Stock in a Can Sounded Ridiculous - Now It’s Shaking Up Categories | Founder Owen Potts

We talk with Owen Potts about building The Potts Partnership from a home kitchen into a premium ambient food manufacturer stocked by major UK supermarkets. We dig into hands-on learning, bold packaging choices like aluminium cans, and the unglamorous cash flow and operations work that makes growth possible. 

• Turning a gap year job in a jam factory into a career in food manufacturing and product development 
• Learning factories end to end by jumping onto every machine and process 
• Why partnerships break under pressure and how money triggers misalignment 
• Spotting a market gap for premium stocks and gravies in independents during the financial crisis 
• Using simple branding to stand out on shelf in butchers and farm shops 
• Scaling production through borrowed facilities, consultancy swaps, and early contract manufacturing 
• Getting supermarket buyers to engage by persevering until they taste the product 
• The origin story of stock in aluminium cans and using other categories as inspiration 
• Balancing brand identity with bold design across a range 
• Operational realities of new packaging and iterating the process to make it work 
• Why fast growth can crush cash flow and how pipeline fill changes the maths 
• Adapting from hands-on maker to team builder with engineers and product developers 
• Running a family business with clear role boundaries and aligned goals 
• Founder advice on passion, gut feel, and protecting equity 

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If you want to know more about starting a food business, head to www.jgreenwood.com. 

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Overview

Jay Greenwood 0:00

Three, two, one, zero, num, num. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Rescue and Greatness Podcast. I'm your host Greenwood. I'm your host, Jay Greenwood, and in this podcast we're going to see the founders find some of the best food and drink brands in the UK to tease out the knowledge and skills they've used to grow their business. Today's guest is Owen Potts, co-founder of the Potts Partnership, a workshop-based premium and ambient food manufacturer specializing in stocks, gravies, and cooking sources. Founded in 2007 from a home kitchen, the family-owned business has grown to a 50-person operation by major UK supermarkets through Tesco's Saints Beast, Waitress, Morrisons, and NASDAQ. And in 2019, Potts introduced recycling mini cannons, French stocks and gravies. Oh, and welcome to the podcast.

A Gap Year That Became Food

Owen Potts 0:44

Thank you very much. Good to be here.

Jay Greenwood 0:46

So I wanted to jump in and talk about before Potts and understand about your time and experience in fine food and product development. What were you doing or what was your like career like at that point?

Owen Potts 1:00

Well, technically I'm still in my gap here. I came as this. I want to be an architect, but I uh yeah, I after school I kind of uh um had a couple of years living in Holland and and going around Europe and just trying to find myself a little bit, I think. And then I came back and I stumbled into a job in a little village in the middle of Cambridgeshire uh in a jam factory. Um so I just ended up as a cook in a jam factory. I think it was earning some money to go to India, so some travelling before I went to university, uh, and that just ended, I just started my career in food, really. Um so that company went uh unfortunately went bust, and one of its principal customers uh was a company called English Provenda, and a chap called John Cohen, and he wanted somebody to move the factory in the kit from Cambridgeshire to Berkshire, where he had a shared facility. And he um everybody pointed at me because I'm not from Cambridgeshire, I'm not from that neck of the woods. I don't think anybody else really wanted to move from that little village. Uh so yeah, so that that was my opportunity. And um, yeah, I said I was gonna do a year with him and set the factory up, and then I was gonna go to university. And after a year, he said, Well, I've got this opportunity, and there was some great stuff ahead. We had some opportunities to start in the supermarkets with some chutneys and relishes and things. Uh, so at the end of that year, I said, right, I've done that year. And this went on for about 11 years, uh. Um, and then finally he sold out of the business. And I remained for a couple of years working for the new owners, but a much bigger food company. Um, and then I found that's just not for me. Uh, at that sort of much more corporate-based, uh um especially on the decisions in terms of you know what product you're going to be making, what processes you're going to be putting in, um, how you're going to launch a product. Um, the entrepreneurial side kind of disappeared very quickly, which is a shame, but um, I think that happens when a company gets to a certain size. Um, so yes, I I left, I left then and I started a um a business, another food business where we manufactured all the weird and wonderful things that we'd offered to the likes of Tesco's and the Sainsbury's. Um, purple basil jam. Um I think I remember horseradish jam. That's quite uh I think we were the one of the first companies doing um chili jams, which is a ubiquitous product nowadays. Um 2001, I suppose. We did we didn't we launched a chipotle chili jam. I think I don't think even chipotle chili was really known in the country.

