Do we shut up shop on investment until times get better?

John Stapleton, serial entrepreneur, angel investor and speaker, provides smart money strategies for today’s investors.

A fund manager I know well has described the investment market as ‘carnage’. The cost of capital is through the roof and availability is very scarce. The rest of us are seeing this in a variety of ways – start-ups are having a difficult time raising funds (certainly at the inflated valuations they have become recently used to) and more established businesses are shelving plans to invest in growth even when they can demonstrate a tried and tested business model to justify it.

What is Vertical Farming?

What is Vertical Farming?

The term “vertical farming” covers a range of quite similar technologies. Ultimately, vertical farming is all about growing plants indoors under controlled/ optimised conditions, under lights. The most popular and well-known application is based on a “hydroponic” system where nutrients are conveyed through water to the plants’ roots. I like to call vertical farming a “5-Star wellness hotel for plants”. Conditions are optimised for nature to perform at its best and for plants to grow unhindered (by e.g. poor weather conditions, pests or animals).

What is Fischer Farms?

Fischer Farms is a food company where we design our own agriculture technology solutions to optimise hydroponic methods of growing plants indoors. Presently we grow leafy green salad and herbs and our ambition is to grow soft fruit and even high calorific staples like rice, wheat and soy in vertical farm installations, at commercially-viable prices, across the world. 

I am the Chairman of Fischer Farms and we currently have two sites - Lichfield and Norwich. Our Norwich farm is coming on stream in late 2023 and we believe it is the biggest vertical farm in the world (25,000m2, with the capacity to expand to 75,000m2). 

What are the benefits of Vertical Farming?

The benefits of vertical farming are huge. Vertical farming has purpose written all over it. 

Firstly, it is a sustainable message on steroids! Our farms use less than 5% of the water required for traditional farming, need no pesticides, herbicides, or insecticides, and can run on 100% renewable energy (which we’re busy installing). 

The produce we grow is of the highest quality and consistency, staying fresher for longer, helping retailers and consumers significantly reduce food waste.

Vertical farming is a revolutionary technology whose time has come, capable of producing yields 250 times greater than traditional farming, delivering quality produce all year round in an incredibly sustainable way and in an environment unaffected by weather conditions and water availability. 

Vertical farming can be a key flexible resource in establishing food security across the world. We see this not only in a post-Brexit Britain, helping to avoid empty retailer shelves each winter but also contributing to a solution to food scarcity in vulnerable parts of the word already struggling from land erosion, depletion of natural water supplies and the increasing challenges of climate change.  

What’s unique about Fischer farms?

At Fischer Farms we employ scale to deliver accessible unit pricing. We believe the benefits of vertical farming should be available for all. While the product we grow in our vertical farms is of excellent quality and consistency, we don’t believe vertically-farmed products should be premium priced. We build at scale and we invest in automation in order to keep the unit cost low. If we really want to grow high-calorific staples in vertical farms attached to large renewable energy sources across the world, we need to do this in a cost-effective way. 

What does Vertical Farming mean for traditional farmers?

I am a farmer’s son from the west of Ireland, so I have traditional agriculture in my blood. Vertical Farming is not designed to put traditional farmers out of business – certainly that is not our objective at Fischer Farms. There is much that is wrong with the modern agriculture and food industries. I believe vertical farming can be part of the solution to rectify these problems. We want vertical farming to complement traditional farming well into the future.

What does Vertical Farming mean to me?

You can see by the above why I’m involved in vertical farming. It’s hard to not be motivated and excited about all that this breakthrough technology is already delivering – for the consumer, for retailers, for investors and for the planet. I’ve always felt a sense of purpose in any venture I’ve been involved with. I’m hard pressed to name another business which delivers purpose so thoroughly than Fischer Farms.

Funding a business during a cost of living crisis

John Stapleton, serial entrepreneur, angel investor and speaker, provides a reality check for early-stage businesses: how a sober funding market is forcing entrepreneurs to bootstrap.

The dark side of inflated valuations: why raising funds might not be the smartest move

John Stapleton, serial entrepreneur, angel investor and speaker, looks into the fallacy of thinking fundraising is an achievement in entrepreneurship.

Nestlé inflicts yet more wounds on limping plant-based protein category

Food industry analysts suggest more companies are likely to follow Nestlé’s example in reassessing its position in plant-based protein in yet another blow for the category.

