Recipe for Greatness
Recipe for Greatness
From Powerlifting to Protein-Rich Desserts: Emily Tout's Journey with Mighty Slice
From aspiring lawyer to founder, Emily Tout, the co-founder and CEO of Mighty Slice, joins us to share her extraordinary path to entrepreneurship. Emily's unexpected discovery of powerlifting during her university years sparked a profound shift in her mindset, fostering a resilience and growth mentality that became crucial in her journey. Listen in as Emily recounts how the discipline and skills honed in her legal studies provided a solid foundation for her venture into the dynamic world of health-conscious food products, even as she navigated an identity crisis when entrepreneurship beckoned.
Witness the transformation of Mighty Slice from its humble beginnings in Emily's home kitchen to a recognisable brand disrupting the dessert industry. At a pivotal moment during the Balance Festival, Emily realised the importance of presenting even a minimal viable product professionally to captivate the interest of larger retailers. As Mighty Slice grew, Emily tackled the balance between direct-to-consumer sales and business-to-business opportunities, revealing how these strategies built consumer trust and unlocked unexpected business avenues, leading to innovative products like the standout "pink slices."
In her journey with Mighty Slice, Emily faced the logistics of introducing protein-rich cheesecakes into both small gyms and large supermarkets like Asda and Sainsbury's. She shared invaluable insights on the power of packaging, where a simple shelf barker could dramatically boost sales. Emily also explored the significance of delegation and building a robust team, highlighting the shift from hands-on involvement to empowering her team to excel independently. Throughout the episode, Emily's story underscores the courage and adaptability required to build a thriving business centered on evolving consumer needs and market trends.
Three, two, one zero and liftoff. Liftoff no.
Jay Greenwood:Hello and welcome to the Recipe for Greatness podcast, the podcast where we interview the founders behind some of the best UK food and drink and hospitality brands to throughout their journey and how they got there. Today, I'm joined by Emily Tao, the co-founder and the CEO of Mighty Slice, a brand that's carving out a significant niche in the health-conscious food sector. Born from a blend of passion for fitness and a sweet tooth, Mighty Slice emerged in 2021, introducing a line of high-protein desserts that delight the taste buds without compromising nutritional value. Emily, welcome to the podcast.
Emily Tout:Thank you for having me Excited to be here.
Jay Greenwood:I wanted to jump in and start and talk about powerlifting and how you got started into it, and I guess what I'm trying to think about is any sort of core principles that powerlifting taught you and help you improve in that area.
Emily Tout:It's so interesting and it really was very serendipitous. You know, I'd never been hugely into going to the gym when I was at college and it was just when I got to university and so many of my housemates were kind of going to the gym regularly. None of us really knew what we were doing and we'd all kind of go for a mess around, maybe do some bicep curls and figure out what was what. But actually kind of very organically started seeing videos on Instagram of other girls my age who were getting into powerlifting and I just thought how cool that you can be kind of this person that goes from literally not knowing anything about the gym to kind of lifting these huge weights and something about it just seems so appealing to me. I'm the sort of person that just loves the challenge and I kind of love the idea that me is like this five foot five person could be lifting all these like crazy heavy weights. And so, yeah, just started looking up videos on Instagram, tutorials on YouTube, speaking to people in and around the gym to figure out kind of the form for, I guess, the key lifts like the deadlift and the bench press and the squat for the powerlifting, and just got so so addicted to it very quickly.
Emily Tout:I think one of the core principles that it taught me was this concept of growth mindset, and it's something that I've really tried to kind of weave into my life throughout everything that I do.
Emily Tout:But the idea that you know, if you lift heavier weights and if you eat the right foods and fuel your body and give your body enough rest, you ultimately will start lifting heavier and you will get to the kind of 100 kg, 150 kg, you know.
Emily Tout:It just felt very methodical to me and I think that was something almost quite satisfying about knowing, if I do all of the right things here, I will get to my end result, which was obviously wanting to compete and so very gradually kind of built up this belief that well, if I keep my form right, if I eat enough protein which is obviously where Mighty Slice slowly started to come in and actually become committed enough, I will become this awesome power lifter and be able to lift all these awesome weights. And I think for me, you know, being able to see how periodically, each week, the weights would go up and I think, hang on a second. Three weeks ago I couldn't even lift this off the ground and now I'm kind of doing three, four, five reps. So so satisfying and so addictive, um, so yeah, I haven't been able to do as much power lifting as I'd like to since starting Mighty Slice, just due to, I guess, the time restraints of the business, which is something I really want to get back into for sure yeah, it's so interesting.
