champion the frozen category and basically just highlight how much the category is evolving because there's still and I'm sure you guys can relate as well there's still this sort of outdated perception of the Frozen category and the Frozen Isle so we really really want to be there to shift that narrative um obviously we then came up with the line there's nothing cooler than Frozen it's obviously a bit of a playful pun um and it captures the idea that Frozen is actually having a moment because it really is and I think our launch into Waitrose really marks that as well obviously we're a little bit of a higher price point than you tend to find in the Frozen Isle um in waitrose so i think for us it's a bit like how can we get across the premium element of frozen because a lot of the frozen aisle is cheap it's yeah it's just got this sort of even before i joined stocked i sort of thought about frozen i don't think that's going to taste that nice like i don't think it's going to have that much flavor and honestly i was pleasantly surprised when i tried the first blocks because i was like wow like this is game changing the flavors in this unbelievable um so yeah we wanted to lean into something bold slightly absurd so our visual is someone with their tongue stuck to a pack so obviously a bit different but that's what we wanted relatable ish because if you did put your tongue on something frozen it would stick but it's attention grabbing and that's what helped bring the idea to life obviously we wanted to amplify cool so we also brought in those stereotypically cool characters for example they've got cool clothing they've got clips that sort of thing they're kind of dressed as a cool typically cool person would dress to contrast between sort of the unexpected visual and familiar cues and but yeah that's how we wanted to do it we wanted to stand out we wanted to do something a bit different but we wanted it to feel fresh and still reinforce the message of there is nothing cooler than frozen so it basically all comes together and it all works together to revisit frozen is something that's not just quite practical but it's actually exciting and a category in an aisle that is becoming really relevant again so yeah we basically just wanted to shout out the whole of the frozen category not just us as a brand but I put it in my LinkedIn post there's so many cool frozen brands out there now like obviously you guys at Pact there's Griddle Bakery which I think are amazing we've recently just done a collab with them as well they're the frozen waffles and french toast and it's so delicious and it's such a good idea because It's literally, I think the thing is it's having a bakery at home and it literally is.

15:41You can shove it in the toaster for two minutes and it's done. With the visuals, obviously, there is that element of someone with a tongue stuck to their pack. So we did a shoot. We worked with an agency called Insiders on this campaign. They were amazing. They really helped us bring it to life. But we actually had a physical shoot. We got the models ready. We dressed them all in the exciting clothing, the different styles. We did a few different styles, but you'll see from the actual campaign that we landed on a few of our favorites. And they literally had to stand in the studio with their tongue stuck to a pack.

16:16Like I stuck the packs with this spray. It was really cool. It was really cool to be a part of and really cool to see it all come to life from like a studio image to seeing it in Old Street, seeing it in London Bridge. So, yeah, I was very involved. I went to the shoot which I loved um bringing an idea from this table that I'm set up right now seeing it out in the wild is just so cool so yeah there really is nothing cooler than Frozen

16:41Lucy Williamson:yeah no absolutely agree yeah um I always say my my strap lines like I'm trying to make Frozen cool yeah so yeah it's the the same thing of very much it does have a bad perception it is still seen as inferior although over the last year in particular that is slowly shifting like that meals meals collective i had shown her from otolenghi and she was saying how their otolenghi ice creams like if you ever try them apparently they're amazing i'm vegan so i can't have them but from what i hear they are phenomenal and she was saying like the highest cream content in the market and they're just really kind of premiumizing that and performing really well and then i also had oliver from food brands now and he was involved with all the licensing in iceland and beyond and just saying how actually there is so many more premium products coming into the market yeah people want it people want that excitement that innovation and I love that you said about the Ocado like new aisle I'm exactly the same like I do my frozen roundups every Friday and for me I'm always like what is new and frozen how do I find it and every single week something exciting is coming out there's always something I know I love it and I think people are starting to realize as you said earlier the no preservatives I think people are becoming so much more health conscious these days and they really care about what they're eating and what's going into their food and that's obviously something that's really attractive about our products because they're flash frozen from when they're cooked there's absolutely nothing bad in them at all so yeah it's that different way of eating that's handy um it's in the freezer so it doesn't gonna like it's not gonna go off there for when you want it that's sort of the flexible element of it and you just pair it with whatever you have so i literally eat our blocks on toast i put them in pasta whatever i have in the cupboard i just pair them with it and it's so easy i get home from work my dinner's on the table in 10 minutes but it's a great dinner so can't complain because it's so flexible and so easy so yeah I think frozen we keep saying it's the year of the blocks this year so it's the year of frozen this year for sure yeah yeah love that now going back to as you were growing up like for you I can't imagine you thought yeah I'm going to work for a company selling frozen blocks of food so for you what was what was your goal or ambition going like when I when I grow up I want to do this yeah so I've always wanted to be in marketing so I've always had this thing I think when I was really young I wanted to be like a vet and then I kind of grew out of that phase a bit but I think by the time I was in secondary school I've just always wanted to be in marketing I've really enjoyed like the creative side of it but also the analytics side is really interesting as well so obviously being up to date with trends and using data from our socials and stuff to cut decisions for future content.

