Giles Brook: How innocent, Vita Coco and BEAR Snacks Scaled to +£100 Million Household Brands

Giles Brook needs no introduction. FMCG titan.

🍓Commercial Director & General Manager for UK & Ireland at innocent Drinks Ltd. 4 years. Catapulting business from £17m to £120m

🍉 CEO of Vita Coco EMEA for 12 years. Launching in Europe. Over a decade built into a £60m retail sales.

🍋 Giles founding partner in Urban Fresh Foods Limited, whose brand, BEAR became the UK’s No.1 fruit snacking brand & No.1 kids lunchbox item.

🍌 Urban Fresh Foods Limited has appeared twice in The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 list. The brand was acquired by Lotus Bakeries in 2015.

Serial Investor in tonnes of banging brands

• BEPPs (Snacking)
• Dalstons (Healthy Soda)
• Mindful Chef (Recipe Boxes, partially acquired by Nestle)
• Sir Kensington (condiment brand sold to Unilever in 2018)
• Edgard& Cooper (Pet),
• Love Cocoa & H!P (Chocolate),
• Presto (Direct to Consumer Coffee),
• Neat (sustainable household cleaning),
• Cheeky Panda (Bamboo sustainable household cleaning)
• Bio & Me (Gut Health)
• Surreal (Cereals)
• Urban Legend (Healthy Doughnuts)

You’re in for a real treat.

ON THE MENU:

1. Why Innocent went into McDonalds and BEAR into Wilkinson’s Despite Huge Kickback from Consumers: “Put the brand in the customer where consumer is”
2. How to Master The Subtle Art of Data vs. Intuition and Head vs. Heart
3. The Surprising Way innocent Start Their Board Meetings: Don’t Look at the P&L first. Consumer Insights> P&L insights.
4. What Data You Actually Need to Unlock Grocery Listings: Category Data vs. Shopper Data vs. Consumer Data
5. The Budget Data Hack: Build Your Own Data Base + Pick The Data Point to Best Tell Your Story
6. The Distribution Growth vs. Team Growth Fallacy: More Distribution DOES NOT = Bigger Team “you can build £40 m brand with a team of 8”
7. How Founders Can Find The Extra Gear To Take Their Brand from £5 million to £50 million: Founders Must Set The Pace
8. How To Find and Hire a Killer Marketing Director: Beware of The Danger of Founder-itis
9. The Genius of Jon Wright, co-founder Innocent - Find Simplicity in a World of Complexity
10. Why Challenger Brands Will Always Have to Give More Margin vs. Category Average
11. innocent Negotiation Retailer Tactics: Ask Questions + Establish Needs + Find Out What They Want First
12. The Danger of Hollow Revenue Forecasting When Distribution Increases: Not All Rate of Sale is Equal
13. Giles’ Secret Calculation to Find Out How Many People You ACTUALLY Need in Your Team

Full episode goes live Monday. Can’t wait till then? Others in comments below