Jay Greenwood:I find it's just such a basic but fundamental principle that is just so relatable to everyone around, sort of that growth mindset, like you say. So you also studied law at university and I've listened to a lot of conversations and it was clear, like I think it was saying that one of your like I think in one of your books. It was like Emily was going to be a lawyer. That's all she wanted to do go into law. So I'm curious that when you actually sort of achieved that goal you got the job was there a realization that maybe the thought was better than the idea? Or was it more the fact that just entrepreneurship was just such an overwhelming urge for you to get into?
Emily Tout:I think it really is a blend of both and just for kind of people that haven't listened to previous podcasts, you know, law for me was such an intrinsic part of my identity, probably since the age of eight which is stupid, because I obviously did not know what a lawyer was as an eight-year-old, but I think I kind of I knew I wanted to have this high flying career.
Emily Tout:I've always been very type A and just kind of wanting to be the best at everything and so having this kind of high flying career really tied into that for me, and so you know, whatever I did whether that was studying or pursuing kind of things outside of my studies that were linked to law I absolutely threw myself into it and sacrificed so much to kind of get to this legal career, which I think the sacrifice for me and this idea of kind of sunken costs really played a part in being like, oh my goodness, am I making the right decision here?
Emily Tout:You know, I have worked for over a decade and sacrificed so many times when I could have gone out with friends or I've been like the last person in the library studying and like what was the point in that if I wasn't going to then pursue this, and so this real, like almost this identity crisis, when I reached that point of realization that actually being an entrepreneur and actually having my own business was just so exciting, um, and I feel like when, when you make this decision, you it feels like you're almost standing on the edge of a cliff and it's like, oh my goodness, you know, am I actually going to throw away everything that I've worked for?
Emily Tout:And I think, kind of, looking back, I really didn't throw away much of it, because so much of my legal studies have come into this, whether it's actually through looking up copyright laws or kind of frameworks or negotiating contracts or just even kind of creative problem solving and and the way of thinking that you're taught through law. So I think lots of the skills remain useful for me today. But I think in that moment there was this real identity crisis, um, and I think if it wasn't for, kind of my peers around me, I definitely would not have had the courage to kind of take that leap, um. So, yeah, it's definitely something I'm grateful for, but I look back and I'm like, oh my goodness, I actually can't believe that I did that.
Jay Greenwood:Looking back on it, yeah, it's so funny because when when I first spoke to you, it's like our paths are so similar, because I was so driven on getting into finance that I just sacrificed so much, and once I finally got into that, I was like, wow, this is gonna be really cool and fun.
Emily Tout:Yeah, you really get sold. A pipe dream and I think like I, I specifically went into space law, which is kind of niche, and I, like I loved the topic of it, but I think the realities of being a lawyer there just wasn't that ability to be creative and kind of think independently. It's very process driven and there's very little room for flexibility and I think it felt almost constraining and in a way that entrepreneurship isn't.
Jay Greenwood:One thing you touched on during listening to some of your conversations is the influence your brother had on you, and you mentioned that quite a lot. So what was the impact he had on you and was that a sort of driving force behind starting your own business?
Emily Tout:Yeah, I'd say my brother Henry is probably like the main reason why Mighty Slice exists today, which is hilarious looking back on it because it feels so sort of random. He has always been the complete opposite to me. I was always dead settled on having this corporate career and for him he always likes to do things a little bit differently and he was so into kind of Stephen Bartlett in like the very early days of the podcast like I remember he even got sent like a big Huel package from Stephen Bartlett because he'd listened to like over 100 hours of his podcast. So this was like really really, really early on he was like this kind of diehard business fan, love the idea of kind of grinding and being an entrepreneur and I think kind of this idea that you really are the sum of the people you spend most of your time with. And you know, as kind of my brother having this huge influence on me and him being so engrossed in kind of business and listening to these podcasts very quickly kind of trickled to me and like starting to listen to these podcasts as well and I think if I hadn't been kind of reading those books and listening to other people who are building businesses, I just don't think it was possible. You know, entrepreneurship was not a career that was ever spoken about at school in any capacity, and I think it's such a shame and it's something I'm a real advocate for now is going into schools and telling students that you know you can start your own business.