19:17I think I've really just enjoyed having that all as one sort of role. So the creative element I love, as I've just said, but yeah, I've always wanted to go into marketing. I'd done various bits of work experience when I was sort of between the ages of 16 and 18. So I knew that I'd made the right decision when I was thinking that is definitely what I want to do. So yeah, I did loads of work experience. I was really lucky to know a few people that were in marketing roles so I made sure that I was asking around asking people what to do but I kind of knew as well when I was younger that university looked really fun and exciting but I think I felt really ready to go into the workplace and I'm also always on social media so I think that helped that kind of solidified that yeah that is the career that I'm into but I applied for some roles and degree apprenticeships when I was 18 when I just finished school because I didn't actually applied to uni because I just knew I don't know why I had this feeling I was like I just know that I'm so ready to go into the workplace and that is what I want to do and I'm really set on the career that is marketing and brand and social and that sort of thing so I always knew that that was the case so yeah I applied to Unilever the degree apprenticeship and was lucky enough to get it obviously they're very competitive so I was so excited that I got given that job it's in digital marketing so how a degree apprenticeship works is it's four days working and one day at uni so it's quite a lot at once because I was fresh out of sixth form you're going straight into a career but also you're learning about this degree you're doing all your assignments you're doing your dissertation but I honestly think it was the best thing I could have done for my career because I learned so much on the job and you learn so much just through doing things especially being at such a big company like Unilever you just learn so so so much about everything to do with business everything to do with marketing everything to do a brand that sort of thing so really pleased I took that route um but in terms of how I knew I wanted to go into food my first role at Unilever was in their nutrition team so that's brands like Hellman's Coleman's Pot Noodle they call it nutrition and there's Pot Noodle in there but brands as a whole all the food brands as a whole and I just absolutely loved it I've always been very foodie anyway I love trying new restaurants I love cooking I love baking I love anything so I think I always knew that food was something that I was interested in as well spent two years in the Unilever foods team and that was like a digital operations role so that was a great role to go into because that was absolutely everything to do with marketing it was from social it was brand campaigns paid social like literally everything and anything CRM PRM that you could ever do in a marketing role that was what I was doing and then yeah when I worked on food I was like this is absolutely what I want to do like I'm so foodie and then on the degree apprenticeship you rotate so I did a rotation into their home care department again great role absolutely loved it learned so many different skills but it always came back to I wish I was in the foods team still I'm so interested in food food's so exciting even on social all my feed is food so yeah that's how I knew that I definitely want to go into marketing definitely want to be in food and then I've landed in this role now which is everything marketing and everything food so it's basically perfect.

