S10 E4 Why Consistency Is The Silver Bullet with Fran Pittaway, CEO at Biscuiteers

In this episode, we chat to Fran Pittaway, CEO of Biscuiteers, the UK's original hand-iced biscuit gifting brand. Fran's career path is anything but conventional - from working in TV production at the BBC, to building the first-ever buying team at Children in Need, to spending nearly a decade shaping the commercial strategy at Not On The High Street, and finally stepping into the C-suite at Biscuiteers.

Throughout the conversation, Fran shares candid stories from her career, including the chaos behind the scenes of Children in Need's telethon, how Not On The High Street navigated the explosive rise of competitors like Etsy, and what it's really like stepping into a CEO role after years in commercial leadership. She also opens up about what makes Biscuiteers special - from its iconic hand-painted packaging and icing café in Notting Hill, to the meticulous "biscuits per hour" production process behind its beloved treats.

Fran's story is a masterclass in following curiosity over a rigid plan, building genuine relationships at any scale, and staying true to a brand's roots even when the market shifts around you.

Three Key Takeaways:

1) A non-linear career can still lead to strategic leadership. Fran didn't start in buying - she moved from BBC production and commercial partnerships into building Children in Need's first-ever buying team and online shop from scratch, proving that strong commercial instincts and relationship-building matter more than a traditional career blueprint.

2) The same relationship principles scale up or down. Whether working with major retailers like Asda and Debenhams or small independent brands on Not On The High Street, Fran found that honesty, trust, and understanding the customer are what make commercial partnerships work - regardless of business size.

3) Consistency beats chasing trends. Reflecting on Not On The High Street's challenges competing with Etsy and other marketplaces, Fran emphasizes that brands need to stay true to their core audience and USP rather than knee-jerk reacting to competitors - a philosophy she's now applying to grow Biscuiteers.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Hello and welcome to Buying and Beyond, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of retail buying. We're Kate and Lynn and we are talking all things retail buying and beyond with real people in retail. So grab your drink of choice and come and have a gigger with us. This episode is sponsored by The Buyers Club, our membership created for buyers by buyers.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

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SPEAKER_01 1:26

If you want to feel more connected, more confident, and more supported in your buying career, head to our homepage for more information on how to join our club.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

The future of buying isn't just smarter, it's more connected. Now let's get into today's essay.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Today we're joined by someone with a career path that's in equal parts fascinating, inspiring, and even delicious. Fran Pitway, CEO of Biscuiteers, the UK's original hand-iced biscuit gifting brand. So Fran's journey spans strategic partnerships, brand building, and commercial leadership, all the way to the C-suite of one of the UK's most loved and yummiest creative businesses. Before joining Biscuiteers as CEO, Fran spent close to a decade at Not on the High Street. So in this episode, we're going to dig into her retail career, working for some of the most creative businesses and how she transitioned into commercial leadership. Hi, Fran. Hello.

unknown 2:24

Hi.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

It's so lovely to have you. And I've already commented on that large biscuiteers box that you have behind you in the background looking fabulous. It's so pretty the artwork, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yeah, yeah. A lot of the artwork we still use now was done when the founder Harriet and her husband Stevie created the brand in 2007. We still use a lot of the original artwork that was done by an agency that they had a good friend at. So yeah, it's been pretty timeless. Iconic, really, isn't it? It's very recognisable. I agree, definitely. And it stood the test of time.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Shall we get started with just diving right back to the beginning and talking about how you first got into kind of retail in these commercial roles? What was it that inspired you in the very, very first instance?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Yeah, I don't know if I have that inspiration moment actually, that having listened to lots of your other episodes, because I I didn't, I didn't start in buying, but I guess I worked in retail as a teenager and straight out of uni I got a job in the commercial side of the BBC, which wasn't retail but was still negotiation and making numbers stack up essentially. And then after a few years there, I moved into Children in Need, which is where I worked with a lot of brands and buying teams in brands to create products using the PUDsI as a license for them to raise money for us, but also make money for themselves in some instances, although not others. And I absolutely loved it. I hadn't loved a part of my job like it until I was doing that. And so I sort of started by working with buyers and creating products. And then after a couple of years of doing commercial partnerships at Children in Need, I created the first buying team at Children in Need and created its first online shop. Until then, it didn't sell its own products or its own portal. So got to create all of that and start our own buying journey at Children in Need. So what was it that you'd originally wanted to do for the BBC?