Emily Tout:This is an option and I think for me, having my brother that was somehow kind of involved in this world in a way that he wanted to research and learn more about it, that for me almost fulfills some sort of a curriculum that there wasn't an entrepreneurship and probably was the tipping stone for me to start thinking. You know, I've got this fitness influencing account where I'm sharing things, but actually how can I monetize this and how can I turn this into a business? And but for many fitness influencers you know they would often make these protein dessert recipes just like me and I wasn't anything special and they'd maybe create an ebook and kind of sell those ebooks for, say, 20, 25 pounds, um, and I think you know, if I hadn't been listening to these business podcasts, I might have gone down that ebook as well. But actually having the kind of influences to think hang on a second, what if I thought bigger. What if we actually turn this into a cpg product?
Jay Greenwood:um was so, so critical and I want to talk about um balance festival and mighty slice and how that sort of maybe balance festival was a pivotal moment. But I want to sort of go back before um balance festival. What like kind of what the operations of the business was like, what was happening because you mentioned there the influencer page, you were making the recipes. But for balance festival, what did mighty slice look like and what was what was happening?
Emily Tout:very little is the answer. Um, yeah, the I mean the company was created two months before the balance festival. I think I might have to go back and check the date specifically. Um, but essentially all we had was a website which I myself had made some very botched branding which I'd so figured out. I do not have a background in graphic design, um, but I guess all almost kind of similar to the way that I looked at powerlifting is this kind of formula that if you just keep doing things over and over, you'll get better? I was like, if I just follow the formula of maybe looking at other websites that look professional and see if I can take out the kind of core elements on structure or look at color palettes, kind of very formulaically try to pull together some branding Recipe, wise, wise.
Emily Tout:I think they were atrocious. I don't know why anybody liked them at the balance festival. Looking back, they were kind of these quark based cheesecakes. Um, they were quite bitter um that I had sort of whipped up in my kitchen, um, and I mean we had no production facilities. We were making mighty slices in my kitchen at home. Um, on the day before the balance festival was actually my mom and I that kind of sat down or stood up, rather, for kind of 10 plus hours and cooked all of these cheesecakes, um, and sort of chopped them up into these tiny sample pots, and so that there really was, I'd say, no business at all. It was me, with a lot of inspiration, a lot of excitement and a lot of grit, um, and a lot of naivety as to what was what was to kind of come the naivety, the brilliant key essence to when you start a business, because otherwise it does you know, I never used to understand, when I was kind of in the early days, why everyone said that naivety was so key.
Emily Tout:And I think now we're like really in the thick of it. I'm like, oh yeah, I can see now where you need to be naive about what you're getting yourself in for and one thing about balance has to do was.
Jay Greenwood:I heard you talk about how you wanted to appear like a large brand, that you wanted to sort of make a mark rather than look like just some small business trying to come up there. So, um, I guess what was the pros and cons of doing that and on reflection, would you do the same thing. It was good decision? Or maybe would you do something different?
Emily Tout:I think lots of this plays into me being a perfectionist, which is both both a pro and a con? Um, but for me from the start it was so important that Mighty Slice looked and felt like this established business. I think the reasoning behind that for me was actually, if we want to sit alongside you know, products on the supermarket shelves, we can't look like this kind of homemade? Um? Botched cheesecake that's been kind of made in a kitchen. The packaging design has been done on canva and I think, because of the scale of my ambition for the company, I had this very clear vision about where we needed to be and I think this concept of an mvp comes up a lot when you're researching startups. You know we've all read the book and actually for me I agree with lots of the sentiments of it and you know, fundamentally, looking back, what we put out at the Balance Festival was an MVP. But I think for me, very early on, it was important to get as close to the kind of polished product looking and appearing like it was this polished product, so that we could at least start to have conversations with supermarkets and bigger retailers much, much earlier on in our journey than if we kind of hadn't invested in having professional looking photography and eventually having professional looking branding. Um, so yeah, super important.
Emily Tout:I think some of the cons were that people thought we were much bigger than we were and so almost, you know, it gave us a bit more stick or had a bit more pushback. And if they didn't like the product because they didn't know, it was literally just me in my kitchen creating these recipes, and I think, you know, bigger corporations do invite more criticism, and so there is that as well. But overall I would say it was a huge pro. You know, I could go into meetings with buyers, pretend that we were much bigger than we were and actually got them more excited about the product product, and I don't think we would be anywhere near the sort of scale that we've been at today in in kind of the time frame as well, if we hadn't always kind of strove to to be this very professional looking product that looks like it could belong on the shelves in the supermarkets from day one.
Jay Greenwood:I'm really thinking as well that that following week you decided to sort of resign from your job to go full-time now. Was that a signal from the balance festival about the feedback, or was that always the plan sort of what was the trigger really scale up, right now's the time to leave law and go full-time into mighty slice yeah.