22:38Lucy Williamson:What were some of your kind of like biggest learnings in those early days within Unilever like I've spoke to a few people now who have gone the Unilever route and said about how amazing the training is how amazing the support is the things that you're learning on the job like what is there in particular that you learned then that you're still using with you in your current role? Yeah as you said with the Unilever it's such a massive company like it's absolutely huge the teams are huge there is so much training there's so much learning and obviously you're learning from your managers you get given mentors you get given you get given buddies you get given absolutely everything to kind of ease you into it I think what I learned from the job and I'm still learning now to be honest is you can't do everything all at once because it's impossible so I think I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I think everything should be perfect all the time and I think I should be perfect all the time and even at Unilever if I got one little thing wrong I'd really beat myself up myself up over it obviously you learn as you go on no one's perfect nothing is really the end of the world um even though I'm five years into my marketing career sometimes I'm still the same but I think advice I've always been given and I still take it with me to this day that's through all of my roles is you're one person you're human and you can't be perfect everything all at once and I think with me I try and throw myself into everything all at once and all my energy into everything all at once and sometimes I put too much into it and then you kind of it does the opposite so I think that's what I've learned and also the fact that the industry is always changing something that like would be relevant and does well on social for example six months ago may not do well now so I think the best way is to keep networking keep up with the industry talk to as many people as possible for advice and others I think that's the biggest thing I've learned is basically by speaking to people and learning from others that is how I've been able to develop so I think yeah the networking element and meeting people and just staying up to date with everything um in the industry has just been so helpful for me is there any other big differences I always hear it's the kind of all the red tape or the the hurdles you have to jump through to get ideas across versus say like now at stock it could always be like as you said just sat in a board room the next day it could be happening so yeah is there examples like that that come yeah so for example obviously with Unilever you've got the local teams and you've got the global teams obviously depending on brands but for example with Helms and North there's a local team and a global team and I think at Unilever I was obviously very much involved in the socials and that sort of thing and what I learned from that is if you're at a company like Unilever and you want to jump on a trend for example you can't because there's so many approval stages it's got to go through absolutely everyone it's got to go through legal absolutely everything if you want an idea to go live in a week it's not going to happen and that's what I found really frustrating as a big business because I'm honestly I'm chronically on TikTok Instagram and I'm like we need to do this trend let's do this trend or we should do that we should do this and I think because it's such a huge company you can't just post something that's not how it works whereas with stocks what's so great is it's me and it's Sam and Charlie and if we want to do a trend or we want to jump on something on social or like you said we want to launch an out-of-home campaign I mean we were planning this out-of-home campaign this year so from idea to execution rapid whereas if you're doing an out-of-home campaign for example at Unilever you can't do it like that it has to be a whole campaign that needs obviously all the approvals it's got so many layers as you said there's lots of red tape things you can't speak about whereas with Stocked if you have an idea you can go and you can run with it and that's what I'm really enjoying like the reactiveness fast-paced very fast-paced here obviously there's lots to do and it's quite a small team but I think that's the best way it could be because everything gets done and you can basically if you want to speak about something you can if we want to put something out on social you can so yeah very different you've this huge obviously still quite small both absolutely amazing i'm so great for my experience at unilever um it was genuinely the best thing i could have done for my career because i'd just learned so much and you learn so many different skills um and i think with unilever with my first ever manager i got chucked right into the deep end i think that was great he was like right you've got this budget and you need to put display ads all over BBC Good Food.

27:08That was all I got told. And I was like, okay, right. No idea how to do that. But then you learn, you learn to talk to the right people, you learn all the processes, you basically learn how it all works, you learn how to work with the agencies. So yeah, I think being chucked into the deep end is great as well.

27:23Lucy Williamson:To anyone coming out, say six form or college and going, right, I want to get into the working world. Would you recommend going the big brand route like a Unilever, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, or now you've kind of got your challenger brand experience with stocked like which were you like if you could do it all again would you go right I'm going to go straight to a challenger or do you actually think because you've done what you've done at Unilever you know certain things I'd love to just get your perspective on that yeah so obviously for anyone coming out of sixth form I've said it before but I genuinely would recommend the degree apprenticeship route so much I think it's such a good way to get into a career that you want to do obviously there's only certain fields that you can go into via a degree apprenticeship.

28:05I mean, they're not everywhere and they are very competitive. But I think if you can get experience at a company whilst doing your degree, I think it's just a complete win-win. In terms of big company and challenger brand, they're obviously so different. I mean, everything about them is so different. I think if you went into Unilever, for example, you've got a massive, massive team around you. You've got mentors, you've got buddies, you've got tons of training you've got huge budgets it's yeah I think you've got agencies to work with whereas challenger brand it's very much you and the brand and the team and you kind of work with what you've got and I think since being stocked working with what you've got and using the resources that you have around you to create campaigns create content and learn about brand is actually really valuable because I think sometimes when for example you're a big brand then you you're kind of spoiled with the budget because you can basically do whatever you like because you've got the budget to do it.