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Was it the partnership bits that you enjoyed, or was it my first dream was to be a TV presenter? And so I got started as a runner and then I got brought into commercial agreements. That was your dream, Kate, become a TV presenter.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Do it to be fair. No, I joined, I think I did have in my head, I would get into the BBC and try and work in production, definitely, and behind the scenes, because my uni course had done a lot of that. But actually, once I was in the job I was in at the BBC, I didn't really look for anything, anything more than I was doing because I found it quite interesting. And then I did get to a point where I was like, I'm not sure I want to be doing legal and business affairs for BBC Worldwide forever. And this job came up at children in need, and I was like, cool, a charity that will have lots of purpose to it. And I had definitely got to the point where I was like, I need a bit more purpose to what I'm doing, and I've pretty much stuck to that since since making that move because it made such a difference. So yeah, I did. I guess actually a whole theme of my entire career is I don't have a plan and I haven't thought, oh, I'd love to be doing that. I've just sort of when I'm ready to to move on, I look for stuff and then I go, Oh, I like that brand, and I can get behind that and then go from there. That sounds interesting. Let's give that a try. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

So you talked about how you found the idea of working for a charity really inspiring, and then working with product was something that you found that really exciting. And then you're the first person to set up a buying team, but essentially with no buying experience. So, how did you go about that?

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Well, I so I'd started it, I'd probably we'd probably been doing it for about maybe about six months, and then bought in a lady who had cold loads of buying experience, had ended her career at a head of children's wear at MS, although had then gone on to work at National Trust, and she came in to that team to lead it. I'd sort of started it, done it for six months, and I remember us sitting down and being like, So, how are you how are you forecasting and how are you doing this and how are you doing that? And I was doing my own way of doing it, and she was like, Yeah, that's good, but maybe we do this too. I learned so much from her. She's still to this day the best manager I've ever had. She was so good, and I guess she she showed me the way in a very short space of time, and then quite soon after her joining we ex joining we expanded the team and brought in Rosie, who's been on your podcast and who's a good friend of mine now, who had had just loads of experience in different buying teams. So, how I how I was doing it, I guess I was good with commercial numbers. So I got it, and I'm quite creative as well. So I got what product makes things work. And I think from a commercial relationship point of view, you know, I'd worked with brands like Asta, Debonem's, Boots, lots of other kind of fashion brands, food brands as well. And really, when you're having a commercial relationship, you just pick up what makes someone's customer tick, and kind of my brain works well to go, okay, that would work well, and then let's make the numbers work from there.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

So yeah, I was winging it basically, Katie. It was innate. It was innate to you. It sounds like it was quite a natural, a natural thing that you you understood. You know, you didn't necessarily need to go and learn at university. It was just something that was innate to you.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

That's I wish I'd done it at university. I wish I'd, I guess when I went to uni, it just wasn't a thing. I didn't know it was a career I could go into, really. I'd not not got that guidance or or exploration, but I wish I had because yeah, exactly that. I get a lot of energy from product and from its going from start to finish and from getting all of the commercials to work. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

And it sounds like the end result was the right thing. You you know, you understood the goal and you were getting to that, you know, you knew what you needed to achieve, but maybe it was that she came in and put some of those processes in place that maybe you hadn't had totally the particular forecasting way of doing it. But you got there, you got to the number. You knew you needed what you needed to do. It was just the figuring out quite how to get there and putting those applying those principles.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Yeah, and I think before I was doing it at Children Need, the marketing team was sort of judging what we needed to buy ourselves for events and everything. And I could see from we were a very small team at the time, so we weren't very closely. It's like, look, we're really overbuying. We've got like five different rooms full of loads of different things, and that's such a waste of time and such a bad ROI. So was naturally really inquisitive of like, well, why wouldn't we just check how much we actually need? And so I guess it was being run by a team who also didn't have that. I think one thing that's really true of any job I've been in is I really want the ROI to be good. I don't want to put lots of effort in for little return, and probably that's true in just general life, not even work of like I don't want to do loads for not a lot.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Which is a really good principle and a really good way of living. Totally. Sufficient.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Yeah, definitely. Efficiencies. So, what did your day in a life look like in the children in need department? I mean, I'm sort of imagining lots of PUDSI bears all over the floor, lots of energy, lots of like obviously like creative people. You're in the television center. Describe to us like what did that look like? It must differ quite dramatically, like you've said, to a traditional buying role. But yeah, I can imagine it being very buzzy and you're partly right.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

There were PUSIS everywhere. But in on my desk, lots of PUSIS that didn't look like PUDSI. One of my favorites was PUDSIG that looked like Ian Hislop from a supply that wanted to work with us, and I kept him. I think I still got him somewhere. But yeah, it was so the charity itself was very small and ran all year. So obviously, there were sort of two arms, the fundraising arm and then also the grant arm. So then the people who are working with all the projects that children in needs money then goes to and and giving permission to grant them from their applications. So it spanned all over the country, but the actual core team was really small when I joined. So, in terms of you know, marketing PR product commercial was probably about 10 of us. And then when you get round to the telethon being on, that's when the pr BBC production team come to life and they're creating the show. And when I first joined, you had some sort of say in what happened there, and and that definitely got we got more involved as the year went on, and I'm sure it's more now. Uh, so it kind of changed a bit when you were coming up to the telethon, but people were always quite surprised that you were working year round. But with your commercial kind of partnership roles, you're working with people like AsdaBeats, Devonem's to do their ranges, you know, buying ahead, making sure they've got what they need to sell in that short window when it's relevant. So they would fund your fundraise all year round to have that total that they then give on the night. And all of the corporate partners we worked with and the bindings we worked with were obsessed with getting that moment on the night to say, we as this brand have raised this much this year from different things. So, and it was buzzy and it was energetic, and there was a lot of purpose, and you it was really tangible to see how what you were doing was then going on to help people, and I I loved that about it, but I also had a bit of a distance as well because you can't get too wrapped up in that all, otherwise, you'd be quite upset all the time. So yeah, it was. I learned a lot as well about brand and marketing and PR and events because we were so small, and yes, all of us had to go in the PUDSY suit multiple times because there weren't loads of people to do that, and there was a room full of PUDSY suits hung up that was really creepy.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