Emily Tout:So I'd been doing mighty slice, or trying to do mighty slice, alongside my full-time job. Legal jobs are incredibly kind of intense, so there were very few hours of the day that I could work on the business and luckily my partner and co-founder, jamie, was able to kind of pick up the slack whilst I was doing that. But actually the balance festival for us was a stress test and this we kind of reached breaking point where I was like, okay, fundamentally, I do not have enough time to be a corporate lawyer and to also run a company, and so I really need to have some way of deciding pretty quickly which path we're going to take. And so the balance vessel for us really was understanding do people like the concept? Do people like the product? Is there something big in this that is actually worth me giving up all of the stuff that I've worked on?
Emily Tout:And I think by day two we kind of had this crazy queue around the venue of people being like, hey, I heard there's this protein cheesecake and just going, absolutely nuts, um. And so I think, off the back of that excitement, um, it did take me a couple of days to quit my job because I was terrified, but eventually kind of was I had enough courage and I was like, okay, you know that this is happening, I'm going full in um. So yeah, it really was the tipping point for us and I think seeing the reaction of the consumers, even with how rubbish the product was back then, I think for me was just such a key sign yeah, I remember when I resigned I thought my bosses would laugh at me and uh, be annoyed and said they were just super excited because they were probably a bit bored of like what they want to do so.
Emily Tout:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Jay Greenwood:I want to talk about the brand and the vision for the company, because I'm curious about whether or not you were just making something you enjoyed and thought other people might like it, or you actually took a moment to really stop and think about right, this is what I'm enjoying, but where could the vision be? Because I heard you speak about the occasion breaking away from functionality to enjoyment, and I was consciously aware that you named it Slice rather than Cheesecake. So I'm wondering, like was it always the vision longer term to do other stuff, or was it just something you were enjoying so you thought I'll see if other people want to enjoy it as well?
Emily Tout:I think For me, being like an incredibly overambitious person, the vision has always been absolutely huge for Mighty Slice. That vision has evolved over time and I think, like you mentioned at the start, it very much for me was about disrupting the functional category. You know, I was fed up with cheesecake flavored protein bars. I wanted something that was much more indulgent and I thought that that was the category that was kind of ripe for disruption, category that was kind of ripe for disruption. We worked with an incredible branding agency about kind of six months to a year ago who really helped us rethink what Mighty Slice is as a company and where we can take it, and what we realized was that people were actually taking Mighty Slice and using it in replacement of a dessert, where they either weren't having a dessert or they were having kind of like a functional snack instead, because they just weren't having your kind of indulgent goo puddings day to day on a weeknight. And so what we very quickly realized is that actually the dessert industry is incredibly ripe for disruption.
Emily Tout:You know there has been no innovation in it for absolutely decades and you know it's filled with the same kind of sugary rubbish which tastes unbelievably good and delicious but just doesn't factor into our day to day lives as kind of slightly more healthconscious consumers.
Emily Tout:And so for us, I think, kind of opening up the opportunity for disruption with Mighty Slice and realizing that actually there is this huge category waiting to be disrupted has really kind of expanded our vision and where we see the company going and if you look at all the places that say dessert can play and you know that includes restaurant menus and that's a really exciting channel that we can tap into as this kind of dessert brand and kind of really fulfill the needs of the health conscious consumers. So yeah, very big vision now, very much focused on disrupting the dessert category, and I think that's kind of something that we've really wanted to do since day one is cause a bit of disruption and cause a bit of a raucous. You know our pink slices, as we call them, are completely unique to anything else that you'll see in the supermarkets, and so it's been really important for us since day one to make sure we stand out one thing you've done a lot of is sampling sessions, sessions, pop-up events, corporate places.
Jay Greenwood:So what's the benefit of those and what are the sort of the main insights you get? And I guess, after doing many of them, do you see big value in them or, on reflection, is there maybe something that you would like?
Emily Tout:you don't think there's much value in them yeah, for us it has always been so important to get in front of the consumer and listen to the consumer. I think it's all well and good me saying, oh, I think we should do this or I think the product should taste like this, but fundamentally I'm not the person at mass that's going to be buying it, and so the more people we can get out and speak to um, the better for us. We've always had this strategy of kind of as many bites in mouths as possible, and I think there is often a lot of kind of hesitation from consumers around protein products whether they taste good or not. There's a lot of skepticism and it's all great. Us kind of saying online they taste good, but actually if you can put the cheesecake into people's mouths not literally, but kind of give it to them, they can kind of debunk that for themselves. Right, and so for us, it was a key part of our strategy from day one. I think what we very quickly realized is that, whilst that was the primary goal is kind of getting people excited and using it as a marketing expense.
