It started in my kitchen. No investors. No retail connections. No industry experience. Just a belief that plant-based chocolate could taste as good as dairy, and a willingness to figure it out as I went. That was 2014. My co-founder and I started making products by hand and selling them at local markets.
Within a few years, we had our first retail listing. Then another. Then Tesco came calling. Then Asda. Then Waitrose, Boots, WHSmith, and Co-Op. Each one felt like an impossible mountain until we climbed it. We went from a kitchen table to 13,000+ stores.
The brand grew fast. I led our expansion into 25 countries, securing a worldwide agreement with Spar, listings on Amazon, and partnerships with Carrefour across Europe. We built a brand that owned 5 of the top 7 bars in its UK category.
I led multi-million-pound fundraising rounds, built a 3-year NPD pipeline, grew brand awareness from 5% to 18% in a single year, and generated over 36 million media impressions. We developed clean-label, ethical products that achieved 41% lower emissions than dairy chocolate. I joined the Tesco Incubator Scheme for scaling innovation brands.
I did all of this while raising four young children. I know what it takes to build something extraordinary under real-life pressure.
But I am not going to pretend it was a perfect journey. I handled product recalls, trademark disputes, and global supply chain crises. I learned brutal lessons about cash flow, about protecting personal wealth from business risk, and about what happens when growth outpaces the infrastructure beneath it.
Ultimately, the business entered administration. That is not something I shy away from. In fact, it is one of the most important things I bring to the table. The brand did not disappear. It was acquired out of administration and proudly lives on today. But I lived through everything that came before that moment. The highs and the lows. The wins and the wreckage. And I know exactly where the landmines are because I stepped on most of them.
Today, I work with food and FMCG founders as a strategic advisor. I help brands navigate the same journey I lived, from early-stage to scale-up, and I help them do it faster, smarter, and with fewer of the mistakes I made along the way.
I am not here to give you textbook advice. I am here because I have done the thing you are trying to do.