That sounds creepy, it was, and it was with suits.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

It was luckily I had both my children, both my maternity leaves were at uh children in need, so there was a good chunk of time I was pregnant and wasn't allowed in the suit, so that's good.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

They must have loved that as well. Mummy works with teddy bears, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

They did, and put Pudsy visited their school and their their nursery at the time, and yeah, they they did. It was we had all the dressing up and the t-shirts, and yeah, it was cute. It was definitely a good good thing to be working in when they were little for sure.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

And then from there, what what was your next move? Was it did you go directly there to not on the high street from there?

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Yeah, so they I was at Children in Need when they started to move a lot of the BBC up to Salford, and they moved a big chunk of the charity up to Salford. So I opted to take voluntary redundancy at that point. I'd been at the BBC 13 years, didn't want to move to Manchester, was very gutted and very upset because I loved what I was doing, but actually was the best thing because started to look for jobs and not on the high street was a brand I'd always followed. And I'd I'd often seen jobs come up there that weren't quite right, and then one came up where I was like, Yeah, that sounds good, but it had that real purpose that what you were doing was helping to grow small businesses that were really passionate about what they were bringing to offer in product, and obviously I'd very purposefully moved at children in need to focus on product and the creation of product, so it really kind of spoke to me. So I left Children in Need straight into Not on the High Street as a category manager for Prince and Art, and yeah, it kind of grew from there. There I saw lots of changes at Not on the High Street, so the shapes of the teams changed. I went on to be head of home and garden and then head of all categories and then commercial director.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Incredible. Wow, and that was over that sort of 10-year period.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

And so, how did it differ when you first joined? And you you've been working on the team working with like brand partnerships, and you've built this buying team and it's very much charity focused. And I know you're saying it still had a sense of purpose, but you're now very much a category manager and it's the one product area, whereas it sounds almost like because um children in need were such a small business, you could be quite entrepreneurial, I guess, within your role and suddenly be like, oh, that product could work, or let's go with that. And now you're sort of almost in more of a structure. Sort of what was the size of the team and how did it feel being very much like I own this category?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yeah, I don't, I don't remember it feeling like a massive shift in that way that you describe. I think probably because not on the high streets and marketplace, 5,000 small businesses at the time. So even though I was across a lot of categories for one specific licensed brand, there were only about 150 SKUs that we bought ourselves, and then probably another hundred across all the other brands. Whereas going into Not on the High Street, I suddenly had 10,000 SKUs that I was responsible for. So even though it was one category vertical, it was much, much more and lots of themes within it. And there was, I guess I I love detail and I love kind of what makes a category or a business work and trying to get what's working to work better and what isn't to come back. So I didn't I didn't notice that, I guess. And the structure was it was a lot bigger, there was a much bigger team, but actually it was probably too big. And about two years after I joined, it got a bit smaller, which was probably right for a marketplace model. So yeah, it didn't feel that uh actually the main thing that felt very different was moving from a charity in the BBC, a public service, to a commercial business that was still quite agile because it had started in 2006, so I joined kind of nine years in, was how quick everything could move versus versus the BBC. So that actually felt like you could make things happen really quickly. And I think, yes, I was used to working with brands who were massive, but the same relationship principles apply across my whole career, is that if you can make friendly, honest, open, trusting relationships with the brands you're working with, no matter what size they are, and understand the customer and what ticks and get it to stack up, as I said at the beginning, then it was sort of applying that. But actually, I could work a lot quicker. It was great because you'd be like, Oh, this trend, I can see this trend's gonna come. We haven't got much of it. Do you guys want to go and do it? And then all of a sudden, three brands have come back and done it within a week, and you've got it online and you're seeing the sales come in. So it was it was much quicker, whereas the BBC, you're working to one date.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Yeah, yeah. That's quite exciting how quickly it's moving. And it's as you just mentioned there about the different sizes. I was gonna ask you how did that feel? And I really love that summary of actually the principles apply across whether they're a large retailer that you're working with or a small business, because you'd almost think you need to sort of change your way of working because you're working with somebody on a different scale. But actually, you're right, ultimately it's a win-win. You've got the same goal at the end of the day, and you're using the analytics, as you said, to kind of dig into the how and the why. And you're all working towards the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Exactly. And as long as you're just professional, friendly, honest, direct, then really you can't go wrong in any relation, any working relationship when you do that, whether they're big or small. The difference with working with founders of small businesses is they're much more invested in their the whole of their brand and they're on an emotional journey in a way a buyer in a bigger business isn't. But that almost felt more tangible and and more, you know, you could empathize more and you were it was giving you more of a purpose. Whereas obviously working with buyers at Asda, it didn't matter that we were a charity, we were very much treated like Asda at that time treated all suppliers, which I'm sure you can imagine was not the best. So it was kind of a breath of fresh air to be working with partners and brands, obviously in sort of a different dynamic, but that wanted the same thing and wanted to have these respectful professional relationships.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

