Hospital Bed to Supermarket Shelves: Building a £50m Plant-Based Empire

0:00I'm founder and CEO of a company called Bowl Foods. We are facing an obesity epidemic across this planet. I feel passionate about it because I feel privileged that I get the opportunity to go to work every single day and actually make a positive impact. Capitalism is here to stay. Yeah, we're trying to make a profit, but actually leave things a little bit better than we find them is something that I care about a lot. As you stepped feet first into Bottle, did you ever have that self-doubt? In the early years, I think I was a bit of a crap CEO, if I'm honest. It was nerve-wracking. I was leaving a really stable brand.

0:41I was heading into the unknown. I didn't know whether it was going to be a success, but no matter what happened, I didn't think we'd look back and regret it. I wanted the responsibility of being a founder. The COVID stuff was dark. Actually, a lot of fridges where we were selling our products, they were like shut. No, I'm good at putting a brave face on things. I've been rocked a good few times.

1:12Before we get started with the episode, our books are now open. If you need help getting in front of the right people, finding your dream customers or winning new business, we might be able to help. Why not outsource your sales to We Have A Meeting? Just go to wehaveameeting.com. Paul, welcome to the podcast. Pleasure. Thank you for joining us. The Northern lads. There we go. Three Northern lads. I won't tell you where I was born until after, but we'll get into it. So I'm going to kick off with a big open question. Who are you and what problem do you solve? My name is Paul Brown. I'm founder and CEO of a company called Boll Foods.

1:53And we're all about making nutritionally powerful food, no compromise, essentially to help busy people eat well. We are facing an obesity epidemic across this planet. And we just harness the power of Mother Nature, banging breakfast, lunch, dinner made completely naturally if you don't have time to cook. So, yeah, just help people live a healthier, happier life, really. Nice. And I guess to kick things off, why do you feel so passionate about solving this problem? From a philosophical perspective, I got taught from a pretty early age that life whizzes by. And to actually be running a business that truly has meaning and purpose, we'll come on to it in a bit.

2:46but I actually half the size of the business to go 100 % plant-based and take us really down the natural route. From both a people and planet perspective, I think we're facing some pretty big challenges at this moment in time. So I feel passionate about it because I feel privileged that I get the opportunity to go to work every single day and actually make a positive impact. Capitalism is here to stay. There's no doubt about that in my mind. but I think sustainable capitalism where there is a triple bottom line where yeah we're trying to make a profit but actually leave things a little bit better than we find them is is something that I care about a lot so take us back to the start so where did you grow up what were those early signs of there might be something entrepreneurial about you well my family are entrepreneurs My dad started the first ever wine bar in Manchester.

3:42Wow. So, yeah, all the pictures of Georgie Best drinking champagne and partying, a lot of them were in my dad's bar. My mum was involved in catering. I came from an incredible family full of love and support and just encouraged to do whatever you want to do. So the entrepreneurial side kind of, I guess, really started to fire up when I realised I wasn't going to get paid to play sport. Like most people, or not people I know, grew up thinking going to play football for Man United or all these kind of dreams that often don't come to reality. So I actually went to university. I dropped out of university.

4:24I was studying sports science there. And I actually moved over to California to qualify as a snowboard instructor. I actually became a snowboard instructor I lasted one week I was racing border cross which for your audience that don't do a lot of skiing and snowboarding essentially getting down the mountain going over massive jumps as quick as you can and I broke every bone in my wrist dislocated my elbow and then yeah I was genuinely nearly killed myself I was in and out of hospital for the best part of a year I had a cast on up my shoulder but I was lucky because I had a helmet on and I was essentially It was just bone injuries I had, but moved from Mammoth Mountain where I was teaching for Los Angeles.

5:07And because I was traveling, travel insurance paid for everything. And I managed to convince my mom that I should stay in Los Angeles as a 21 year old and work out what the next move was. And that was there that I wrote a business plan to start a food business. So in California, people were living, this is back like 21 year, 22, 23 years ago, living pretty much like London is now or Manchester, wherever these big cities, a lot of gyms, a lot of people eating, drinking slightly healthier than perhaps was the norm. So I started like a business plan to start like a pod, it to prep, but a healthy version of that.