Speaker 1 3:17

Yeah.

Speaker 3 3:18

Um fantastic times, uh really good, interesting products started at farm markets and uh uh selling to local shops and from our website, uh, which was a bit of a new venture at the time. Uh um, but unfortunately, on that one, I fell out with my business partners. Um, so that's that's then when we we kind of parted and we started Potts Partnership. Um and my wife came in full time. So she my wife Michelle had been working a fair bit with Potts, uh, with Atkins and Potts, my previous company, I should say. Um, and got involved in the food industry. She's uh she's a teacher by trade at the time there, but she kind of fell out of love with teaching and was bringing her children up at the time. Um so yes, so she stepped in and uh um and started pots with me. Yeah.

Learning By Doing In Factories

Jay Greenwood 4:03

There's a few things I want up back there. So you mentioned sort of quite casually how John sort of gave you a role of moving a manufacturer. Oh, manufacturing. What's the uh what were you signalling to him that sort of someone, you know, you you mentioned some of this before university or just before I had to go to university, what was your signalling to him to make him think this person is gonna be able to do this for me? And he seems like he's you know, you know, wanting to.

Owen Potts 4:26

That's it, that's a question for John, isn't it? Might have to give him a message after this and say, what the hell were you thinking? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Um I I guess um, well, I think when I stepped into that that small jam factory, and it really was just to cook, um, I remember it nice 500 kilo um steam pan, basically a glorified version of a pan you'd have at home, uh, like a meter and a half long stainless little paddle, and you had to stir in 132 kilos of frozen strawberries, uh, 100 and no 118, uh hundred and eight kilos of strawberries, 110 kilos of Chicago, uh, 10 litres of pectin solution, 500 grams of citric acid, and 10 litres of marque champagne for a champagne uh and strawberry jam. Yeah, that's still still in there. Wow, that's a very good thing. We used I started doing that, but then I got really intrigued with the machinery, the processes. I you know, I jumped on the the filling line occasionally in help there, the the labeling line. Um I had a wonderful um uh uh supervisor there, uh Rose, who kind of showed me how to start making new products from scratch, little just a little kitchen, a little baby bell two-ring hob and a and a little pan, and you you'd make a couple of kilos at a time just to try a new recipe and stuff. And I started doing that as well. So I'd kind of gradually gone through within a sort of six-month period, kind of gone around with most parts of that um of that process. And I think I think that was that was Rose kind of talking to John and saying, Well, I mean you can do this. He's he's cooked, he's he's running the machinery, he's he's kind of adept at doing all these bits and bobs. And I've never kind of been a person that will shy away at giving uh something a go. So, whatever part of the process, I'm you know, just jump in there, just have a little go, see what happens.

Speaker 1 6:06

Yeah, I'm just thinking that there must be so many unknowns, right? Because it's like you know, moving manufacturing, like bottling lines. How did you go about sort of learning stuff? Was it like you just mentioned there, just being like, I'm putting my hand up, I'm getting involved no matter like where I am.

Speaker 3 6:20

Yeah, absolutely have a go at it, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's carried on in in the careers after that. You know, we I suppose you it doesn't matter how big you get, you if you have a stab at doing something, then you're halfway there to creating something, you're getting there, aren't you? Yeah, if you sit back and contemplate it and think about it too much, then yeah, there's a danger that you talk yourself out of doing something. Well, and whether that's uh a particular role in a in a business or or launching a product, you know. Um you've got to have a little gotta have a stab, gotta have a stab at it.

Partner Fallouts And Hard Lessons

Speaker 1 6:48

And retrospectively looking back, you mentioned sort of the the uh sort of business we set up after um leaving, I think it's the provenance company. Um what did you like looking back think about you could have maybe done differently to avoid sort of falling out with the business partners, or maybe looking back on how you could approach maybe setting things up differently to maybe ensure that that kind of that didn't happen?