Emily Tout:Actually going to these events and meeting people in the industry um has been incredibly important from kind of a sales perspective as well and just random opportunities that have come up.
Emily Tout:And I think we always say you know, we've never had a sampling session where something useful other than just kind of spreading the word and spreading the mighty slice joy hasn't come from it, whether that's an introduction to an investor or potential stockist. You know our as the listing actually came from a random gym sampling that I did not feel like going to, but thank goodness I did, because we would not be where we were today if we hadn't turned up to that gym sampling and met one of the asda um team there. And so it really is this kind of almost opportunity cost that we see as a business now, that every event you don't turn up to, you never know who you were going to meet there, you never know which doors are going to open for you, and so we really do use it as kind of a double-edged sword marketing to the consumers but also expanding our network, both in the business sense and in kind of an interesting individuals to meet.
Jay Greenwood:Yeah, so true, because it's, ultimately, I think, all businesses need luck to get to where they are, but you kind of an interesting individuals to meet. Yeah, so true, because it's, ultimately, I think, all businesses need luck to get to where they are, but you kind of get more luck by showing up.
Jay Greenwood:And I think it reminded me of one story I heard you talk about where it was. Some woman just came up to try and then she was giving you all these like emails and stuff, and if you weren't there then of course you'd never would have met her right.
Emily Tout:So, yeah, I, the balance festival, she just so many people are willing to help and if you put yourself out there, you're just maximizing your chances of meeting those amazing people. Um, so yeah, we continue to this day to make sure we show up to as many events as we kind of possibly can.
Jay Greenwood:Um, it's an awesome strategy so now I want to jump into sort of like the business model of things. So originally the business was direct customer and I think you guys were sort of doing a lot of deliveries yourself, and then now it's maybe a bit more of like a business to business sort of operation. So I guess, contrasting two of those against each other, I guess maybe there was a time where everyone thought like DTC was the best thing ever and just interested to get your opinion on comparing those two models of DC versus B2B.
Emily Tout:Yeah, I think it's interesting, and I've really noticed over the course that we've been running Mighty Slice kind of changing attitudes towards D2C. I think when we started the company, d2c was this really hot thing that everyone was after, and it seemed absolutely stupid if you weren't doing it, and that's kind of why we went after it. For us, the decision to move more to B2B was purely kind of luck, due to the fact that the product has this short shelf life. It's chilled, it's fragile, it's incredibly difficult to pop in a D2C DPD parcel and kind of ship it across the country without a couple of people getting these smushed cheesecakes, and so, very quickly, for us realized that it wouldn't scale.
Emily Tout:I think what I'm now hearing, though, is that lots of people are using D2C to build up a bit of a case study about traction that they can then take in towards grocery kind of bricks and mortar stores, which is where this kind of golden opportunity is for FMCG, especially for a product like Mighty Slice, where we need to sit in that dessert category, and so, for us kind of very organically made that shift over to B2B bricks and mortar stores, but actually quite grateful that we did, because you know it is this huge opportunity, um, and luckily we were able to focus on kind of other small locations where we could build up traction and show that actually people buy us in small stores, and that then allowed us to kind of secure that as a listing as well and do you think you sort of mentioned that sort of the case study approach of using um direct to consumer?
Jay Greenwood:do you think that kind of helped you as well with sort of getting into like smaller retailers?
Emily Tout:I would say probably not, just because the scale that we were doing D2C at was so tiny. You know, we were delivering everything ourselves out of cool bags in two cars within the M25. And so whilst we could collect great reviews, we weren't really able to achieve enough scale just distributing ourselves to create that case study. I wish we had been able to. I think it would have been a lot easier. I remember kind of some of the first gyms that we launched into. We had to nudge the relationship for months and months before they'd list us, and even then we'd sell like 12 slices a week out of their venues, and so it really was this kind of tough gig at the start to prove that people love the concept. You know, we we had all these events that we were doing um, but I think at the time protein was kind of this niche thing that whilst it made sense in gyms, it was definitely a hard sell to kind of less health focused um venues we mentioned before, like how asda came along from that uh sampling session at a gym.
Jay Greenwood:So I'm curious how do those conversations differ, say, from talking to like, say, a small gym or a small bakery or something. To then actually ask how different are those conversations? Or maybe they're the same.