5:46Came back to Manchester, started working in the back of a cafe. Ironically, flipping bacon and eggs for people, learning how to run like a cafe. Couldn't get the business going and was skint and innocent drinks had just launched. So I thought I'll go and get a job for them. So I knocked on the door at Fruit Towers in Goldhawk Road in West London and met the three founders. They were only going less than a year. Managed to convince them to give me a job. So I went into one of those silly, dumb and dumber vehicles. You see, you've got a picture of one of the vehicles and drove up to Manchester, decided to sell them out of the back of a van.

6:25So even though that wasn't my business, I was part of a small business that became obviously hugely popular. and I guess we'll come on how I started BOL after that. There's a few things that you mentioned though. The thing that jumped out straight away as you said, philosophically it was instilled in you from an early age that life whizzes by. Yeah. Where did that come from? Well, my dad died at quite an early age which had a huge impact on me. My nana always used to say even a long life is short. So I guess I've just, I've always had a bit of a growth mindset. I try and bring as much energy to every single situation I'm in and just make the most of things.

7:13So I guess, yeah, the short answer to that is, I think dealing with something pretty traumatic in the early age of your life makes you realise you're not bulletproof. And up until that moment, I think I probably, yeah, I think I changed a lot from that moment. So it feels like, Paul, there's this connection between Like being in California, thinking about like the pod food and like creating your own it too and then go into innocent and then the path that you're on now. Did you feel like whatever path of entrepreneurship that you took, it would always end up in some kind of food movement? Less about food, more about, I guess, health and wellness.

7:53I've always been pretty obsessed with sport. And I guess the nutrition is a key part of being decent at sport and it was more always about just kind of health wellness sport nutrition I guess because because the business plan was in in food and drink and I saw a gap in the market to essentially create a lot of what's happening now in big cities and then learned the FMCG way innocent I was I was there for nearly 15 years but I literally didn't even know what FMCG was when I knocked on that door. I had no idea what I was walking into, but I was walking into, in my opinion, the best business school on the planet.

8:34Three incredible founders. They've gone on to become great mates of mine, investors in Boll. So I guess it was just a natural move for me to start my own business in food and drink after all that experience. Nice. So 15 years at Innocent, I imagine that was, I don't know if we'd even have enough time this podcast to get through like all the lessons and the full story but your entry point I guess what were you brought in initially to solve and then how did that grow through the ranks at your time at Innocent? So my job originally was a business development manager and I was looking after everything north of London because Innocent was only selling in London at the time and I I was on the road selling.

9:26So I was setting up the wholesalers, cold calling places. To begin with, it was like sandwich shops and delicatessence and those kind of independent places that insurgent challenger brands win listings in. And then I was like, well, I may as well go and knock on the door at Asda and Morrisons and Co-op and all these other bigger companies, these boots, Costa, all these other bigger chains, and then started to sell the brand into those as well. So in terms of the problem I was solving, it was growing sales. Sales is the lifeblood of any business, and I was there to sell the product. So my business title was Northern Star.

10:10So everyone had a business title that was in relation to fruit, so Starfruit. and yeah so it was in 2008 that my role the first seven eight years was mainly on the selling side and then 2008 I transitioned into a role as more general management launching the food for innocent and that's when I started to get experience in a lot of parts of the business outside of pure sales. So when you look back now at that 15 year stretch what are the things that you picked up that were instrumental in starting your own business? I honestly could write a book about that and I might well do it in the future because the list is so long.

10:56But if I will it down to, let's say the first three things that spring to mind, the first one is about people. Like there was something about the energy that those three founders brought to that business that attracted so many great people and the culture that was created that is absolutely incredible. And there are so many people who've gone on to work at really exciting businesses who trod those boards at Innocent Drinks back in the day. So nothing more important than the people. A close second is the product. We obsessed around the product, everything from the branding of the product to the innovation pipeline to the packaging it was all just getting the product into a position where we were able to tell amazing stories about it and genuinely I don't want to make it sound like a cult but it did feel like that at times like we were so bought in and that kind of brings me to my third point which is just around having a really big vision and a purpose and get getting those group of people together who truly believe in the why and have ambitions to take the brand from such humble beginnings that what became a global brand, it was insane.