The Swiss firm’s plan to withdraw its Garden Gourmet meat-free and Wunda pea-milk brands in the UK and Ireland will no doubt have caused unease amongst proponents of plant-based alternatives. For others, it may open up opportunities in what is an overcrowded and competitive sector, with the established food manufacturers and start-ups battling for shelf space.

Tales from the frontline: John Stapleton | Helm

Thomas Edison claimed failure was “the condiment that gave success its flavour”. For John Stapleton, the failure of one food business certainly adds a twist to his more successful food startups.
 
“You can’t build a career on failure," he says, "but it helps to have experienced it. It makes you better and spurs you to work harder, if nothing else to make sure you never have to experience that feeling again.”
 
Stapleton is regarded as one of the UK’s great food entrepreneurs. He’s built two huge food businesses and is now an adviser and investor to startups. He’s applied new, innovative technology to revolutionise food retail for ever.
 
He recently spoke at a Helm special guest dinner. Helm is a members-only club for the founders of innovative, fast-growth scale-ups worth more than £1m.

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Written in the soup

It’s tempting to see Stapleton’s success as inevitable. But it wasn’t. It all started in a food science laboratory at Reading University in 1987, where he was gradually – if reluctantly - heading towards a life in the lab as an industrial microbiologist. That was before he spent an afternoon in the pub with Andrew Palmer.
 
Palmer was an entrepreneur who came to the University, which is world-renowned for its food science research department, because he had an idea about selling chilled, fresh soup. At the time the options for soup at home came in a tin or you made it from scratch yourself.  Palmer had confidence that a chilled, fresh middle ground would be popular, but he didn’t have a clue how to do it.
 
Enter the young, entrepreneurial food scientist. If it now seems inevitable Stapleton would solve this challenge, the problems and dangers at the time were very real. Supermarkets were concerned this new approach to soup could potentially poison or even kill customers. As Stapleton admits, he didn’t know what he didn’t know when he accepted the challenge to join Palmer.
 
“Ignorance is bliss when you’re innovating. You start to climb this mountain and you’re halfway up before you realise how steep it is.”
 

Professional Speaking Association

How do you give a speech to a bunch of professional speakers? You could hardly imagine a more critical audience. Speaking is what they do for a living, day in, day out. They know all tricks of the trade. I mean, if anyone is going to find you out, it’s these guys. Right?

Well, Vicky O'Farrell (London president) invited me to deliver my keynote at the PSA* London last month. And yes, these guys certainly know a bit about speaking on stage. But I’ve never experienced a crowd who were so supportive. Critical yes, but in a very constructive and supportive way. I think it’s because they know what is involved, how much you need to prepare, to get it just right, which makes them appreciative when you make an effort. (And in fact, you’re always “getting it right”.)

I spoke about Turning Uncertainty into a Competitive Advantage. This is something I like talking about as I can include some themes which I feel passionate about e.g.

• Have the Courage of your Conviction

• Embrace Adversity

• Learn from Failure

• Resilience in Business

I feel all these elements are part of how we can turn the almost unprecedented levels of uncertainty around us at present into an asset which we can use to our advantage.

The feedback I received at the event was very encouraging. One element which appeared to resonate well were the stories I used from outside business. Stories from our childhood are so powerful as they often represent something we learned at an early age and so they leave an indelible mark. The difference is, do we use these lessons? Do we put them to work for us in our business? Or do we feel the only lessons relevant to business are those learned in business?

I enjoyed myself immensely at the event and can’t wait for the next opportunity I’m convinced there is no better audience from which to be critiqued than an audience of fellow-speakers.

What do scale-ups looking for investment need to know going into 2023?

This article is by John Stapleton – entrepreneur and investor. 

This is the time of year when we simultaneously look back and take stock of the year we’ve had and look forward and try to anticipate the year incoming. Mostly, a new year is met with anticipation, often optimism. It’s simply human nature.

Possibly because we’ve now had 3 consecutive years where the sentiment has been “good riddance” to the outgoing year, we’ve become jaded at the prospects of a fourth. In any event, this time, there’s more than enough pessimism to go round.

We’re likely to have a strong Christmas – British retailing is reporting an up-tick in demand (compared to November), but expectations are that this will be significantly reversed in early 2023 as rising cost of living pressures take further hold.