Speaker 3 7:10

I think when when I left DPC and and and set up the first company, I think that even then there are a few people. I think it's a well-known phrase, isn't it, that you should never go into business with uh friends or family. And I I I think that's for good reason. You you can you can be similarly aligned um on many, many things, but there's always there's probably always something that might be just a clear difference of opinion and a different way you want to go with the business or different attitudes towards some part of the business. And that won't come out until until that situation arrives in the business. You don't sometimes you're very lucky, I suppose. Um you can go through a go go through a business cycle with your with your friends or family, and it never comes up. But when things get tough, then obviously these things come to the forefront, I think. So um money is always the one, isn't it? It's yes, you know, when you're funding a business and uh uh and and you need to put more money in, where does that come from? That's always the start of arguments, the start of fractionist uh ways of looking at things.

Speaker 1 8:11

So I want to now dig into pots and what was kind of the like insight or the light bulb moment where you thought, right, let's let's move into this category, let's let's focus on changing the product and let's go all in on this. What was like the insights you saw in the industry or a signal that you maybe felt this was the right direction?

Speaker 3 8:27

It was kind of a bit of a cyclic thing. So at um my sort of main formative career at English Provenda, it was presenting to the supermarkets um at the top tier, so Tesco's finest things, we taste the difference, those those sort of top tier products. So you could be quite interesting, but there's limits on what you can sell in that sort of mass market. When I set up the set the next business, we did the weird and wonderful things, the purple basil jam and the fennel relish and stuff like that. And that's too small of a market. So when we actually launched Pots, it was 2007, it was a financial crisis hit, money's tight all around. We kind of went to some of our key customers, then butchers and uh farm shops, particularly, said, Well, what's missing from your shelves? Butchers very quickly, we had a sort of dialogue with a few butchers, they said, Well, we don't have any stocks or gravies that we can just sell without meat. That was a logical thing. Um, and farm shops were going, well, actually, traditional sells well at the moment. And think, I think in times of financial hardships, um, people will spend a little bit more on food because it's it's easier to spend a couple of quid extra on something to eat rather than a new TV, a new car, a holiday, or whatever. So little sort of treat. So there is area for premising food or whatever in that front. But we kind of thought, well, okay, let's let's go back to comfort food. So we launched the stocks because we were asked for that. Gravies to me is a comfort food, and then the cooking sources were very traditional, so Stroganoff, buff, burganyolk, chasseur, um, sort of sort of substantial comfort foods, if you like, um, rather than the the sort of uh um We're in a wonderful sort of stuff with roasted peppers and um chip potle chili and smoked paprika, which I was using for and introducing to Wein and Wonderful uh um new products. Um yeah, so those those comfort foods they they did did very well. And to launch a business, we kind of went to the independence first, which was perfect for us really, because um butchers and farm um fishmongers, farm shops, you know, they generally a lot of them own their own property, they don't have massive rent. So again, with financial times, uh when times are hard financially, then they they've still got that bricks and mortar that they they can they can trade from. They have a uh a lower overhead, let's say, than um grocers or delis or uh sort of the supermarket chains and things. So we kind of focused on those those sort of areas and those kind of products, but um, yeah, it's two of the hit hit accord.

Speaker 1 10:46

And uh was brand a big thing for you then? Were you focusing on brand or was it more the product? How did brand fit in, I guess, at that time?

Speaker 3 10:52

Yeah, that's what we had a very simplistic sort of branding. Um so they're all in pouches, standard pouches over there, a white, white header at the top, and also our logo and a simple name of product, and then the bottom two-thirds of the pouch was clear, so you could see the product. And even gravy is is not the most attractive product, let's per se to have on the shelf, but I think people want to see the product. We I don't know, we've got away with that, obviously, with our cans, but that was the thinking behind it. Um, but we went very sort of simplistic and highly stylized, whereas everything else in Delis and Butchers and farm shops was um little sort of paper mop tops, a bit more frilly, gingham, uh uh calligraphy on the front of the label, lots of pictures of of um of food and stuff like that. Um and we went the opposite. We kind of kept it nice and simple, um, and it stood out and shelf because of that, I think.

Scaling Beyond The Home Kitchen

Speaker 1 11:44

And at what point did you decide to go from the home kitchen to just like a scalable factory level? What was the signal for you? Or like as Simon said, right, now's the right time to make this choice?

