Makin Mighty Challenger Growth Podcast: Retail, sales and commercial thinking for underdog food and drink brands.
Makin Mighty Challenger Growth Podcast is for underdog brands trying to win customers, grow sales and stop shouting into an empty room.
Hosted by Simon Greenwood-Haigh, founder of Makin Mighty, it is a practical look at how selling actually works in food and drink.
Retail buyers. Distributors. Negotiation. Pricing. Rate of sale. Commercial strategy. Getting listed, staying listed and knowing what to do when growth stalls.
Expect straight conversations with founders, buyers and operators, alongside episodes where Simon pulls apart the sales processes big food businesses use and shows how smaller brands can use them too.
Before starting Makin Mighty, Simon spent six years inside a £16bn food business. Now he works fractionally with underdog food and drink brands that need commercial firepower without building a full sales team.
The basic belief behind the podcast is simple: sales isn't a dark art. It is a process. You can learn it.
If you're still doing most of the selling yourself, start here.
Follow the show so the next episode lands when it goes live.
Work out where you're stuck and how to get unstuck: www.mightymot.com
Episodes
16 episodes
How to stay on shelf once you've won the listing | Stu Macdonald, founder of ManiLife
Getting on shelf is hard. Staying there is harder, and it is the bit nobody talks about.Stu Macdonald started ManiLife after meeting the Argentinian family who have grown his peanuts since day one. A decade on it is one of the most resp...
Series 2 starts 6 October: what's changed and what's coming
Series 2 starts on Tuesday 6 October.The podcast has a new name. The Challenger Sessions has gone, partly because it was trying a bit too hard for a man sat in a small office in St Helens, and partly because it told you nothing about wh...
Buyer Truth: What Retailers Want from Challenger Brands | Chris Otto (ex buyer)
What do retailers actually want from challenger brands — and what gets you ignored instantly?In this episode of Makin Mighty: The Challenger Sessions, Simon Greenwood-Haigh speaks with Chris Otto, who spent nearly 20 y...
AI for Sales Teams Without Sounding Like a Bot | Craig (ex-Cheesies)
AI is everywhere in sales right now — and most of what people are doing either turns into spam, or it’s so complicated nobody uses it.In this episode of Makin Mighty: The Challenger Sessions, Simon Greenwood-Haigh speaks with
How Superfoodio Drive Rate of Sale Once They’re Listed [NIRALI & JAG - SUPERFOODIO]
Getting listed is exciting. Staying listed is the hard bit.In this episode of Makin Mighty: The Challenger Sessions, Simon Greenwood-Haigh speaks with Ja and Jag, founders of Superfoodio, about what really drives <...
How to Turn a 200-Year-Old Brand into a Challenger | Josh Daly (Grey Poupon)
How do you make a 200-year-old heritage brand behave like a modern challenger — without losing what made it famous?In this episode of Makin Mighty: The Challenger Sessions, Simon Greenwood-Haigh speaks with Josh Daly, who...
What “Good Enough” Actually Means for Early Brands | Simon & Scott
Early-stage founders often try to rush to “perfect” — perfect branding, perfect plans, perfect decks — before they’ve sold a single unit.In this co-hosted episode of Makin Mighty: The Challenger Sessions, Simon Greenwood-Haigh a...
Looking Premium vs Being Premium | Simon & Scott
Loads of challenger brands describe themselves as “premium”. But premium isn’t a word you write in a strategy doc — it’s something you deliver, end to end.In this co-hosted episode of Makin Mighty: The Challenger Sessions
Why Buyers Don't Buy The Story You're Telling | Simon & Scott
Founders love their origin story. Buyers don’t buy it.In this co-hosted episode of Makin Mighty: The Challenger Sessions, Simon Greenwood-Haigh and Scott Cramner unpack why brand storytelling so often falls flat in retail and co...
Why Your Content Isn’t Working (It’s Not the Algorithm) | Simon & Scott
A lot of founders blame the algorithm when their content doesn’t land. It’s a convenient scapegoat.In this co-hosted episode of Makin Mighty: The Challenger Sessions, Simon Greenwood-Haigh and Scott Cramner unpack what’s really ...
The Retail Reality: Getting Listed and Staying Listed | Jasmine Wheelhouse (Taking the Pea)
Getting listed is not the win...it’s permission to start proving yourself.In this episode of Makin Mighty: The Challenger Sessions, Simon Greenwood-Haigh is joined by Jasmine Wheelhouse (CEO/“Pea-EO” of Taking the Pea<...
Design Won’t Save Your Brand | The Basics Challenger Brands Ignore (Simon & Scott)
Design matters. But design cannot rescue a product or business that does not deliver.In this co-hosted episode of Makin Mighty: The Challenger Sessions, Simon Greenwood-Haigh and Scott Cramner get into the uncomfortable truth fo...
Why Most Challenger Brands Don’t Deserve Their Confidence | Simon & Scott
A lot of early-stage brands feel world-class before they’ve actually proven anything.In this co-hosted episode of Makin Mighty: The Challenger Sessions, Simon Greenwood-Haigh and Scott dig into a pattern we keep seeing:...
How Challenger Brands Find a Voice That Sells | Kevin Karaca (The House Outside)
Most food and drink brands say they’ve got a tone of voice but walk down any supermarket aisle and you’d struggle to tell them apart.In this episode of Makin Mighty: The Challenger Sessions, Simon Greenwood-Haigh is joined by
Building a Challenger Brand in a Brutal Category | Holy Moly
Chilled is one of the toughest places to build a food brand and most challengers don’t survive it.In this episode of Makin Mighty: The Challenger Sessions, Simon Greenwood-Haigh sits down with Gaz Booth, founder of Holy Moly, to...