CBI Economist Martin Sartorius believes that any festive cheer will be short-lived. “Retailers are bracing themselves for chill winds that will blow through the sector this winter, with consumer spending set to be hit hard by high inflation.”

This sentiment is affecting the investment community also – particularly investment in early stage businesses or those which have not yet broken even (and need shareholders funds to survive/ fund growth). The pure start-up scene remains interestingly buoyant – due to certain mitigating circumstances. But is interesting to see what is happening to businesses which are still early-stage, but have moved into scale-up mode.

‘Inflation is not just the scourge of Britain’ investor and entrepreneur John Stapleton unpicks the Autumn Statement

This article is by John Stapleton – an entrepreneur and investor

The Autumn Statement is being billed as Austerity Mark II – which it sort of is – but not for a while yet. Jeremy Hunt hopes his plan will stabilise the economy and above all, will be an effective weapon to curb inflation. He’s right to prioritise this ambition – the trouble is, at what cost?

Inflation is not just the scourge of Britain. Food inflation is a particularly good barometer as it is mercilessly transparent and immediate. Margins in the food industry are already quite slim and the supply base has little room to manoeuvre, resulting in prices being passed on more readily and rapidly (to retailers and to consumers) than in many other sectors.

Hardly a week goes by without staggering inflation figures emerging across a range of countries. In Germany, inflation has reached its highest level in thirty years. Food prices have risen 18.7% year on year. The US saw its consumer price index for food jump 11.2% in September, compared to a year ago. In Ireland, inflation rates hit record highs – up 12.4% with many staples increasing by 28%, year on year. This is eye-watering stuff.

John Stapleton is Magnified: with Matt Cooper

John Stapleton has created and grown food business in the UK and US and has learned from Success and failure. Now a business mentor, he talks to Matt about getting the bits into fresh soup, why he's investing in vertical farming and how Ireland could become a bigger player in the food industry.

It starts with Action : How to face uncertainity and develop courage with John Stapleton

John has created and grown a few successful consumer-led businesses over the last 35 years, both in the UK and the USA. He has learned hugely from both successes and failures and talks passionately and honestly about both. Having exited his third business, John now actively manages an Investor/Non-Executive Director portfolio, delivering value-added business growth advice, guidance and mentoring to businesses in early-stage and scale-up phase. Timestamps 06:24 - What were the childhood experiences that shaped you to be the person you are now? 11:42 - From your principles, what one stands out for you? 19:17 - For young entrepreneurs, what advice would you have for them? 31:16 - How can someone work on developing self-confidence to execute what they want. 33:50 - How do you get to the point that you have the courage of your convictions and have self belief when everyone is telling you is wrong 36:54 - What does your next best version of yourself look like? 41:38 - What action would you like the listeners to take?

How to turn uncertainty into a competitive advantage | Julian Roberts Podcast

Today I am interviewing John Stapleton who is a Entrepreneur, Speaker, Investor, Advisor and Mentor.

We drew upon John's 30+ years experience of being an entrepreneur to explore how we can turn the challenges we may face into our advantage. John knows we are in unprecedented times, and appreciates the magnitude we are all facing however he call us to use the uncertainty and adversity and to look for the opportunities, by having setbacks and challenges it cause you to be resourceful and creative than ever before.

Schoolboy Errors to Avoid When Approaching Investors

Mistakes which often result in an “I’m out” from potential Investors

So you’ve got a great idea, a great product, a great proposition. You now want to create a great business. You have ambition and you want to grow. To do this effectively, you recognise you need investment. The problem is, being “business ready” is not the same as “investment ready”. You don’t want to let all that potential go to waste by making a few avoidable mistakes when approaching Investors or making your pitch. Here are the top 6 cardinal sins I’ve experienced over the years of early stage food and drink pitches. Avoid these and you’ll be well on the way to an “I’m in”.

1. The brand over-delivers and the product doesn’t

Those familiar with consumer-facing branding will know that a brand needs to capture the attention and imagination of the consumer and convince them to buy the product. Ultimately, the brand promises to the consumer that the product will fulfil their expectations – even better, exceed their expectations. The ideal situation is a brand which resonates with the consumer; it promises a solution to their problem and the product knocks their socks off. That will result in a repeat purchase (the whole point of building brand awareness in the first place). All too often it doesn’t. It falls flat.