12:20So, I mean, I am 99 cents certain if I'd started my business free that time at Innocent, it would have lasted less than a year. um I've had all this experience and I I still I find some weeks in most days actually it's like turning around and standing on a rake it is so hard running your own business I've had all this experience so I've just got nothing but the utmost of respect for people that you know start their own businesses coming out of school coming out of university you know I I had a trial run it and still find it tough but it's um yeah it was a real blessing nice when was the first seed of bowl then when did that first come into your ad the people that don't know the story innocent when it started was all all about the smoothies and the juice and it was in 2008 they launched into um food so launched a range of veg pots that in the big scheme of things was never huge for innocent um i mean tens of millions of pounds what we're talking about a massive brand and And I guess the seed that it could be my time was when it became clear that Coca-Cola were going to ultimately take over Innocent.

13:31So that seed started in around 2010, 2011, and I ultimately left Innocent in 2015. So it didn't need to be Einstein to know that the world's biggest drinks brand is buying you and they don't do food. So I'm looking after this bit of the business that they're not going to like. They're not going to want to run. So is there a deal to be done here? So I tried to complete a formal management buyout of that business and was told no. So it was actually James Quincy, who's now running Global Coca-Cola, and Douglas Lamont, who was CEO of Innocent at the time. He's now running Tony's Chocoloni. I was trying to hustle a deal out of those guys to do a management buyout.

14:13And it wasn't going to happen for lots of different reasons. So I stayed right up until the moment that Innocent fully took over. and sorry coke fully took over innocent and then elegantly shut that business down and started on my own so um yeah the seed probably started four or five years before it actually came to fruition and that's definitely something i've learned a lot in my life that things take longer than you want and you've got to have a lot of grit and resilience and determination and you've got to persevere with stuff that you really want and because and most of the things that i've got in life taking a lot longer than I thought it would be to get them so let's let's let's go to that moment then Paul so it's just before you've gone out on your own and you're paint a picture of what your life looks like where are you just before you leave innocent and you jump straight into bowl where am I so I'm living in south Manchester um recently uh married a couple of years one baby in tow, pregnant wife, moving to a new part of London.

15:27It was absolutely hectic, crazy. I don't quite know how I got through it looking back now, but it was nerve-wracking. I was leaving a really stable brand. and I've managed to build myself up to director levels, stable salary, all the trimmings that come with that and security to a certain extent. And I was heading into the unknown at the same time as I was personally, you know, taking on the biggest responsibility you're ever going to take on, which is becoming a parent. So, yeah, in terms of taking you back to that place, it was pretty scary. and then I guess I'm always big on like evidence so then if you think about you've got you've had this amazing career at Innocent but if you think about your entrepreneurial journey the only evidence of setting up a business it hadn't quite worked out so I guess as you stepped feet first into Bottle did you ever have that self-doubt of what happens if this doesn't work I've got a pregnant partner these risks how did you I guess handle that in a monologue of what what might happen what might not brilliant so i talked to pals about this and it's back to the question around that slightly like philosophical mindset and that growth mindset my my view was that i kind of thought it was 50 50 right i didn't know whether it it was going to be a success but i felt in exactly the same way as what i said to the people that i recruited to join me in those early days like no matter what happened I didn't think it you know we'd look back and regret it so I was going to throw everything at it being a success but if it if it failed and from a failure perspective let's you know let's break it down to its most rational level in no business then I think I was then going to be at a crossroads like everybody else who's a startup business that then you know has to dust off their CV and start looking again.

17:33I personally think it sets you up. For me, it was going to be, okay, well, I've tried to do it my own way and it's not worked out, so I'll try and start another business or it's not worked out, I'll go and work for another company. So I kind of, you're never in control, right? Who would have known from 2015 when we set the business up, but the amount of stuff that would happen over this last decade, you know from covid to the wars like i don't need to list them all but it's it's been a quite a challenging time to be an entrepreneur over the last decade and um we've got through it but even if we hadn't have got through it i still think it was the right move to for me to kind of not about just scratching that entrepreneurial itch i wanted i wanted the responsibility of of being a founder and I really felt passionate about there was unfinished business we I'd learned how to make this amazing range of products in the in the world of food and drink and I knew we could we could take it to the next level and and hopefully that's what people think we've done can you take us to was there a first concept product and how you how you got that launch how did how did the first bit start so and this is this is the bit that's quite unique and and And this, I wouldn't say it's the easy bit, but this is definitely much easier for me than it is for most other people because we had a bit of a jogging start.