Speaker 3 11:56

Well, um we we carried on using the home kitchen and we also borrowed people's space. So we had uh friends up in Northumberland, a long way from Wiltshire, Alborough. But um uh we had a friend up there who grew chilies and made lots of chili sauces and pickles and relishes and things like that. Fantastic brand called Twees Can't Dance, unfortunately. No longer, no longer around. But we're still good friends with Dan and Becky, who had that business. And he had a 200-litre cooking pan. So I'd occasionally go up there and cock 200 litres of bottle of um Hollandaise sauce, and uh use one of his staff to help me pack it into the sachets, into bags and and then drive it all the way back down in the back of my um very overloaded um estate car. Um so that kind of that was a little entry, but we also I also did a bit of consultancy work for a company and um that I'd I'd had a long relationship with, and he was a contract manufacturer for the supermarkets. So he had facilities to to make sort of 10,000, 15,000 units a day. So when we got our first opportunities with a supermarket or with uh when we got a distributor that um that we clearly weren't gonna be able to supply from one of our kind of uh our small panels or borrowing a pan up in Northumberland, we then went to him and and I did a little bit of a deal. And of course, when you started business, clashes tight. So um I did some development work for them uh and um did uh a little bit of um process development and recipe development for them. And then in turn I got makes rates on the on making some pouches of sauce, and that that is a big help to anybody stocking up.

Speaker 1 13:31

Yeah, I love that. I always think that way because it's always like it, people always think it's a transaction of money for a service, but there's always other things you can give people, and maybe it's not directly cash.

Getting Buyers To Taste The Product

Speaker 3 13:40

Yeah, always, always, yeah. Always yeah, if you can find somebody that needs uh needs something, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 13:46

And was there an educational piece for you, sort of like going into the ambient market, especially you mentioned that sort of talking to retailers? Was there an educational piece to actually explain what the product is and why it was different from maybe the sort of maybe not quite stocks, but sort of the products that were kind of serving that niche a little bit?

Speaker 2 14:04

Or sorry, how do you mean?

Speaker 1 14:05

But but um so they're educating our customers about it, or like the supermarket to basically explain to them, you know, that this is the product is superior and like get them actually on board or actually taking on the product.

Speaker 3 14:17

Yeah, I mean there are there are a few programs that have been a few programs around about you know getting a product into a supermarket. So there's one based in on ASDA and one in Tesco's, I think, and I think Aldi, I think there's another one. Um and there, you know, there's a fantastic story there of uh presenting to the buyer and you have and uh you sort of studying kitchens and then you present it and you taste it, and it's wow, it's great, we'll do that. And then you're launching into those source. Um it's it's fi it is fictional on one front, but actually on another front, you you can do that. You have to persevere, you have to get your toe in the in the door. But once you can have a dialogue with a with a buyer um and actually get them to taste the product, then then that's that's the key bit. That's the key bit really. Especially if it's a product that doesn't necessarily fit or exist on their category. And if you've if you've got it in the in the wider world, if you're selling it to butchers and the independent stores and uh or or something similar, and then you present to a supermarket, then then you've already got that that um that lead in in educating the buyer what it is.

The Aluminium Can Packaging Bet

Speaker 1 15:13

I want to now dig into sort of the evolution of pots. And I guess one of the big arcs is the um aluminium cans. So how did that like come along? What was the like insight and how did that go?