That's I think that's brilliant. That's lovely. And and how did you react to the pace? So obviously, you've you you've explained that them can imagine there's lots of red tape, but children need you go need to go through sign-off those huge, huge, vast volumes. I mean, I know we learned that from Brazy. So blown away with obviously because you're working with these big brands. How did you adapt to the to the speed? Was it something that excited you or did you find it quite terrifying at the time?

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Like I loved it because I'm really impatient. So actually, yeah, I and biscuite is the same. Like I like to move quickly, I like to make decisions quickly, and I don't like things, I don't like things to be going on in my head for too long. It's yeah, it's where I I I definitely very soon into it was like this is where I belong. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

And did you stay on print and was it print and artwork, did you say?

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah, I stayed on that, it must have been for about 18 months, and then we restructured and had teams of curators, and I was head of home and garden at that point. So we'd had like home, garden prints, food experiences, jewellery, fashion. So we kind of consolidated, and then I had curators who looked after the categories, and then I oversaw it all. Yeah, uh not too different, to be honest, because we'd got smaller, so you were still doing the do and working with you're working with kind of the bigger partners. I think at that point we actually got more involved in what we thought the brands needed to create for not on the high street in order to grow their business. Whereas when I joined, it had been a not as much of a let's bring these ideas to you and let's create it in time to get in front of press for Christmas, rather than oh, something really good's come on in November and trying to get it out and get it selling at that point. So we were become trying to become more like a seasonal buying business with and getting those smaller brands to come on that earlier journey and develop those things. And it was a super creative time because we were out, we did lots of international travel, we did loads of travel across the UK and just picking up what. Are the trends, what are the things that are coming out, and then creating ideas ourselves of like, wouldn't that be great if that was on this or that? And yeah, yeah. So we we did a lot of that, much more than we had before. And there is not in the high street has changed since then, but there's still an element of that. But the small businesses sort of need that direction when they're really small because they're they're the ones shipping the parcels as well as coming up with the product, so they don't always have time to think ahead to what's what they need to do, although typically they that's what they want to be doing.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

That's always the way, though, isn't it? You always want to be doing the more creative bits and then the logistics and the legals and other way of the fun stuff. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

Yeah. I think marketplaces are obviously there's so many more of them these days. You know, you've got fair, you've got creo eight. Were you in the business when that started to explode? And and how how was that kind of like temperature in the office when that started happening? Because obviously, I think not on the high street kind of stood on its own for a long while, didn't it? Before in, and and by the sounds of things, you guys are a lot more in the business, curating, looking for brands, supporting them a lot more heavily, whereas these other marketplaces are almost just like a sort of holding place for people, a bit more like Etsy. And obviously, you had Etsy there as well. But how did that feel when other people started to join the party?

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Stressful and really annoying. And Not on the High Street has suffered from that. When I joined Not on the High Street, Etsy didn't have much more of a market share than Not on the High Street did in the UK. It may have even had less at that point if we go back 10 years. Kind of setback through all the years I'm there and probably a little bit still now, is the the technology platform that it was working off made that much slower. And partners and businesses were starting to see other platforms work much quicker for them. Plus, they're not curated at Not on the High Street. The business accepts all products and businesses onto a platform through a curation model, whereas Etsy, you just start an account, upload your selling. And Noth USP really is that someone there is a person, a team behind going, we don't want to sell that. That's not about handcraft, that's not about small business. But Etsy, because of their technology platform, because of their competitive commission rates, just absolutely exploded and not on the high street, were too slow to in the both the technology and the commission to get to get a footing on it. And it's it's probably gone now. Etsy's very much dominating. Not can still own its space, but it stopped its scaling of growth, definitely, which was a real frustration for me. But also, Next hadn't had a marketplace and suddenly they did, and all our partners started moving to that, and then we were having to start to think, well, how do we keep our exclusivity and having to put exclusivity policies in place so that we weren't selling the same thing on not on the high street next, Amazon as well. People started selling on there, but equally businesses are like, well, I'm gonna sell on Amazon, they've got massive footprints, so I'm gonna make more money over there. So there was a lot of there was a lot of things to think about strategically about how you could still own your space and and build those relationships and and keep it. COVID was amazing for not on the high street, it absolutely blew up because everyone wanted to buy each other gifts and couldn't go on the high street, and it had you know an incredible, it was already it was already in good growth before then, but then it just supercharged. And then coming out of COVID was really difficult, and that's when other marketplaces started started to dominate.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