29:10Brand voice, brand tone, how the brand wants to be is there so you're working with what you're given and what's already been sort of set out with the branding whereas with a challenger brand what I've really enjoyed is kind of helping shape that helping grow the business and helping shape who do we want to be on socials or how do we want to sound in our email comms what do we want to talk about who do we want to be basically so yeah that's the really exciting thing and that's what's great about a challenger brand is you're being a part of the success of this amazing brand that's growing and thriving so that's what i've really enjoyed

29:47Lucy Williamson:about a challenger brand yeah i think especially when you're in a smaller team and especially in to challenge a brand every single person has so much more impact and you can actually feel that impact as an employee and that's exactly why the unfounders exist and why I love what I do because it's like everyone who is working behind the scenes behind the amazing founders who have come up with the idea and taken the risk and started this brand it's like actually you need people to just be getting in and as excited as they are yeah no exactly yeah because the whole team that we have here is so passionate about the brand I mean I absolutely love it I love the brand It's really nice to see that what you're doing is really making a difference and you're really helping grow, as you said, this amazing idea from the founders and working with them.

30:29And yeah, Sal and Charlie are brilliant to work with. I absolutely love it. So yeah, it's really nice to work so closely with them and kind of help them build and grow, which is what we're doing, which is great.

30:39Lucy Williamson:Love that. Now, I'd love to kind of flip it completely and go to a tough day at the office when things didn't go to plan. So that could be stocked or previously. But yeah, is there anything that comes to mind where you're like, oh, yeah, that really didn't work or that didn't go to plan? Yeah, I think there's always days, especially in a startup where you're doing so many different things. And it's kind of the balance of spreading yourself over everything. And I think with me, obviously, it's just me and marketing. So I cover a lot, which is great. But obviously, when you're spreading yourself over so many things, little things can get missed or you're spreading yourself too thin.

31:14So it's kind of that decision of we cut back on some things and go really deep into a few or do we do everything that we want to do and have it spread a bit thinner. There's no real tough days that like completely jump out to me, which I'm very lucky that I can't think of one. I think the world of being in a startup is it's going to be busy. It's going to teach you to be across everything. like there'll be days when I'm jumping into another department for example customer service when it's really busy or just helping out other members of the team I think sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming if there's loads of things to do there's tight deadlines there's multiple projects all at once or it teaches you good skills it teaches you to be able to learn to make decisions and prioritize and know that we're a team of six so what we're doing as a team of six is amazing Our January was so busy, which is amazing.

32:06But obviously, people are stretched, people are busy, people are having to help each other out, which is the nice thing about it, really. But yeah, I think that is the world of working in a startup. In terms of other roles, I think I've been in agency roles before, which I did enjoy, but I knew that I wanted to be in-house. My agency roles were after Unilever, so I did a short stint in an agency. Realized it wasn't quite for me. So yeah, I came back in-house. But I think agency can be quite a tough environment as well. That's very much obviously you're having to impress the clients, but you're obviously on quite a lot of clients.

32:40So that's the balancing act as well. I think it's all a case of balancing and prioritization is such a big thing, especially when you're busy and especially when there's so many different things going on. I don't look back at any of my career and think, God, that was awful, which is quite nice. It's all just a learning. Mistakes that are made, they just make you better, really.