Emily Tout:I'd say there are definitely similarities and differences, and I mean even thinking about kind of the conversations that we've had with Sainsbury's now you know, there's kind of levels to this game, I guess and with the supermarkets. They really want to see data, and the more data you can provide them with, the more compelling your story and that's something that we're really learning about at the moment is actually how to use data. But in those early days it's very much kind of all about the passion and the story and, I guess, like the romance of the business and what it is that you're doing. And so I think that those elements remain the same.
Emily Tout:I'd say the key difference is just kind of sorting out the logistics. You know it's very easy to just deliver X number of slices, to say a small gym. There's a lot less paperwork, I think, kind of when we were onboarding with us, so we were like, oh my goodness, what have we got ourselves in for here? And Sainsbury's even more so, you know. So there's a lot more learning and admin and kind of logistics that goes into those supermarkets. But in terms of just getting people to believe in your vision when you don't have kind of any data to back you up. That's essentially the same conversation. You know there's someone there that wants to do something exciting with their category or wants to increase sales. You ultimately all have the same aim and so it's a similar conversation.
Jay Greenwood:Thinking about your time in Asda, were there any key learnings you took from that period about sort of things you're seeing from customer reactions or data from the actual Asda itself?
Emily Tout:Yeah, there was. There was one really key learning that I think is is carried on to us today, and this was kind of when we were, in the main, asda listing in their meal deal, as we are at the moment um, we put these shelf barkers out that basically said kind of high protein cheesecake, same delicious taste, and this awesome photo of our cheesecakes. Um, didn't think a lot about it, kind of just did it to have a bit of an experiment. We weren't sure what, what would and wouldn't work, and we just saw this crazy uplift in sales. I think it was something like 70% increase and I think normally with a shelf bark you're meant to see like five to ten percent. And so for us kind of very quickly signal but hang on a second. This is an abnormal reaction to these shelf barkers.
Emily Tout:It's clear that our packaging is not doing nearly a good enough job of communicating what the product is, and actually, you know, consumers make such split decisions actually, if they have to do that without having very clear communication on the pack, that makes it incredibly difficult. And so one of the key learnings that we've had is actually putting an image on the front, enlarging the word cheesecake, you know, making the 16 grams of protein really stand out, and that packaging is now rolled out across Sainsbury's as well. So that was an awesome learning. So many other little tweaks and things. You know the cheesecakes at the start sometimes would leak on the shelves because they just weren't kind of robust enough in the supply chain. You know you can't always count on everything being chilled, and so we had to kind of tweak and amend the recipe to make sure that actually everything was robust. People could throw it against the wall and it would still be a good enough cheesecake. And so loads of learnings there that you just don't understand until you're on the shelf.
Jay Greenwood:How forgiving are, say, like these big retailers, because mistakes happen, but is it kind of like nothing can go wrong in the supply chain operation. Or is there like some gift that maybe they're forgiving on some stuff? Or are they so hyper on like everything has got to be exactly done on the exact time?
Emily Tout:I mean, everyone in an ideal world would have kind of everything run smoothly and perfectly. You know it's something we've spoken about with our Sainsbury's buyer. A lot is, you know, supply, and maintaining supply is the most important thing. You know you cannot have kind of an empty shelf, and I think you know that was also the ethos that I carried into every single listing. You know we want to do everything in kind of the best way possible.
Emily Tout:I think what I very quickly learned, though, from conversations with kind of other suppliers is that actually, things do go wrong, and that is just kind of the nature of business, and even like big businesses you see things going wrong, and it's it almost shocked and surprised me. I think I remember one conversation with um Henry, my brother, who kind of leads the operation side of things with business at the moment and does all the purchase orders, and I kind of said in this KPI I was like right, we have to have 100% fulfillment. You know this is your goal. I really need you to strive for this, and each week we'd kind of review and be like why did we not deliver this? So you know, why was this not 100% fulfilled?
Emily Tout:Um, and we were having conversations with other suppliers the other day and they were like oh yeah, 80% is our target.
Emily Tout:And I was like, what We've been aiming for like 100%, absolutely nothing can go wrong ever. And everyone else is just kind of blasé about it and they're like, oh well, of course things go wrong. You know, it's not within your control, you're never going to supply 100%. And for me that was this real kind of shocking moment where I was like, oh my goodness, we've been striving for like perfection, literally killing ourselves to kind of make sure that everything goes right and actually sometimes there are things that are just out of your control. You know, we've had pallets go missing and we've ended up getting in our chilled van at like 12 o'clock at night to like go to this random place and like pick up the pallet, and it's like other people would just wait until the next day and then arrange for that to be delivered. And so I think there is this kind of real learning curve. But I don't think there's a bad thing with us kind of wanting to have this air of perfection and wanting to make sure we can be the best supplier possible.