So yeah, it's all about staying to routes, really, isn't it? Like you're saying, like staying at USP and not being too frightened of the noise, staying in in your lane and staying what why they started this business in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Yeah, absolutely, and yeah, and actually what we found when people started to go to Next, for example, was that Next found it really hard to manage small businesses in the way that we had been built to do. And I think not on the high street still probably stands out in that you can talk to a person and mostly and kind of get a good answer. Whereas, you know, on Etsy you can't. But at the end of the day, if you're a small business, actually what matters the most is that you're selling your product and the platform really, really lacked the platform and the commercial structure really lacked the business being able to take as much of the market share as it could. Hopefully that's kind of changing under different leadership, but I think its downfall is it went under a lot of different leaderships and ownerships through my time there. And of course, if that change changes quickly in quick succession, the direction changes and then you're not consistent. Consistency is so important for a business in order for it to grow.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

The silver bullet is consistency, so yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Okay, and I've experienced that with some businesses that we've worked with before, and it is really like the consistency has to be there. You have to give a strategy at least three or four years, you know.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Yeah, not change time every six months. It's just and I was there when it was like, now it's this category, no, it's gonna be this one, no, we're dumbing down this one, we're gonna do this one. And as commercial director, I tried to give that more consistency and and give uh you know, give it a bit more time. But at the end of the day, you're at the whim of of ownership a lot of the time, aren't you?

SPEAKER_01 27:42

So yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of knee-jerking and like, oh, let's not do this, and you don't really give it a chance to even see the results. And I can imagine for you, as you've said, you're very ROI focused. And if you've done something, but you're not even waiting to see the results before you're moving on to something else, it could be incredibly. Yeah, really frustrating. I've got to ask about some of the the kind of campaigns and things like that that happened at Notten the High Street following COVID. I think a lot of retailers found post-COVID a really tough time, especially if they'd seen that peak. And we know like garden centers, arts and crafts and things like that, home stores, a lot of those sort of places did see a real peak and then didn't see that sustained growth and saw things start to fall back. But one of the ones that I saw that not in the high street had been doing that's really stayed in my mind was not just the pop-ups, because they were fabulous. I actually quite I quite enjoyed those, getting the you know, the I seeing it sort of in real life. I remember seeing it at Waterloo, but the Sam Thompson Made in Chelsea campaign. What was that about?

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Can we talk about it? And I I remember we worked with Sam Thompson, but I can't exactly remember what it was.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

But I remember I very much just remember it being Sam Thompson and not in the high street and being like, This is a really random bit.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

You know how you said knee jerk earlier? It was probably a lot to do with that. I mean, we did yeah, I can't I can't remember exactly what he did now, and I'm not a Maiden Chelsea fan, but I remember it being short-lived. And I and I think post-COVID we were just scrambling to try and get a share of voice. I think, get ourselves out there, be noticed. And I think the strategy, maybe about a year after COVID, testing my memory, was to really go after a younger audience and that we have an aging audience who loved us in 2007, but they're now kind of in their 40s and 50s, and we still need them, but we're not bringing anyone through who's going to be 40 and 50 in 15 years' time, which was right in some ways, but wasn't in that we are also at the higher end of the market and young people can't afford us. So, and and that went back to that commerciality of like we need to change our commission structure so that our partners can be more competitive, so that we can talk to a younger audience legitimately, and a battle I never won. So it would have been partly to do with that, and there were lots of other influences that that felt right for a younger audience, but of course was never going to sustain because of the end of the market, not in the high streets at. Whereas when we did partnerships with people like Fern Cotton or Giovanna Fletcher or Sophie Ellis Baxter, you know, they're the they're the people who are really at your core heart of the audience that's really engaged with you. We not in the high street rebranded in that time post-COVID as well, and that was all geared at a much younger audience. And actually, the partners just really didn't get it and didn't like it. You know, they wanted, they didn't want it to change in this kind of younger way. But there was good reason strategic reason behind it. But I think the execution and the commercials just didn't stack up against it. And that's back to that age-old thing that I'm sure every business you guys have worked in and others have worked in, is just getting commercial and marketing to work together to find that sweet spot rather than we're gonna go off and do this and it's zeitgeist and the commercial team going, I'm not gonna sell, like it's not gonna work, or commercial trying to do something that doesn't talk to the customer. Like, if you can work together, that's when it actually works.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Yeah, it has to be aligned just so and not the wrong thing to be going out and seeing who's coming along. We're talking about Gen Alpha and how they're gonna be like, you know, impacting like the way, the way they shop, the way they buy things, the sort of things they're into, but also got to remember that the older generations really are the ones with the money, yeah, aren't they? And that sort of 40, 50-year-old 10 years ago, or in very much in that got quite a lot of free cash to be spent. Totally. So you say commercially, you want to be staying with those people, but you just need to know that new customers, and there needs to be a way of bringing on new people and the acquisition, and but you need the retention piece.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Authentically, haven't you? And authentic to your brands, and peep customers aren't stupid. And I think brands like not in the high street. Biscuit is is a bit like this, although I think we, you know, we're small and more agile, we get this more right is customers get when you're older and you're trying to be younger and it's not cool. You know, it's me trying to talk to my teenagers and then being like, you're not cool anymore, because I can't do it authentically because I'm not young like they are. Whereas brands that do it really well are ones that bide their time and wait for them to be cool again, like Barber, for example. You know, they don't try and chase a younger customer, they let the younger customer come to them when they decide that you're cooler and they just stay true to what they are and do what works with their brand. Whereas Noth was starting to do a bit of like, yeah, look, no, we're super cool, and people who are younger going, no, it's still really expensive. I like this product, but you're still really expensive. Actually, just talk to your core and keep true to your brand. But that said, waiting also sees a lot of end to brands. So, you know, not every brand can wait in that way.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Yeah, it's true. Very true. So, what was the transition like then from not on the high street to biscuiteers? Like, what are the similarities between the two businesses? What was appealing to kind of make the move? And what are the kind of I guess key differences that you found?