Speaker 3 15:26

I've always looked. We've always looked at um at finding interesting packaging because that that is that is how you get people to try the product uh fundamentally. You want something that stands out on shelf that people will pick up and and then take home and taste and then and then maybe maybe buy more, yeah. So it was always a kind of interest. I do remember seeing a brand, um, I think it's called Rococo Chocolates, who who had a bar of chocolate but in a in a tobacco pouch. So if you're just like a roll uh cigarette um tobacco um pouch, you know, it's about the size of a chocolate bar, but they put a fantastic sort of paper um label inside the clear bag and then the bar inside of it. So it's it's it stood out because it didn't look like a bar of chocolate, it looked like something else, but it's with all the other bars of chocolate. So you pick it up and you have a look at it, take it home, it is fantastic chocolate, and then you buy more and more and more. So you kind of look for those sort of sort of opportunities and packaging. I think we were at a trade show, I think Michelle and I and our colleague Ian, and um, we were just talking about how fantastic um some of the branding on autism beers were. You know, this is kind of 10 years ago when we first had that little gem of an idea. And you're looking at that that fixture that used to be brown bottles with oval labels on it, um, and maybe uh um uh a differentiation of a colour label, but pretty much everything looked the same on that category. Um, and then that went to these fantastic, funky branded cans, the brew dogs, the beaver towns, the um, you know, the American branding came in as well. Some of the American IPAs that first came in had these uh um fantastic sort of over-the-top brand designs on on cans and bottles. And we learned looking at our own fixture, cooking sauces in particular, and the stocks and graves and thinking, yeah, it it's all the same, really, isn't it? We we stand out a little bit in our pouches next to glass jars, and that went down well when we launched them because they because they were a little bit of a uh a break from the norm. Um, and I think we were at a trade show and we saw this, somebody walked past with a one of the very first brands of water in a can. And then we're just thinking, hang on a second, water's not it's not carbonated, it's not fizzy. So, how the hell is that? Um, keeping it staying in the can and staying rigid, because that's your one of the fundamental problems you have with with the aluminium cans. It's it's so thin that you need some pressure in there to actually give the rigidity of the packaging. And that just took us down then a warren of like, oh, fantastic branding and new product, uh new packaging. But it must be possible because I've seen products that are preserved similarly to how we preserve our products in pouches or in jars. So there must be some way of connecting the two. And then you just end up looking at different uh different brands, different products in the in those product those cans. Um yeah, I think was there uh was there a key moment when we actually got to I think it was the stocks. Stocks we thought, okay, the stocks very much like water or drinks, relatively thin, would pour through a standard can ring pull end. Um so that's our closest product, and it's one of our biggest selling products. So we had a little play around at putting uh stocks in a can. And I think, yeah, we had an opportunity with Tesco's. And Ian went in to talk to Tesco's, and we kind of saying, Well, what can we what can we offer them? What can we offer them that's new? Um, you know, you always want to go to a buyer with something new, even if they're they're not looking at um listing products at the moment or whatever. You want to take something new just to keep them interested, just to be aware so that when the there is an opportunity for a listing, they remember that and that and they they will they might might come back to you. Um so I sent Ian in with uh two cans of beer with labels, uh pots, chicken stock and pots, beef stock labels just wrapped around it. I found a white can in in a different supermarket, uh a white can of beer, uh put the labels on, sent Ian in, and um, you know, talking about um uh various different things, and then he popped these two cans out and said, Have you what about having stock? Stock in a can. And I think it's the only time I've ever heard of uh buyers giggling. Apparently they were they were just like, What the hell? No, this isn't no, you can't do it. Yeah, well, actually, yeah, why not? Um, and yeah, so that that we had that opportunity and said, okay. And I think it was a we were we were lucky there was a time, it was at a particular time when um packaging was at uh was in the it was in the limelight, and there was a there was a definite push by most of the supermarkets for uh reducing packaging or looking at alternative packaging or moving things out of um non-recycled or lesser recycled materials into fully recycled material if you can. And I think they were doing that across the across the supermarket, but not in our fixture, not in the sort of wet ambient product fixture, because it's um yeah, it just wasn't wasn't there, it wasn't on their radar. So I think we got their attention, really.

Bold Design Without Losing Identity

Speaker 1 19:49

You you mentioned one thing there about looking at other categories and seeing opportunities. And one thing that I loved is the sort of the pastor sources and sources you were doing, they look incredible. And you mentioned there about craft beer, and I couldn't help but sort of see some sort of like some like familiar familiarities and some things about sort of what else, and it really stouts me. I was like, this looks amazing. Was that insight from different categories and you took inspiration from?