32:57Lucy Williamson:so to kind of continue on from that like obviously when it is so fast-paced and everything's moving all of that like as a team for stocks like how do you guys unwind or come together do you have kind of any occasions or anything you do as a team where it's like okay right it's this time of the month we're gonna go and do this now yeah so we're nice we've got a really sociable team which is great we'll just move officers to shoreditch a lot of pubs around we all love a night at the pub sometimes as a team we're introducing a monthly social which is nice um we do flight club a bit which we all love a bit of that we've got dark board in the office so people get their practicing before we go yeah we all love flight club it's great fun we did sip and paint uh last month which was lovely that's very relaxing to unwind after a busy day but the team's actually grown so quickly so when I first joined it was me Sam Charlie Kurt Millie so we've always had a really close sort of team we're obviously all very open with each other and because we're in the office every day you obviously get to know people very quickly their ways of working how people like to work um yeah we all get on so well we work so well as a team and we're trying to introduce this monthly socials we had a great Christmas party we did Olympic Games in the office which was great fun so that was really funny i think yeah the scores are still on the whiteboard behind me it's funny i came last so that's great amazing so yeah no we're all very close um we're all very sociable and we really enjoy spending time together which is nice yeah it's important to kind of have those moments like away from the team where you are still with everyone but it's like you don't necessarily need to talk into all the work things or all the projects that are going on it's like right it's just have a moment like how are you like what what's going on with you and it's so important and so it's nice to hear those those are kind of becoming regular things and it's just being able to celebrate all the little wins like you said a great january the out of home campaign waitress listing like all these things are the moments you want to just go hang on guys just stop a second this is amazing we don't need to always be running ahead a million miles an hour like let's just celebrate this moment right now yeah no exactly we did a really nice activity actually before christmas that sam came up with and it was basically we called it like speed dating but I think what sometimes happens is we're also locked into our roles we don't really understand what someone else does in their roles we did the speed dating task and it was basically just asking questions about people's roles what challenges are they having how can people help out it really helps you get sort of an insight into for example when I spoke to Kurt about production there was half the things that are going on I had no clue about because that's not my speciality but it was really nice to get an insight into people's day-to-days and kind of what they're struggling with what are their challenges how are they fixing those challenges that was a really nice activity as well just to yeah chat to the team about what they're doing what they're up to we obviously have sort of daily stand-ups weekly stand-ups that we all chat together as a team to collaborate together but I think going into actual depth of roles is really really important as well yeah no absolutely now just because I am conscious of time I'd love to get into the music question this is the one I ask everyone what is the the song that comes to mind when you think about your your work and what you do yeah so we I was having a think about this we have a speaker in the office so when we come in in the morning we nominate a DJ so uh our team is a huge fan of Olivia Dean so whenever I think of Stocks I think of Olivia Dean Man I Need or Ramien because Sam's obsessed with Olivia Dean I'm obsessed with Olivia Dean so whenever we're on the DJ it's just Olivia Dean all day so that's what reminds me of work love it perfect yeah no it's always great to have that yeah I think I always have to have music and when we do our team meetings there's so many conversation things going on it's the only time I'm not listening to music and I find it really like I need my music.

36:51I know. It's nice. It's nice to work with some background music as well. It makes the day go by and it's nice to just have something in the back.

36:59Lucy Williamson:Yeah, love that. And for looking ahead for 2026, have you guys got anything you can kind of share, whether that's events or MPD or anything you can kind of tease as to what's coming? Obviously, you've just done some delicious new MPD. But yeah, what can you share with the looking ahead? Yeah, so looking ahead, we've got some really exciting things coming up, actually. As I said, we do dish releases sort of every few months, which is great. But as part of my role, I'm sort of in charge of partnerships, which is so exciting. And actually, my interview task was to put together my dream partnership for Stocks.

37:32So one of the ones that I actually proposed in my interview, which I can't say who it is yet because it isn't locked in yet. But fingers crossed it will be, is the one that I proposed in my interview. So that should hopefully be September time. I remember my task was to put together this big presentation of who should we do a dish launch with. So basically developing a new dish in collaboration with someone, whether that be a restaurant or a person. And the person I put forward is in the final stages of hopefully being locked in. So that's a really nice sort of full circle of, OK, I interviewed with this.

38:06Hopefully it's going to happen. We're actually doing another dish partnership in May with an Instagram chef, which is really exciting. I won't give away who it is because we're doing a teaser. So I don't want to ruin the teaser. But yeah, that will be going live mid-May, which I'm so excited about because it's the first time we've ever done something like this. Obviously, we did, as I mentioned, our Sorcerer partnership alongside Tom's Pasta, which was great. It went down so well. Such a good response. Yeah, that's like brand and restaurant partnership, whereas this is an Instagram chef partnership going live in May, which I cannot wait for.

38:36And hopefully it'll do really well because, yeah, first time we've ever done it. So, yeah, really, really, really looking forward to that.

38:42Lucy Williamson:I'm looking forward to seeing who that is and finding out more but for anyone who wants to get hold of you or find out more is LinkedIn the best place yeah LinkedIn's the best place I'm always on LinkedIn I love a LinkedIn scroll so yeah perfect I'll tag you in the show notes and obviously I'll link the stock website as to where people can find it and everything but yeah really enjoyed this it's really nice to speak to you and understand more about what's going on at stocks as I said I know the guys really well and it's great to kind of be able to talk about the brand and what you're doing as a brand because I think it's fantastic and it's very much in the world of lots of processed food and people struggling to find time to cook and all of these things it's like the perfect answer of like it's convenient it's flexible get it in the pan cook it have it how you want it's great yeah exactly well no I've loved it thank you so much for having me amazing it's been a pleasure and to everyone listening thank you so much we will see you on the next episode goodbye thank you