Building a Produce Brand from Scratch with Nuria Pizan | Behind the Fruit Ep. 10

Nuria Pizan spent years building SanLucar into one of the most recognisable brands in fresh produce. In this episode, she talks about what it actually takes to go from a name and an idea to a brand people trust and reach for.

She covers why most produce companies focus on the wrong things, how putting growers at the centre of their campaigns changed everything, and what she learned leading a team of 25 people across two countries.

You will hear about:

• Why branding and marketing are not the same thing
• How colour psychology shaped SanLucar's identity
• Why 70% of buying decisions happen at the point of sale
• What Nuria looks for when hiring a brand team
• The leadership lessons she learned the hard way

If you are building a produce brand, or thinking about it, this one is worth your time.

About LCR International

LCR International supports senior hiring across the global fresh produce sector.

We work with businesses where roles require a mix of technical, commercial, and leadership experience, often across regions.

Typical support includes:
 • Retained executive search
 • Talent mapping and competitor insight
 • Org structure and succession planning

If you're hiring and want a clearer view of the market before you start, you can get in touch here:

👉 https://www.lcrint.com/

Transcript

Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:02

And then he called me after six months at nine o'clock in the morning, Nuria. I would like to dismiss our marketing director. Will you take on his job? And I said, I don't know. I don't have so much experience. I don't know. I said, okay, think about it. You have time till one o'clock. Okay. At 11 o'clock, HR called me. So, so Stefan dismissed now the marketing director and told the team that you would take over.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Okay. Right. Yeah, that's a decision made. Welcome back to Behind the Fruit. I'm Lucy Robinson. Why are there still so few true brands in fresh produce? Nuria shares what the industry gets wrong and what it really takes to create a brand people remember.

Who is Nuria Pizan?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Welcome back to Behind the Fruit. We are on episode 10 already, which is really exciting. It really has flown by. And today's guest is Nuria Hizam. Nuria, it's great to have you with us. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited. Before we get into your background, and we know obviously we'll talk about marketing, particularly branding. Um, could you give us a more of a top-line overview of who you are, um, what you're doing at the moment, uh, just an introduction would be great.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

I'm working now for companies in the fruit and vegetable business who want to build a brand or make their brand more visible, or also I've got a good knowledge about the German and European market, maybe with the context to bring it a little bit forward in Germany, because I know very good the retail market, of course. Well, yes, that's what I'm doing, and I love it because I there are so many nice people in this industry, and I didn't know them before. You know, but when I was at the Fruit Logistica, a fruit attraction, I was always at the San Luca booth, and it was great to see all the people from all over the world once in a year. It was like a family meeting, but now it's so exciting going over the fair and to meet so many nice people I didn't know before. So um, yeah, it's it was a good and interesting decision.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah, let's talk about that then, because um obviously you built the brand at San Luca from from scratch. So talk us through that journey of when you joined

Building SanLucar from scratch

SPEAKER_01 2:25

the business, what was there, and then what you needed to build.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

The owner of San Luca came along, Stefan Rötzer to Germany. He has read an article of my boss, uh, and he said, Oh, I um uh selling fruits and vegetables, and I want to become a brand with my fruits, so we started to build the brand from the scratch. He had already the nice name Sanluca, it was a really nice name, uh, still is, and we started uh why with everything the strategy, the CI, the point of sale, communication packaging. We did basically everything. We started with the logo and with the color of the logos. We we found out that the colour now it's you don't have fruit in this colors. It's like a light blue turquoise colour, the logo. And this is nice because it's a contrast with all the fruits. If you put this as a sticker, because normally you have stickers on fruits, obviously, on stone fruits, on the fruit. It really stands out and on the boxes, for example. Yeah, you can see it at the point of sale already, child, because it's a contrast, you know, you can see it like this, so and also the

Colour psychology and standing out at the shelf

SPEAKER_00 3:35

psychology of the colours because uh it's standing for fresh, this colours, like you know, and this is good because we are selling fresh fruit, and one of the most important things for consumer is in terms for fruit is that it tastes good and uh that it's fresh. Like obviously, you don't want to buy something like you're a little bit old. Yeah. So and the blue gives you the psychological feeling that it's fresh. You know, fish is also advertising a lot with blue, light blue, it's freshness like this.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Obviously, you don't usually think about blue and then produce as you see, but it's that contrast that makes it stand out essentially.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Yeah, and this was really an important part for us, a point of sale concept, uh, which uh because also the brand decisions are taken at the point of sale. 70% at least uh minimum is taken at the point of sale. So you have to shine out there and to be visible so people can find you. Yeah. And you know also when you go, you buy fruits, you eat a tomato, you like it. Next time you go and you can't find it anymore. You don't like that. You want to buy the same tomato you bought before because you like it. So that's why a brand is so helpful for the people to give orientation and to

Why they put growers at the centre of the brand

SPEAKER_00 4:56

that the sales goes up as well, of course.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Yeah, okay. And you also you've um you've talked previously about um building the brand around people and that you really made the decision to build the brand around people and particularly farmers, so really looking at farmers and the origin of the product. Why did you feel at the time that that was important? What led you to making that decision?