In food and drink it’s amazing how many Entrepreneurs believe that a green message, an alluring brand purpose or a catchy founder back-story will sell the product. If the product doesn’t also taste good, the one initial sale which has been so expensive to capture will also be the last. Increasing rate of sale will be elusive no matter how much resource is pumped into brand awareness.

2. The Entrepreneur won’t listen

Some founders simply cannot handle advice. They claim to want the value-added ‘smart money’ that angels bring, but in truth they believe they have it all figured out and are not interested in what their investors have to say. There’s a way to weed out such people early on: ask them to justify some of their fundamental business assumptions during their pitch. Founders who don’t listen tend to get defensive and their answers either demonstrate this, or they suggest they think you’re not ‘getting it’.

BTW, I don’t think I have all the answers – in fact, there’s no way I should. The founder should know much more about their business than I will. In fact, I like push-back. But it’s got to be push back which is justified in either reality or insight, ideally in both. A well thought-through counter will get my support, rather than simply not listening. 

3. The proposition is not scalable

Many times, an Entrepreneur doesn’t understand the commercial reality of setting up and growing a business. It turns out what they really want is to build a lifestyle business in which they plan to draw a decent salary and maybe pass it on to their kids. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t constitute a proactive growth plan and it certainly doesn’t warrant much external investment.

And even when they do want to adopt a growth strategy, the initial motivation to develop the product and bring it to market is born out of frustration that the product did not exist before they created it, but the founder fails to seek out real consumer insight. They end up designing a product which is relevant only to themselves and by definition, only appeals to a narrow target group. And so you can’t scale – certainly not quickly and often not at all. For angels, the return on investment will be far too low – certainly in relation to the risk inherent with investing early on.

Finally, when everyone really is aligned on aggressive growth, founders sometimes fail to recognise that they can’t produce their product at margins that are attractive enough to ultimately allow the business to fund brand building from working capital, after the invested funds run out. This is another frustrating example of a business that won’t scale, no matter how hard you try. It’s frustrating because it can take you quite some time to figure this out!

4. The target market is not defined

Many founders believe they know exactly what their target customer wants, but haven’t ever actually asked them! This is similar to the Entrepreneur who designs the product around their own personal needs. Fine to start with, but you need to ask the target audience what they think of the product – do they like it, why do they like it, what would they change about it and ultimately, would they actually pay for it? This means, of course, you need to have defined your target audience in the first place. Don’t think you can sell to everybody. If you attempt to sell to everybody, you’ll end up selling to nobody.

5. The valuation is crazy 

If I hear another pitch that claims to be the “next Fever Tree”, I’ll scream. There aren’t many things which are guaranteed in business but one is, you will very likely NOT be the next Fever Tree. They are so much the outlier that any comparisons are meaningless. Entrepreneurs who use this point of reference to justify crazy valuations aren’t doing themselves any favours. It’s unreasonable to expect Investors to invest at extremely high multiples or worse still, at high valuations when the business is still pre-revenue.

There exists, bizarrely, a slight contradiction here as we’re seeing a number of what I would regard as “crazy valuations” taking place recently in early stage food and drink rounds. There are a number of reasons for this, but speaking of guarantees, probably the only thing you can guarantee will follow an over-inflated valuation is a down-round at the next hurdle – and that serves no-one’s needs. If a business is at very early stage and therefore the risk is still quite high, the potential Investor should be viewed as more of a partner – and the equity the founder is prepared to surrender should reflect that.

6. Not knowing what you plan to spend the money on

Knowing what your “marketing playbook” looks like is an extremely valuable asset. This is usually developed by trying a few things and figuring out what works best and what doesn’t work at all. So much money can be wasted by not first figuring out the list of “dos and don’ts” for your brand and your category.

Therefore, you need to know how you would spend the money you are seeking. And there’s no shame in not knowing – but there's huge shame in not finding out. Typically, an Entrepreneur needs to invest in team and stock. But the really exciting investment will be in brand building. The more money being allocated to this, the more opportunity there will be to deliver a strong return on the overall investment. But this is only the case when it has been figured out what actually works. Otherwise, you’re asking the Investor to place a bet on your roulette wheel. Founders need to figure out a way to de-risk that gamble and that is called developing your “marketing playbook”.