Speaker 3 20:11

Yeah, there was a yeah, definitely the sort of so the beer category was that was the you know, the the fantastic branding that goes was going on there, and then I really liked. I'm not a big iced tea drinker, but I um I do the there is that brand of iced tea that has each product has very distinct different types of packaging. Um, there was a Japanese range that we we saw, we found it, we stumbled across in a uh um an Asian supermarket once of of soft drinks, and again, they had these sort of really sort of bold manga kind of characters and different ones. Uh I thought it was different flavors, but it's actually just one flavour. But there was maybe eight or nine different um uh designs for that same flavour. And it was clearly something that I don't know, some some somebody somewhere might want to connect all nine of those cans and have them as pen holders or something, I don't know. So we were thinking, yeah, bright and bold and wonderful, but let's let's make uh make it quite a significant difference between different products. Again, if you look down any supermarket aisle, there's a most brands will want the sort of including our other brands we that we have done, you want that familiarity across a fixture. You know, if you've got six products on a shelf, you want them all to be obvious that they are from that same brand. So there's uh a brand identity, and that that that needs to go across the whole range, and that becomes a little bit stainboarding. So when we talk to our designers, it was kind of well, we we want that brand identity, but we do want um a completely different uh designs on everything. And yeah, that was quite tricky to um to to kind of vocalize, and uh I think but I think they nailed it.

Speaker 1 21:45

I know you can say they did nail it.

Speaker 3 21:47

And obviously, I was very fun doing it by the way. So um when we came up with a sort of core sort of format, um um the the the NZ wonderful company called Gun This Way Up, um they basically gave different The the format we wanted, but they gave it to each of their designers in house. So virtually every uh I think virtually every designer in the business has done at least one of our designs. So that that that then leads to that sort of creative difference between all the different products if you've got different people doing that, the core bits behind it. Yeah.

Making Cans Work Operationally

Speaker 1 22:16

I absolutely love that. And we're butt showing that sort of like, I guess, product strategy and that sort of direction you want the business to go. How did you turn it into sort of commercial execution? Because there must be a a real change in operations from moving it as he from these um one packaging format to another.

Speaker 3 22:30

Yeah. Yeah. And and again, as something we've again, something I think we're a little bit fortunate in that that my background is for product development, but also I'm quite adept at working with machinery and I've I've sort of set up and run machinery as well in the past. You always kind of look at what you've got and how much of you could what you can use. Sorry, how much you've got um on the factory floor that you can use elsewhere. So the the the cans, for example, we can use our filling process. We could, when we started, we had some labeled cans, um so we could use our existing jar labels for that, the coding for the machines, the packing end of it. You know, it's all familiar to the process. So it's just then the core bit sort of actually sealing the can and the process behind it that gives us the stability. So out of a process that might have 10 different different, sorry, uh a line that has 10 different processes, we're actually using um eight of the processors uh to use elsewhere. So there's just two out of those ones you've got to find a solution for. Um that that um that one was a little bit tricky. We we managed to outsource our production uh of the stocks um to a particular company that was doing a similar product um in cannons. And that was um yeah, that was the learning curve. Uh and it's very it's very easy to look at something and go, um uh press and say, well, we'll outsource this, and then we don't have to think about the manufacturer. We can we can just um put our order in, it's manufactured for us, and then we just go and deliver it to our customer and take the cash. But then you very quickly realize that if you're trying to do something that's slightly unusual, and it doesn't have to be much, just slightly unusual, then um your passion and your sort of uh eye for the detail isn't necessarily uh underspilled or carried out by other people. Um so that's that's at that point you kind of think, okay, how can I do it ourselves? And then you just have to look around and see what's available. Um I beg borrowed and steel, stole some sort of time in different people's factory to kind of learn some bits and bobs. We still use a just uh an outsourced um contract manufacturer for some of our products, but we can manufacture everything in house now. Um and I think um I think having having some having 20 odd years of experience within factories helps you understand what's achievable on a minimum budget, a minimal budget budget. So actually going off and finding secondhand machinery, that was uh that was an interesting one. Sorry, I'm just I'm dying I'm going off on a tangent here. Sorry.

Speaker 1 25:06

No, no, no, I think it's uh one interesting spot for there. I don't know if I'm framing this incorrectly, but it's almost like being relentlessly resource through your whole journey and almost being scrapping solutions to actually see if it works.

Speaker 3 25:17

Is that kind of a fair yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah. Um and the the the process that we've got now for our uh for the cans has gone through six or seven iterations of process from sort of uh filling cold and heating in and cooking in the can and hot filling in the can uh and everywhere in between it, um part processing it in in our site and shipping a base to another company and and then do the final bit. Um, but all all this is just to get to the market and to get product out. Um and once you've got that listing, then you can kind of justify investing a bit more in the process. So once we got the listings for the stocks, then it made sense for us to look at that process and raise some capital to buy some of the kit.