Emily Tout:You know, especially as a small brand. You are always trying to prove yourselves so that someone else can't come in and swoop to your shelf space. So, yeah, we definitely still strive for perfection, but I think we're a lot more realistic about it now and stress ourselves out a lot less and are more kind of forgiving.
Jay Greenwood:One thing I want to talk on now is about sort of following your gut versus, like, customer research, and one example that came to mind was when you launched the cookies and cream flavor. So I want to talk about the sort of the approach to that decision and sort of how much is research versus how much is just your like instinct to where the product should go.
Emily Tout:Yeah, I think our attitude to this has really evolved as the company has grown and actually at the start we were so kind of gut focused because I was like, well, I'm the target customer here. You know what I like, other people I'm sure will like, and I think that works up to a certain extent. But you kind of get to this point where actually, when you're really starting to roll out flavors on scale, you need to have a bit of data behind you to actually make sure that this huge financial decision you're making for the business is worthwhile. And so something like us kind of serendipitously coming up with those cookies and cream flavor and just working through the night to make sure that we could get it out was awesome and really worked because we had that agility.
Emily Tout:But one thing we're really trying to focus on now is actually speaking to the consumers, finding out ways to access data about you know favorite flavors or popular flavors, because ultimately the data doesn't lie and you know the more that we can either carry out control groups or test groups, speak to our customers but also access that data, which is unfortunately incredibly expensive.
Emily Tout:But you kind of take bits here and there where you can. We really want to start to become kind of much more driven by that and it's one thing that we're focusing on at the moment actually is figuring out kind of where we sit on the balance of looking at the deeper into like, well, if we took two grams of protein off, we could add two grams of, say, cream in or something else. You know, would that help improve the taste in any way, and is that more appealing to the consumers than actually having, say, the 16 grams or 18 grams? And so we're really trying to look more into the data now and speaking to the consumers just to make sure we've nailed that perfect blend of functionality the consumers, just to make sure we've nailed that perfect blend of functionality.
Jay Greenwood:I wanted to dig in and get your view on sort of consultants, bringing external people in to help develop the product or just doing everything in-house, because in the industry there's some opinions that maybe consultants aren't worth the value, but then obviously they can actually then accept so you can take their knowledge and accelerate what you're doing. So I'm curious what's your experience being like of using sort of consultants, or whether or not you see like big value in it.
Emily Tout:Yeah, I mean the recipe development journey for us started with kind of my own homemade recipes in the kitchen and I think we very quickly realized that we would need some sort of expertise to actually make these retail ready, make sure that they were shelf stable products, and so food consultants did definitely play a role in the development at first. I think one of the issues for us was probably just how limited our budget was and the fact that consultants, you know, operate that they don't deliver results. It's just kind of you set the brief and then they give it their best shot. And I think for us as a small company with a very limited budget, that put us in almost a bit of a between a rock and a hard place. You know, we wanted this great product and we had this vision for it and kind of put a lot of our hopes into food consultants that could hopefully magic it out of thin air.
Emily Tout:And I think what we very quickly realized is that actually the product was incredibly technical and the kind of functionality asked and the taste demands that we were needing as a company and kind of had in our vision we're going to require a lot more than kind of a couple of days consultants work, which was really all we had, and so I think, early on, I wish that we hadn't kind of made that jump to consultants quite as soon as we had.
Emily Tout:I wish that we kind of almost spent time, you know, reading the scholarly articles, figuring out how the particles react with each other to set the cheesecakes, and figuring out all of that stuff as much as we humanly could ourselves, and then maybe taking, you know, specific, select tasks to consultants so they could really focus all of their effort on that rather than kind of being spread thin across the product. We've now got an awesome MPD team at our manufacturer who have kind of taken the bare bones of the recipe and really turned it into this awesome, delicious creamy cheesecake, and so would be nowhere without them. Um and so kind of will definitely look to to revisit with food consultants in the future, but probably with very specific tasks that they can then use their expertise to accelerate on now digging into the sort of growth of mighty slice and then particularly sort of you for being there from the very beginning.
Jay Greenwood:You you mentioned there sort of you. I think I heard one conversation you learn um adobe design and then you've basically all the packaging, design, recipe development, stuff as you've grown, going from basically in control of everything to physically not being able to be. How have you found that delegation? Has that been a challenge for you and how have you been successful at sort of delegating?