Ultimately, how can you avoid these schoolboy/schoolgirl errors? Well, find someone who has industry experience who can help you through the various stages of “getting Investor ready” is a good start. This can be a mentor or even a (more experienced) co-founder who comes on board very early on. Then try to find “smart money”- someone like an Angel Investor with relevant industry experience who can also bring value-added input to complement their investment. Finally, try to get professional help and support to ensure you spend the investment wisely.

One excellent way to achieve this can be to join an accelerator. Not all accelerators are the same, however. Best to find one who speaks your language and understands the pressures of growing your own business. Find one run by Entrepreneurs, who have been through the same journey as you, and will have you and your business best interests at heart. At Mission Ventures, our programmes are run by Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs. With over 80 years of industry experience and more than £50m of exit values from brands we’ve launched ourselves, we believe we can help. Check out our programme opportunities and get in touch to learn more, and to hear about upcoming accelerator programmes.

Lastly, Good luck!

John Stapleton, Director and Co-Founder of Mission Ventures.

How to Sell Your Food & Beverage Brand and Maximise Value | John Stapleton

Firstly, you will need some investment

If you have an ambition to build a national/international FMCG brand and exit in approx 5 years, you need to invest ahead of the curve to land-grab distribution and drive brand awareness. (BTW, everyone starts off thinking 5 years and often end up selling (if ever) about 10 years in. I did… twice!)

You will certainly need more cash to effect this investment than your business is likely to throw off - especially in the early years. Therefore, you will need to raise funds. Definitely bootstrap initially, right up to when you've got your product tested, target consumer properly understood and your marketing playbook figured out. Then raise funds to accelerate growth with your exit firmly in sight. 

Your growth trajectory can be significantly accelerated by "smart money" in the form of value-added input and contact leveraging. An industry-relevant accelerator is one good way to achieve this, but beware, try and find one which is driven by entrepreneurs, they will know your mind and be able to relate to your challenges better. Symbiosis between shareholder (or accelerator) and entrepreneur can be an effective way to drive growth and result in a mutually beneficial exit. One important point; make sure you achieve alignment with your (main) shareholders re your exit plan.

Once you have a plan, how do you maximise exit value?

1. Get help – engage with one of the specialised corporate advisers in the Food & Beverage space. You wouldn’t try to sell your own house yourself so don’t sell an even more valuable asset – your company – without professional help.

2. Build your business in the context of what a likely suitor will want to see (whether a trade sale or to private equity).

It’s all about growth

The standard rule of thumb is that a business needs to have reached revenues of  £8.0M - £10.0M to be interesting to a potential trade buyer. However, this is only a rule of thumb and there are good examples (especially over the last 2-3 years) where Big Food has looked with interest at businesses below £10.0M. However, to attract interest, at any revenue, you need high growth.

What sort of growth?

Revenue growth is the most important of all. Above 50% YOY is a golden benchmark (and as a result, the exit multiple is more likely to be > 2.0 x Revenue)

But gross profit should really be > 30% (or this is clearly demonstrable in short order). Average rate of sale needs to be increasing too and ideally in the top quartile of your category. This can be tricky if you are growing distribution and adding lots of new (potentially less-optimal) stores. (Note: Low rate of sale (RoS) and revenue growth based on distribution alone is a red flag.)

What about innovation? 

Strong new product development (NPD) which moves quickly into RoS growth (and doesn’t cannibalise from existing SKUs) is good. NPD that fails is worse than not doing any, as it can undermine confidence and may result in retailer buyers questioning every new product you subsequently release. So, be selective and be as sure as possible it is going to work. A trade buyer will likely be more interested if you are doing a specific range very well and are smashing it out of the park, vs doing 5 things reasonably well and they are all growing at an average pace.

Do I expand overseas? 

Almost always, it is better to choose one overseas territory and execute well in this market rather than spreading broadly over a few separate (and, worse, strategically disconnected) markets. Success in one market demonstrates an understanding of that market and development of a “marketing playbook” to successfully drive trial, brand awareness and grow RoS.

Being meaningful in one international market (e.g. £1.0M) is better than being irrelevant (e.g. £100K revenue p.a.) in 10. The later only demonstrates that you can flog stuff to distributors. The former demonstrates that your brand actually has the capability to engage both consumers and retailers. A trade buyer will only give you credit for (and therefore include in the price) international reach if you are present in a meaningful way.