Cash Flow Strain From Growth

Speaker 1 25:58

Nice. And I want to uh touch on something here. I think I I read the something Michelle said, so you can't really believe everything you really need the intent, so we've got to run. But she said uh exponential growth can be worse, um, can be worse for cash flow. So was there a um real moment or story that stands out for you of when like the cash flow got really tight from just growing too quickly, or or story that really stands out for you by times you've got really tight and being too successful, or many, many times.

Speaker 3 26:23

And this is um this is where actually being a bit in for us being a team business together has been um a bit of a godsend in that we have different skills. So from day one, I've always been about the product and coming up with the product and the process. Michelle has always taken on the sort of roles of the finance, the um quality, the technical side of it. Um she's she's not a food technologist, but she comes from a scientific background and uh her ability to learn about food safety uh and and what it means to our process, with with some good outsourcing uh uh uh as well. Um and but the the finance and RHR is uh is solely in Michelle's keep. So she's she's the genius at shaking the money tree, as she calls it, finding the cash, chasing up uh customers that haven't paid for a while, or or looking at various different options. But you know, things like um so the the launch when you launch into a supermarket, uh particularly, you'll have a pipe fill. You'll need to manufacture a lot of product. Um and I think our very first one was actually in pouches. I think we needed to find something like 60,000 pounds to manufacture the pro that initial order. And I think we had maybe 2,000 pounds in the bank at the time. Um, so yeah, so there you, you know, you know you've got that listing. So you know you're gonna get paid for that 60,000. That 60,000 pounds is coming back to you at a at a date, 60 days after you've delivered it or whatever. Um, so then you have to go out and find 60,000 pounds. So yeah, so then you take in a detail. You would be, I think for that one, we took a bank loan and secured by that order, but then you've got to pray that the order doesn't get put back six months or um the buyer changes their mind or something. Uh really they didn't.

Hiring People Without Losing Control

Speaker 1 28:07

Thank goodness. And I want to now talk about sort of yourself and your because you mentioned at the start, you know, being very hands-on in learning about every kind of detail, like just getting involved. As you sort of progressed, the company's got much bigger. How have you had to adapt to your role and your sort of, I guess, very once hands-on approach? Uh and how have you had to adapt to sort of like build the team of the company over time?

Speaker 3 28:29

That's that's part of the fun of having uh having a factory, actually, um, is that is employing people. It's it's daunting at first, and you know, yeah, taking on that first employee um is always a big step. You know, you you look at as a small you know business, there's just the two of us, and what we make comes into the family kitty, and that's what we we live off. Um, but it gets to the point where there's too much work, so you need to employ somebody. But then you look at what that person's going to cost the business. Well, it's not costing the business, it's costing you. Yeah, it's that's less money that we can take home. But but yeah, and but once you get over that hurdle and you find the right people, it becomes actually a bit of a bit of a joy to give people work and give tasks away to people. I still do uh a lot of the same sort of stuff. I still develop products, I still um source machinery, I still put processes together. But I've I you know unfortunately now I've got um some a couple of really good engineers that um that I can I can say what I want to achieve and I can say where I would I'd buy a machine to do that, and they'll go away and and work out how to actually implement that and how to put it into the into the factory. Uh sometimes I'll come in and and and uh and um uh point out that they've done something a bit stupid, and actually there's a simpler way of doing that would be uh a quarter of the cost. But I think they're they're learning that's that's that's my way of working, isn't it? So and similarly with the product development, I've got a great guy, Jack, who um who is is working with me on their product development now. So I don't have to worry about a lot of the sort of remaking of a sample or tweaking a sample for a customer or whatever. Um Jack just cracks on with that, and then we can sit down and work out what we want to do new and go away and uh and and taste some product and uh and think about where we might take uh take the cans next or aluminium packaging next.

Working With Your Spouse As Cofounder

Speaker 1 30:02

You touched on earlier in the story about um sort of like you know, friends, family, and business, and sometimes you know, disagreements. So now uh you are very closely with Michelle. So how's uh that sort of dynamic developed and how do you guys like ha have discussions or solve disagreements at all? How does that process work?