Emily Tout:it. It's such a good question. It's something that I still grapple with today. I mean it's probably a question better asked to my team how good I am at delegating. I won't lie, I find it incredibly hard at the start. You know, this is my baby that I have nurtured and I've done every single aspect. But I think when you start to bring on board the right people, that's when things start to get really exciting and you can kind of put lots of trust in them and just trust that they're going to get the job done. And so for us it's always about being about sorry, bringing on board awesome people that know what they're doing and can take the kind of vision from me but also argue their case and see which parts work for them or kind of what feedback they might have.
Emily Tout:I think in terms of kind of effective delegation, one thing that we really struggled with at the start was just having no systems. And you know it's great that I'm a whiz on Adobe illustration. I've kind of spent all this hours. But if I haven't created a brand book and the brand guidelines are kind of up in my head, that's a bit of a nightmare for everyone.
Emily Tout:And so just kind of slowly eking out systems and making sure that you know people have got the independence to just thrive in their roles has been something we've really all focused on as a team, and I I hope you can ask everyone, but we've kind of found a good place now where everyone kind of has the kind of autonomy to to fulfill their roles as they would like to.
Emily Tout:And I'm sure, kind of as we continue to outsource, there'll be different sticking points and obstacles and more systems that we'll need to put in. But I mean, logistics is an amazing thing that we've delegated to kind of Jamie and Henry and the rest of the team just brought on board an awesome kind of NED within that ops role as well, and so actually having people that are so much more experienced than me operations and logistics has just been amazing, and I think about it very little now, or as little as possible, and kind of trust them to get the job done. So it's been amazing for me to kind of be able to focus on, on the bits that I want to focus on and kind of can best focus on and then leaving everyone else to do the stuff that they're best to do as well.
Jay Greenwood:And one final question I want to touch on is well, one thing that consistently pops up in my research was family and how much support you've had from them, helping out, I think even your business partner, um Jamie, his mom, I think Judith as well I met her helping out a lot. So I guess, if you reflect on maybe like two pathways, where there's one where it's just you on your own having to do everything, versus, like you, with sort of the support of your family, how important do you think is being having them to support you on your growth in this journey from sort of where it was, you know, back before that first balance festival, to sort of where you are now?
Emily Tout:Oh it's. It's crazy to look back and think where I would have been or wouldn't have been without the help of family. I mean that first balance festival. I wasn't even there for the first day because I was stuck at a legal conference, and so you know, it was my mom, jamie's mom and my brother Henry that were running this stand and they were all kind of like this isn't our business, but we're here doing this for Emily anyway. And then kind of by day two with I mean they'd done a stellar job and I was kind of there to sell the business to everyone and really speak to all the buyers.
Emily Tout:But actually without that support in the first place, I just don't think Mighty Slice would be possible.
Emily Tout:You know, I often look at other people that have started companies and until you kind of start to speak to them you don't realize just how much of like your soul and your life goes into running this business.
Emily Tout:You know it is.
Emily Tout:It's just so unsustainable unless you've got this awesome support network around you.
Emily Tout:And you know, even kind of when I look at, I mean maybe the dedication of my brother or Jamie's brother, stephen, and the things that they've done for the company, I mean there have been like sample drops that we have had to get on a certain day.
Emily Tout:They've driven a crazy number of hours in the chilled van, probably slightly illegal number of hours, just to get this kind of over the line and it's led to these awesome deals and I think if you've got people that you can really, really lean on and rely on, you just have got it as a superpower in your company. And so, yeah, incredibly grateful to kind of all of them that have been involved in the journey, we definitely would not be where we are today and it's it's so much fun to be able to build something like that with your family and you know, we've started to bring on, I guess, non-relative hires now and they've all kind of blended in really well, um, but yeah, it's, it's really and we all feel kind of very lucky to be able to be on this like absolutely nuts journey together.
Jay Greenwood:Amazing. I think that's a perfect place to wrap the interview. I think it's such a brilliant story and it's just sort of really gives a good framework to someone with like an idea about sort of like, say that sort of step by step to getting where they are. So thanks so much for coming on the show. That it's been a really great chat thanks for having me.
Jay Greenwood:I enjoyed it as always, guys, thank you so much for listening, really appreciate the support and if you guys like it and you're enjoying what you're listening to, please like and subscribe and write a review. We'd really appreciate it Again. We'll be back doing this weekly and, yeah, if you want to know more about starting a food business, head to wwwjgreenwoodcom. But, guys, as always, thank you and be great.