19:01So I had those innocent pots that with the blessing of Coke and with the blessing of Innocent, you know, I was exiting. so I was quite literally going to meetings like with Tesco and to our manufacturing partners and saying here's some big news for you in six months we're going to be exiting this part of the business but to replace it I'm going to start my own brand and I'd love the opportunity to pitch it to you here and now so I was just so lucky and I did it in a way that um thankfully convinced the big you know some of the big retailers and and the people in the industry to go okay well I'll back that and you know invest in it and give it some shelf space so um fundamentally our you know our original our original product range were very similar to the innocent veg bots that I was exiting and I've always been very open and proud about that it's yeah we were only exiting it obviously because of the corporate shift in ownership that was happening there were there any relationships that you didn't have in the innocent days that you needed to get to make it work yeah definitely because we we we changed our entire supply chain I had to get lots of investment into the business that was something I'd not done before.

20:38So that was obviously a real key relationship. I had a good amount of direct relationships with the retailers themselves, which helped. But you can never really rely on that because it changes so quickly. the buyers, the people that ultimately make the decisions. So, like I said, definitely had a jogging start at it, but it wasn't quite as easy as maybe I'm looking back on with rose-tinted glasses now. We are entering a new era of outbound. Four years in, we have a meeting that's levelled up our entire offer. That's why multi-billion pound brands trust us. And we've put meetings with Netflix, Spotify, Facebook, even Barcelona Football Club.

21:28We've helped close deals up to 950 ,000. We're doing it all. Phone, LinkedIn, email, direct mail. And there's a few weird and wonderful possibilities that we're keeping in our back pocket. So if you're struggling to get in front of the right people at the right time, inquire today.

21:48I want to talk about the funding journey because there will be founders that are watching this and probably more specifically in the food and drink space. What's the knowledge that you wish you could have given yourself before you went through that funding journey when it came to raising investment? I mean, the thing that jumps out initially when you ask that question is that money burns quicker than... Every time we've done a forecast, and bear in mind my business partner, he's the numbers guy. He trained. He didn't drop out of university. He's a straight A student, EY, Procter & Gamble, Innocent.

22:31And so he's as good as it gets in the industry. And it just seems to burn quicker than every forecast we do. It seems to not quite hit what you think. So I guess the knowledge in terms of a specific tip would be kind of raise as much as you can when you can. I've done things differently. I've not followed the normal route. Most of the capital I've raised over the years has been from people I know. And that isn't just the kind of the seed rounds of friends and family that a lot of I'm talking about. the entire funding of the business and it's worked really well. We've managed to get investors in that have been able to bring a decent amount of expertise as well and have left us as the board to run the business.

23:27We do have an investor board. We used to have it every three months. It's now every six months. The importance of having a good relationship with your investors, And that doesn't mean you always need to get people that you know beforehand. But I've got a lot of friends and I obviously won't be naming them now, but it feels like most of their stress comes from dealing with their investors. So I would just straight up front, like proper no-nob policy when it comes to getting investment. Like even if someone's going to give you the money, if they're going to create hassle for you and you've got to work that out, then don't take it because that control that you need as an entrepreneur, as a founder to mold things as you want.

24:10You need to be focused on the market, whether that is a product, whether it's a service, whatever the industry is. Obviously, for me, it's FMCG. I don't need to be looking over my shoulder. My investors know that they are never going to invest in anybody that tries harder than me, that we've got a team that do things as professionally as it gets. There's a lot of investors who invest in loads of businesses. We kind of really run it on a tight ship. So it doesn't mean we're always going to deliver what we say, but we're definitely going to try and we need to focus on out there, not over the shoulder.