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Well, it's a ri it's really different, right? It's not a marketplace for a start. And the thing that really appealed to me is that I didn't want to stay in a marketplace and I wanted to be in a business where it was really tangible. And I also, the food element really appealed to me. The category I always saw so much creativity in in Not on the High Street that could be creative in ways other other categories couldn't is food and is particularly sweet food as well. So that's the product I absolutely love. It's a blank canvas, it can be anything it wants to be. We can do whatever we want to do and it be really authentic to who we are. So that really appealed. The transition, yeah, the transition was great in a way, because and I guess that's only because I'm going from a commercial director as part of a C-suite team into the the CEO role is that I can all the things that you kind of look at from director C-suite level or below that you want to try and implement consistency-wise and behaviour-wise and strategy-wise, you're suddenly that is your call and that is your gift to make. So that felt great because you've got had much more ownership and a team of people who a lot of the people at Biscoes have been at Biscuitiers a really long time and are sort of looking for that direction. A bit how I was in at Children Eve when Jane started, of like a bit of direction on like how do we do this and how can we move forward. So I think the ownership piece has made it really exciting and fun. But equally, the responsibility of being responsible for an entire company is you know stressful and comes with a lot of kind of mindfulness and and yeah, just keeping your eye on the longer term and keeping steady for everybody else. So, but I wouldn't say that's been difficult. I think I'm the sort of person who doesn't really think about how it's going to be until I get there. And then when I'm there, I'm like, right, okay, I need to be like this, I need to do this, I need to sort this out. I'm much better if I'm in it to kind of work it out. And I tend to go into everything being like, it'll be fine. There's always a way. Yeah, there's like little legs underneath the water. Like a one. Yeah. And I'm really, I'm quite positive. I'm glass half full. So yeah, I've I I've loved the transition, I would say. I think it was absolutely the right thing, and I'm really grateful for the opportunity to do it and just still love the business in the way that I did before I before I joined.

SPEAKER_02 36:10

Yeah, absolutely. So, for anybody out there that doesn't know who biscuiters are, would you better just give us a bit of an overview and what what attracted you to jumping into this amazing position and the policies of the business, really?

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Yeah. So Biscuiteers is the original hand-iced gifting business. It was founded in 2007 by a lady called Harriet Hastings and her husband Stevie. They, contrary to what outsiders might think, Harriet wasn't baking biscuits and suddenly decided she actually doesn't really cook or bake. She was from a PR econ background. Her husband is a chef and has a catering business that they still have together. And they just hit upon there being a gap in the market for giftable food and had quite a few different concepts. And this one was one they both believed would really work. They set it up using that where they were based in London. They were at Stanery Street. I think they were opposite an art college. So they had artists who needed work to come in and hand- ice the biscuits. They started with seven collections. By the they started in the September, by the December, they were all sold out, and it's just grown and built from there. So it's nearly 19 years old. Yeah, nearly two decades old, which is amazing. And no one was doing it before then. It has a cafe in Notting Hill, has had a few over the course of its lifetime, but Notting Hill opened in 2012 and is still there. And it's an icing cafe. So you it's experiential. You can go and learn how to ice your own biscuits, you can have afternoon tea. We have a patisserie team who do lovely patisseries for our shop and for other businesses as well. And we mainly sell online through our e-commerce site. That's about 55-60% of our sales. But we also have over 40 wholesale clients, including Fortnum and Mason, Liberty, Bloom and Wilds, Thoughtful, a real span from both bricks and mortar onto online, and over a thousand corporate partners that come, about a 75% retention rate of corporate partners that come back and gift with us each year for different occasions. And what attracted me to it is the product, how exciting it is. I love, I guess, back to that earlier point of just product gets me really excited, product that people love, bring them joy, want to give, be really thoughtful. That really speaks to me. It gives me energy. And this product just does that in abundance. You know, we can literally have an idea and have a biscuit iced and be ready to sell in a couple of weeks. And it, I just don't, I haven't lost the joy of seeing this beautiful hand-iced biscuit. Like it is just so fun. And the MPD team that creates all the biscuits have typically started as icers and have worked their way through the business to be the people who know how to bring something to life. It's all very scientific and meticulous. So we have we work to BPH, which is biscuits per hour. So everything's designed to be a certain level of BPH on our on our conveyor line, and we bal we line balance as well to make sure it can be as efficient as possible as it runs down the conveyor and is is uh iced by hand. Um so we have a large production team, large team of icers. You just can't not look at those biscuits and smile, can you?