Multiple of revenue or of EBITDA?

Basically, just focus on revenue. If you really want to sell in 5 years, a successful growth strategy is all about revenue growth. However, the business also needs to have a healthy gross margin (see above). 

If you sell the business in Year 5+ no buyer will care what your EBITDA was in years 1 to 3. You won’t get any credit for making £250K EBITDA in Yr 2 of your existence. And you don’t need to. However, you will receive lots of credit (and it will be reflected in the price) for having higher revenue at exit. Therefore invest (wisely) in initiatives which will deliver revenue growth.

Second-guessing what a suitor might want…

Some trade buyers will prefer A, some will prefer B. Don’t however, chose A over B based on what a potential suitor might prefer. Choose it because it is right for the business. Ideally, whatever you do, if you can do it better, cheaper or in a more innovative way to the competition, that will provide a USP/ competitive edge. When the time is right, the suitors will ultimately take care of themselves. 

Business Leader Magazine Roundtable brings together Leaders to discuss Covid-19 impact

The business world may have changed forever because of COVID-19. But how are different sectors reacting and what do leaders think the future will look like?

To answer these searching questions, Business Leader brought together a high-calibre panel of business leaders.

The aim of the debate was to look at how business leaders are responding to the challenges presented by COVID-19.

The panel: 

Dr Oliver Prill – Tide Bank

Paul Beach – Arbuthnot Latham

Asma Bashir – Centuro Global

Johnny Palmer – SXS Events

Paresh Modi – Vodafone

Andrea Reynolds – Swoop Funding

Gary Fletcher – Gallagher

Jackie Fast – entrepreneur and investor

John Stapleton – entrepreneur and investor

Pat Lynes – Sullivan and Stanley

Entrepreneurs can make the most of the new normal

How can business leaders and entrepreneurs take pole position after COVID-19? John Stapleton explains how they can thrive in uncertain times and drive competitive advantage from the emerging new normal.

The Irish Government issued its Roadmap for Reopening Society & Business over a week ago. So, Ireland has a plan. Sometimes plans raise more questions than answers – but it is a plan nonetheless and a lot more than many other European countries have in place. 

Should start-ups raise seed investment during the coronavirus crisis?

The crisis has meant that fewer seed investments are being made in start-ups. But we are still hearing about success stories.

We spoke to investors and founders who raised investment in the last few weeks about the options start-ups have.

Getting Investor Ready

One of the areas I’m often asked for help is “how do I get my business ‘investor ready’”? Many start-up entrepreneurs are keen to get in shape to face this significant step with confidence (and also secure a strong valuation).

That comment can be true but it absolutely depends on your growth ambition. In the FMCG world (where there’s been a recent explosion in start-up brands), you really need to invest ahead of the curve to build your brand awareness and attract consumers to your product. If your product is good enough, they’ll buy it again.

Ambition Conference 2019

I had an absolutely fabulous time speaking at the 2019 Ambition Conference last week. The event is the brainchild of Andy Lopata – The Professional Relationship Strategist (www.lopata.co.uk) who kindly asked me to open the conference this year. 

Essentially, the event is all about “Inspiring Business Success” and is held annually in Broxbourne in Hertfordshire. Businesses from the local community – big and small – make up the bulk of the attendance and it’s a really dynamic day. This was the fifth such annual event and I was struck by the professional way in which it is run and at the same time, the relaxed and friendly atmosphere. 

I gave my keynote talk on “The Power of Authenticity” which draws on stories and anecdotes from both my business and personal life. I use these to demonstrate we can be much better prepared to face business challenges, setbacks and adversity if we allow ourselves to be the real us – to be authentic, in everything we do. The lessons we learned as a child are nearly always more use to us in business than any lesson we learned in business. We all tend to forget this, especially at times when we need it most.

I must say, I was in fantastic company – the speaker line-up was excellent! I felt like I really had to rise to the occasion! Following my talk, “Mr Network”, Andy Lopata shared insights from his new book ‘Just Ask’, where he tells stories of success, failure, trauma and vulnerability from all around the world. Some of the people he has met and speaks about are a true inspiration. Andy’s genius is that he challenges us all to ask for help more and be more open with our network. Andy is a real pro on stage and I learned lots from watching and listening to his talk.