24:41So as you were talking there, Paul, I'm thinking about the audience listening to this at home and I'll give my point of view in terms of how I feel probably watching Dragon's Den because I have no knowledge of this space at all. but if somebody's listening from home they're thinking well he left innocent he had this brilliant idea he he knew people so he was getting into morrison sainsbury's and he had the funding i remember thinking surely if this dragon's den idea can just get into sainsbury's well you've made it you quit saying you're on the shelf you're laughing i imagine from your point of view even having the money and getting on the shelves that's probably where it feels like a lot of the hard work actually sells so like when you think about marketing and bringing bold to the consumer how have you how have you approached that so try and answer this question to make it as helpful as possible for your audience the you walk into a big um sainsbury's or tesco whatever it might be There's circa 25 ,000 to 30 ,000 SKUs on the shelf.

25:47You getting that listing is just the beginning. You've then got to drive that sales velocity. There's obviously only a finite amount of space. There's a lot of competition. Ironically, the supermarkets themselves are obviously creating a growing importance on own label and their own brands. And then there's the bigger brands and then the smaller brands. And so getting onto the shelf is like that stage one. Actually, then driving the sales is another world. And that kind of links to your question. Obviously, on day one, on the 30th of April 2015, when our product was on the shelves of some of those aforementioned supermarkets, the awareness for the brand Boll, well, not quite zero.

26:34It's friends and family that know what we're doing. But other than the founding team and friends, no one knows who or what BOL is and what we stand for and why they should even pick us up, look at us, buy us. So using those funds in those early days to drive that top funnel of marketing, that awareness level, and then getting all the way down to sales stimulating and getting people to pick it up off the shelf is, yeah, that's a seriously tough job. I don't think, and again, this is where I come back to the question around some of those learnings. In those early days, you've got your product on shelf.

27:10The packaging, like, it's so important to try to put as much as possible into that packaging. So it stands out. Obviously, it's not that profound to say it, but it amazes me how many times, you know, I think so much more could be put into the packaging itself because that is your billboard, right? That is the last moment of truth when someone is stood in a supermarket. They're going to buy you or not buy you. It's largely going to be, are you kind of shouting loud and proud from the shelf? So, yeah, you can burn through a lot of money very quickly and things have changed now. You can obviously use social media very differently to what it was like in the early days of my career.

27:54But all of that exciting stuff, which we might talk about in a bit, is great. But don't make the main thing the main thing. And that's nail that product proposition from day one if you can. And if it isn't perfect and it probably won't be, don't be afraid to iterate and improve. Big fan of the Kaizen Japanese proverb of self-improvement. So keep trying to make it better and better. Nice. And so how did you approach the innovation when you're thinking, right, OK, we need awareness now and like you say like 2015 to 2025 very different in terms of where you can probably throw your money at how were you attacking it back there to get eyes on the product so we did we actually innovated our product portfolio innovated really quite quickly so for me whilst the the veg pots that we originally launched with and obviously I did have recipes with meat, fish and dairy in as well.

28:57And so we had a Carolyn coconut chicken. We had a Jamaican jerk chicken. And we can talk about that if you want to in a bit. But we launched into salads. We launched into fresh soup. Obviously, more recently launched into smart food with our power shakes. So for me, I rather than kind of investing too much in the marketing of the portfolio that we had, I expanded and took the range into new categories quite quickly. And there's definitely a lot that we did and launched into that isn't around now. But for me, that was just building up the awareness for what Boll stood for, because there's nothing better than someone actually trying your product.

29:40Like they can see it on a TV advert, not that we could afford TV, or they can hear an influencer shouting about how amazing it is, but to get the product into someone's hands. So whether that was investing in the promotions at Fixture, we did a lot of sampling as well. But launching into these multiple categories really helped us build the brand where I wouldn't go as far as to say that we're famous now. But for people that do know us, they know what they're going to get. They know that if they do look on the back, all of the ingredients are going to be natural ingredients that they're going to understand and be able to pronounce.

30:15They know it's going to be more really nutrient dense. So every one of our products is high in fiber, high in protein and tastes flipping amazing. So kind of, you know, that product side of obsession that we've had from the beginning has really stood us in good stead. So that innovation and trying out different things, I suppose for people listening, how do you spot the idea that's worth testing? And then how do you test it? my favorite part of the job and I've not done it for years now um so maybe I need to get back out there but I have been back out to California a few times I've got got friends out there from back in the day and then so that I kind of called those like my food safaris so rather than read Mintel reports and no offense to Mintel and all that and say provide some great stuff but I went out there and saw with my own eyes, the salad concept came from seeing people with the salad jars over in America.