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Like it is it all manufactured, is it?

SPEAKER_00 39:37

We are our manufacturing's in Wimbledon, so everything's done in Wimbledon, they're 360 from our head offices there too. So from concept design through to manufacturing through to dispatch.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

And you said you started with seven collections originally, with so many different like partners. And I guess you've got lots of like you say, you've got corporate partners as well. How many sort of different collections, different designs? I guess occasions as well. Thousands.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Yeah, hundreds of thousands, yeah. And joining a business that's so well established, you know. Uh I will say we should try and do this, and someone will be like, Oh, we did that five years ago. Hold on, let me dig it out. Yep, we did a Dita Vonti's Jolly Ginger once. It so yeah, there's they've done they've done absolutely loads, and we have live on our site at any one time, probably about 300 to 400 skews. We do tins, we do large letter boxes, small letter boxes, our gingerbread men, our jolly gingers, we call them, and then a wider range of hampers and patisseries as well, brownies, macarons, pies, and shortbread.

SPEAKER_01 40:41

Oh my gosh! Incredible! And how how frequently is that sort of refreshed, or you know, is it done seasonally, or is it just sort of how's it planned?

SPEAKER_00 40:50

It's done seasonally, but there's all we're always kind of going, is there an opportunity for something in the moment, you know, something zeit guys, something that's trending, we could do that, let's just do it. But which collection is it going in? And it's very much a gifting company, right? So we we create by gifting occasion, basically, and and then seasonally by gifting occasion. So you've got kind of Christmas, Father's Day, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, but then you've also got anniversary, birthday, wedding, engagement, get well soon, you know. So depending on the size of the category, depends on how many SKUs you you have and where we think there's opportunity. And that's the bit I just love, you know, being able to that's the job I like doing, where you're kind of, you know, getting in the depths of the range and going, this is really trending, let's do more of this, not doing this anymore, you know, the the back to that ROI pointing and getting really creative about how you do it.

SPEAKER_02 41:47

That's fantastic. And you're and again, probably speed to market here is is quick as well because you've got a really great handle on your whole vertical side, you know, you're a vertical business. And is there a lot of thought that goes into the packaging as well? Because obviously gifting and packaging go hand in hand. I'm a bit I'm a bit of a packaging geek. I've always been a packaging geek. Love it. Do you have sort of big teams that focus on that too, as well as the sort of biscuit side of the business?

SPEAKER_00 42:12

Yeah, we have, I wouldn't say we have big teams, no, because actually head office-wise, we're not that big, but we and Harriet is also very obsessed with packaging, and and this is what has created this brand, right? Of like you're not just receiving the product, you're receiving a beautiful, you're you're receiving it in something beautiful. So, but as I said to you at the start, a lot of our designs are the same as they were in the start. So our kind of letter boxes all are in these beautiful boxes, the tins, the shape is really distinctive to biscuiteers. We have a lot of designs that have been the same and tweaked, but we also have designers who work up new tin designs. So, yeah, I would say a lot of a lot of thought goes into making sure the packaging is as elevated as the product. But I also think we uh except on the tin stickers, don't tend to change the packaging too much because it's really timeless. Yeah, yeah, incredible.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

And it feels like the business was sort of ahead of its time in terms of the experience side and having those stores where you can go and ice your biscuits. Everybody's bringing experience in now, you know, they're almost following what you're doing. So that must be incredible to feel like you were leading that already.

SPEAKER_00 43:25

Yeah, and still leading it. I mean, no one else does, there is no other cafe that does that, and it's not an easy thing to do either, because you have to have people who can ice biscuits really well to show people how to ice biscuits. So I think it's kind of a niche that we can still really own. Obviously, bricks and water and cafe is incredibly hard. So having one site or temporary sites is probably right for us rather than trying to have, you know, 20. But it's really like pottery cafe type uh. type vibe rather than an an actual cafe vibe. So and it's an it's an amazing space to have to run events and to take partners and you know we've just launched a Moomin afternoon tea there because we're working with Moomin on lots of products and they've been an amazing company to work with. So yeah we've got Moomin afternoon tea and we had a Moomin launch event. So we can do lots of things like that and quite quickly because we've got our own space to do them in. Yeah. Yeah yeah so what excites you most about the future of Biscuit is I think I was I was bought into the business to grow it. So that excites me because there is so much growth potential. I think what I have been able to bring in the kind of year 18 months nearly 18 months I've been here is that consistency grounding piece to then take us where we need to go. So I think what excites me is already having a strategy that we're seeing come to fruition now and continue to see that and work with that team that I've come into and and shaped further to do it together to really bring it to the growth I think the brand deserves. It's it punches well above its weight in terms of its brand how it's known and its presence but it's got so much more it can do. So I think being part of the strategic growth is is what excites me as well as just seeing what more we can develop product wise that's really fun.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