Speaker 3 30:21

Um well, we have very different jobs within the business, very clear sort of areas that we work in. So that's that's always been a um a good thing. Um until very recently we've always had uh separate offices. We certainly have uh separate but working spaces. So day through the day, we might not actually interact that much. Um I think that's changing it. Now we've got bigger and we've got a lot of people doing the sort of roles for both of us. We can actually sit back and actually spend more time thinking about what we're doing going forward and stuff. And actually, people will we we now get at the point where we need people to tell us what's going on in the business. So we we do have to sit down together and uh and talk with our you know, the either with our senior leadership team or uh other business partners and work out what's what's going on. So now we're probably working closer together. Um yeah, you try and avoid talking uh talking about work at home, but ultimately, you know, the dinner table is a is uh is an extension of your of your of your workspace, and you will start going off. You know, and our daughters have have grown up with us in in business. So uh I don't think any of them want to be in business because they do see occasional um uh traumatic uh discussion over dinner. But ultimately you've got the the you've got the same goal, you know? You've got the same goal, the same ambition. So it's it's not like going into business with a friend or with uh a more distant relative, let's say, where you know we were saying earlier that um there's always an issue that's some kind of bubbles to the top. I think me and Michelle are just you know, you you are naturally much more aligned with somebody that you're married to and have been together for 30 years or whatever. It's it's harder to to to to to disagree about things.

Founder Advice Passion And Equity

Speaker 1 31:56

I want to uh finish off my final question, which is just I've just sort of been thinking about it, it's been testing is so if you've had uh like uh a career doing a lot of like product development, growing companies, doing a lot of stuff, and maybe you see like the foods sort of like I guess system now and I guess like the business side of stuff. Is there any sort of advice you give to like founders or people setting up in it to an industry of things to maybe focus on and things maybe not to focus on, which maybe are sort of maybe becoming more popularized now, or anything that stands out for you is key things of advice you'd say to a founder of like, you know, focus on this and try to avoid this?

Speaker 3 32:30

A big I guess a big chunk of it is is your passion for your product. And I think if you've got a passion for a product and you believe that that people will will have that same passion, will buy your product, will will appreciate what you're doing, have that same sort of beef and push for it. But I think um you can rely a little bit too much on data or or um uh information on uh products that are out in the world at the moment, existing products. So you have to have a bit of a gut feel and actually push on through and and bring something to market and get people to to to understand what you're trying to do. And that's that's that's especially true if you want to launch something that's new. So the source, the cooking sources in cans. There are no cooking sources in cans before we came along, but there still aren't other than ours. So I can look at the the data that's available on on the source market, and it tells me how many gazillion billion jars or pouches of source uh are gonna sell uh sell or sell in the world or sell in a particular market. It doesn't tell me how many cans of sauce are gonna sell because there aren't any. So just believe in it. But you know, have a go. That's that's that's that's that's my kind of motto. Just have a go. And um, yeah, keep hold of equity. That's the other thing I have learned from previous uh previous reels. Don't give equity away. Keep that until you you're you're selling millions of cans or jars or bottles or packets or whatever, and then offer up a little bit of the equity. One percent, no more than that.

Speaker 1 33:54

It's incredible. Well, I've honestly had so much fun doing this. Um, I've learned so much myself, so I don't think it's gonna understand that. And I want to actually say how incredible one the stocks are a massive use of them, but the the sources are incredible, like they are so good. So, yeah, I'd recommend everyone to uh to try and get hold of them as well.

Speaker 3 34:09

So yeah, and it's it's not just the packaging, Zaya.

Speaker 1 34:12

It's the product it's the that's the main thing, yeah.

Speaker 3 34:14

100% it's uh people to buy it with the packaging, but yeah, make sure the product lives up to the expectations.

Speaker 1 34:19

Yeah, it's um I can say it's uh really stands out and it's uh let's say a good insight where it's probably you know more like you felt there was the right room to go down, and it's I think it's a great product. So yeah, it's uh really amazing. Well, thank you so much, uh Seth for letting you on it.

Speaker 3 34:34

Thank you very much for chatting, it's been great.

Jay Greenwood 34:38

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, would really appreciate it. Um, again, we'll be back doing this weekly. And yeah, if you want to know more about starting a food business, head to www.jgreenwood.com. But, guys, as always, thank you and be great.