31:19And the latest range are power shakes. That again, just came from me being in California and seeing people drink all of these kind of protein shakes and meal replacement drinks, but they were made naturally. And me kind of coming back with the team and saying, well you know why can't we do something like this and um so i kind of like to be in amongst it and feel and see what's working and then put our own slants on things i think people get confused sometimes the difference between innovation and invention there's not that many times you're going to invent something that hasn't been around you know even back to innocent yeah we one's gone oh yeah you started the smooth we didn't start making smoothies do you know i mean there's a lot of people putting frill and blending it um so you know we i don't think we've ever invented anything but for example our power shakes chul who's the market leader globally in this complete nutrition drink space clearly doing an amazing job that everywhere we've just we've we've just done it slightly differently to them and so just thinking innovatively Byron Sharp is one of my you know favorite authors read and wrote an amazing book saying how how how brands build and that's definitely you're gonna come into the food and drink space and you're gonna come up with an idea and doing something that's not so wacky and is going to have a mass market appeal generally is going to be kind of having a category entry point that's you know tweaking something um that's already you know doing pretty good so our complete nutrition drinks are you know a step up from a traditional protein shake yeah it's innovative i'm so proud about what we've done they taste amazing globally they're the only nutritionally complete meal that's ready to drink that is made of real ingredients completely natural.

33:21But it's not like we've invented something so crazy that people are not going to know what it is. Where's the, talking about innovation and developing lines and things like that, there's obviously a point where the meat and the fish got turned off. Yeah. And probably from the outside, that looks like an unusual choice. Yeah. But what was the rationale behind that? Why did that come about? Well, it's definitely unusual because I did it in 2017, 18, first couple of years we smashed all of our targets we were profitable um and then i watched cowspiracy read books like michael mcgregor's how not to die um and was pretty amazed that the negative impact the industrial food system is is having on the planet so um almost half the earth in some way shape or form is being used for animal agriculture the amount of water we use for two months of over two months of showering goes into one hamburger so it was kind of like oh wow a little bit embarrassed to be honest with you I've been working in the industry so long I was and I was so ignorant that some of this stuff so and for me it wasn't unusual because it just reignited even more passion for you know we can make 100 % plant-based food it's largely going to be loved by meat eaters you know i'm i've got nothing but respect for um you know vegans and um but we're not about trying to make it easy for more vegans to eat more vegan food we're about going well you can have an amazing soup and um the fact that it doesn't have chicken in it doesn't matter because it's going to have more nutrition in than any other prepared soup in the market and it will go toe to toe from a taste perspective as well so it was definitely not a decision that went down well with investors because we quite literally half our run rates overnight and it was a genuine strategic pivot um even even the likes of tesco were pretty surprised when i was going in and saying um you know these recipes that are selling really well we're gonna stop making those and then we're gonna replace them with i was like well not worth out yet but give us a bit of time we're gonna we're going to innovate and we're going to do something.

35:38And then obviously, you know, from a timeline perspective, a few years after that COVID happened and the vegan movement really started to motor. I have said previously on interviews, I knew it was never going to last. I think a lot of the problem with a lot of the vegan products that have been made is how much they've been processed and how much salt and oil and sugar. And if you're choosing that route for the animals, then that's great. You don't care. But if you're choosing it for planetary reasons or health reasons, then there's probably too many kind of flaws in those products to get that long-term sustainable traction.

36:20So we've always been really focused from 2018 on keeping things as natural and as minimally processed as possible. as soon as you're chopping off the spinach leaf or pulling the broccoli out the ground or whatever it is you're beginning the processing right so we we kind of keep things as real as possible so I just want to rewind just slightly so that that conversation with the investors I'd love to be a fly on the wall but you are you're obviously from a sales background so how did you how did you articulate yourself in in a way that your passion was was the right choice because if we look at it from a ceo standpoint or a board i'm going this is this is crazy and this is just your passion that's driving this how did you navigate those conversations to say this is definitely right with difficulty um in some instances but fundamentally i'd set the business up to make the big decisions.