Next up was Ester Stanhope and she was a whirl-wind! Her specialisation is all about how to make an impact and be more visible (boy was she visible!) She explained how to command a room and be the person everyone is listening to. She had some really good tips and tricks on how to “effortlessly” achieve this. Really practical stuff you can implement right away. 

Nathan Littleton then took the stage to give a really impactful and insightful talk on what he calls Credibility Marketing®. This helps you attract customers who believe what you say, much more than your competition. He really held everyone’s attention with insights like how to make your customer experience a hugely effective part of your marketing and mobilising your customers to do your marketing for you! By the end he had us all folding and launching paper aeroplanes!

Just after lunch Sam Rathling woke us all up from our break-induced slumber with an action-packed wizz through her world of LinkedIn and how to generate leads & build your brand on LinkedIn. She was full of practical advice and strategies on how to achieve this that I was left thinking LinledIn is like my smartphone phone – I don’t know 80% of what it can do and it’s much smarter than me!

Concluding the conference was Lysa Hardy from Hotel Chocolat who, apart from providing a whole hamper of HC goodies (which EVERYONE wanted to win) gave us a really interesting and alternative view on FMCG marketing. Instead of the over-played 4 P’s, she concentrated on her 4 C’s of marketing - customer experience, commercials, creativity, and courage. I loved her take on this approach – really refreshing. 

Finally, got to mention our fabulous MC for the day, Jeremy  Nicholas. Jeremy does a lot of this stuff – and it showed! In particular, his humour. In fact, Jeremy also helps speakers with injecting humour into their speeches. I never knew that was even a thing! Great stuff!

Bread and Jam Festival 2019

It’s already been a week since the end of Bread & Jam Festival 2019 and the positive vibes and ripples keep on coming. I’ve been inundated with follow up and messages from people I met – both old friends and new acquaintances.

This is the fourth year of the 2-day October event at the IoD and this year I really felt Jason @Visit_Planet_J and Tara surpassed themselves. The event is targeted at early stage start-ups in the food & drink industry – many are pre-revenue or very early concept stage. I find it an infectiously positive environment and love to be immersed in the excitement of this phase of Entrepreneurship. You’d probably better ask the young brands how they felt the event met their individual needs, but I for one, had a blast!

I’ve always been involved one way or another with #BreadandJamFest but this year I got really stuck in. I was part of three different events throughout Day 1 and thoroughly enjoyed them all.

First up was what Jason calls POD - Point of Difference. It’s sort of speed dating for branding! New brands have 10 mins to ask a panel of industry insiders questions about their positioning, messaging, points of difference and, ultimately, their brand. In my two-hour slot I met a wide range of pretty cool brands – most of whom had a pretty good grasp of who their target audience is (which is not always the case!). Hopefully, at least some left with a few ideas how to communicate with these audiences effectively.

Then came a panel discussion on "preparing yourself for investment". This was great fun. I hosted the panel, which was a relaxed exchange of views of what you need to do to do to get your ducks in a row before raising early-stage investment. We had a full hall and the topic seemed to go down well. Many of the follow-up enquiries I’ve had since were related to this discussion. I was joined on stage by Kara Rosen (founder of Plenish), Philippa Sturt (partner at Joelson) & Edward Carstairs GJE) and had a good old ding-dong!

 In the afternoon I sat on the judging panel for the #FutureFoodAwards 2019. This is the brainwave of  @SpecialityFood and @TheFoodTalkShow who set out to celebrate the new brands and innovations revolutionising the food and drink industry at the moment. I thoroughly enjoyed the 3 min pitches from each of the 9 category winners vying for the title of “Supreme Champion”. In the end, all of us judges were pretty convinced that this accolade should go to @get_nourished. They marry 3D printing technology (which can combine 27 different active ingredients) with personalised nutritional snacks. Really cool innovation – but not innovation for innovation’s sake – this is meeting a growing consumer need. I’m sure this will resonate with their identified target market. 

So, that was a full day… rounded off nicely with a few beers with attendees, speakers, judges and display stand owners. This event has now become well and truly established in the increasingly cluttered world of food entrepreneur events. This one stands out – for all the right reasons. Looking forward already to next year.