Product's always at the heart of it isn't it always yeah oh I've loved this conversation with you France so much. It's been so inspiring to hear all about not on the high street how it changed and then the incredible brand that is Biscuiteers.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

I don't suppose you have a retail therapy story have you not to put you on the spot so you don't need to no you I mean you gave me a bit of a heads up and I wrote down a couple so I was trying to I was trying to choose which one was most appropriate to talk about I mean the one that for for a buying themed podcast the one that I think would really speak to people who are listening was although bringing kind of a new angle to it was when I was at Children in Need and I mentioned earlier that all of the brands were very obsessed with their moment to say we have made X for children in need and they're kind of building up you know they want their moment on primetime TV they're obsessed at what time that's going to be and I I think it was the it was either my first or second year. I think it was my first year actually there. No it wasn't I think it was my second anyway doesn't matter we this was back when Sir Terry Wogan would go into the audience and get them to hold up a check. They don't do that anymore for this reason. They do pre-filmed moments where they announce what brands what brands have made and they're all scripted they're all kind of timed out when they're going to be boots had made I think a million and it's the first time they've made a million and they had a moment at 8 pm or something like that. But he went to the wrong people in the audience with a check for a much lower amount who were expecting to be read out much later and the buyers at Boots were all kind of sat there waiting for their moment and they didn't get it. So we were kind of behind the scenes with the production team we were like no they really need a moment like in prime time not at 11 pm because they have made a million pounds and two of them chased me down the holes of television centre me in a dress and heels because they were so pissed off they were literally to try and get an answer and stupidly I was running away from them I mean but I think that screams volumes to how sometimes buyers overstep the mark a little bit and how how invested you are invested buyers can be like it just is awe consuming. Oh my God it was terrifying and I can't actually I can't we must have got them a moment but not quite when they wanted because the relationship I think they were a bit embarrassed actually afterwards that they that they've done that and and maybe they've been drinking as well actually now I think about it. But because like I said I was kind of new to uh the buying world I was in like absolute you a lot of the time when I was working with these buyers I cannot believe people talk to people like this. It's just so rude. And I know there are loads of buyers who aren't like that which is lovely and great but there are people there are people who give buyers a bad name I think and this was certainly some of them I think I think sometimes people get far too invested the adrenaline and I think sometimes it's the pressure that pushes down on people that makes people do crazy things. That's always the like they would have had to gone and explain it. But really the explanation was Satari just went to who he wanted to go to but basically the year after that we moved transitioned into how do we go to a premise of film and then announce it and that that is exactly why because it wasn't just them there were others as well who were all really unhappy that they hadn't got read out when they were supposed to my God you can just think they're going in on Monday morning to that trade meeting like literally what the news Terry we had to explain we chased you.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

I know but don't worry we tried everything we even chased them through the halls.

SPEAKER_00 49:41

And I got blisters from running down the halls of television centre. But we'd had a really good year at Children we'd fundraise the most but our team then on the Monday were just like oh my god we've got loads of pissed off people to not how we should be feeling yeah I did have another one that was quite funny which was we were working with a brand who was making some PUDSy things to go on cars to stick on cars and they'd called them PUDSY rubber suckers and I had a lot of panicked phone calls with them of like just we cannot call them this and they just couldn't see why that might lead you to that that couldn't really be next to PUDsy. So I remember having lots of calls I can't remember the brand I'd like no seriously and they were like no packaging's already pre printed we're like no my god absolutely not that is that is a product mishap.

SPEAKER_02 50:34

We have so many stories on those so yeah I've heard lots of different ones from different brands as well that still make me laugh I mean it's just yeah I don't tire of hearing them like quite oh that was brilliant thanks for that all right what a high to end it on I love that you're welcome oh well thank you again so much and yeah all the best with the future of Biscuiteers will be watching yeah thank you so much and thank you for me have a great day bye bye bye if you've enjoyed listening to this episode please please please like and subscribe and leave a review and if you already have thank you thank you thank you we all need a bit of retail therapy and this is the perfect time for you to offload about that super cringeworthy story. We would love to hear from you all your funny stories and experiences or even any dilemmas and maybe we can help or at least find someone who can and don't worry we will keep these anonymous and remove any names and brands we would also love to hear from you on any topics you would like us to talk about please send all of these into buyingandbeyondgmail.com or drop us a DM for our Instagram page at buying and beyond Kate are you a drama queen? No drama just makes things interesting that's true. All these thoughts and opinions are our own and based on our own experiences working for a wide variety of retailers. These are all in the hope to entertain and educate and not to reflect negatively on any place we currently or have previously worked.