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah, it uh you know, I think you shouldn't sell if you sell a brand, you shouldn't sell a product. I mean, you know, a lot I I see it often that people tell the advantage of this product and that product, and it's this taste and that taste, and that's fine, it's uh important as well, of course. The product has to taste good, but to build a brand, you need more than a product, you need an emotional added value and a good feeling for the people that you can buy it. If you buy Nike, you don't buy it for the shoes and they don't make advertising around the nice soul, but they put the athletes in the middle in the in the middle of the campaign. And that's uh we did like something similar with the growers. I love the growers. They are very, very, very important and they have a really hard job. And uh to appreciate their work and to celebrate them for their work. It felt like a good way also, not just for the growers, but also for the consumer to see the face behind the brand, you know, because you go to the farmers market and you love to go to the farmers market because there's somebody you know there, you're talking to him, he knows you what you like, what you don't like. It's like a bit familiar, and the brand needs to be familiar as well. And by taking the faces of the growers, and we showed only the real growers. We started the brand St. Luca in 2003 in Austria. Wow. Uh, and uh for that we did the three TV commercials, and one was with hundred growers and singing and around the fields, and it was really lovely. And people still love those when we have the younger people, they think, Oh, that's like fantastic. It was really original

How the TV campaign performed

SPEAKER_00 7:00

because uh different, you know.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Yeah, it's not something we see at all. And how did that perform? How did the TV commercial perform for you?

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Really good, actually, uh, sales group, but also it was in winter time, everything was grey and like medicine in TV, and here uh I've called coats to drink a tea and advertising around all this stuff, and then there came the the singing growers, it was like a little bit crazy, but different, and uh that's why it was like also seen, you know, and remembered and recognized, and that's what real people, no actors at all, you know. That was really nice.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Um, yeah. It's the understanding, is there, of the people behind the the product, essentially, and understanding where it comes from, which a lot of people, particularly outside the industry, just don't ever consider, you know, they they just don't. It's something that's so far removed from seeing the the product on the shelf. So I can imagine how much of an impact that would would have had. Do you see other other brands doing that in terms of like bringing the that sort of emotional connection and the people element into the brand? Is that

Are other produce brands doing this?

SPEAKER_01 8:07

quite common, would you say, or is it quite rare across produce?

SPEAKER_00 8:09

I I read the other day on Instagram um that they're in Japan, I think they're putting also the faces of the growers in the supermarkets for the boxes to appreciate and and and be grateful to the growers, like you know, and that's because it's a really hard work. They work seven days a week, they have lots of risk with in terms of weather and costs, and it's often not appreciated enough, paid well enough. So uh to show all what's behind a product is so important, especially in that area. And the younger people nowadays want to know where the fruit is coming from. So you can put a QR code, this is not very emotional,

What most companies get wrong about branding

SPEAKER_00 8:48

or you show the real faces, and then you are there.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

What do you think most um companies misunderstand about what it takes to really build a brand in produce?

SPEAKER_00 9:00

I didn't want to be a marketing director when I came back after my maternity. I said, I want to be a brand director. For me, it's really a different to market. What is marketing and it's important, and we we did this, of course, as well, and also I did it, it was part of my job. But to build the brand needs to make the emotional added value visible for the consumer, or they can feel it and believe it, and that's very important, and it's a feeling, yeah. And then to be consistent, that's one of the main points, which is really, really hard. I was always struggling with that. Is and the more the brand grew, it was more complicated. More countries, more people, everybody has an opinion, that's good. But in terms of consistency, it was like sometimes a challenge. I was walking around like the CI police. No, that's not possible. No, that

Branding vs marketing - how the teams worked

SPEAKER_00 9:54

please not that packaging, please.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Um and in terms of that, so you talked about obviously the marketing versus branding and the difference there. So for that reason, did you have did you split that within your teams? You have people focusing on branding and then marketing, or will the team members be doing both essentially? How do you divide that?

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Yeah, I was look always looking after a little bit more and and the designers more for the branding part because they are giving the images, you know, images, and the images build the image in the end. So the designers were look more a little bit more brand-minded, and then of course we had a marketing plan, and what promotion do we do for this product and for that product, but always within

Why produce focuses on product and price over brand

SPEAKER_00 10:41

the brand concept that's important.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

And we were talking before, you find that there's a really a heavy focus on products, the price, the promotion instead of the brand.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

I mean, why do you think there's our biggest asset is a brand, and we came always from the brand, you know. Others would come probably you want to double sales in five years. This is our goal. And and if you want to double sales in five years, and this is your first focus, you would go for the marketing and do promotions and sales up, sales up, sales up. Not you know.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

I don't know how you quantify this, but having a recognizable brand that's on the shelf, that's doing when you reach that goal, how long roughly would you say that takes?

How long does it take to build brand recognition?

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Wow. You can put a nice promotion block, uh point of a brand block into a supermarket, and after one year, people know your brand, you know, and si I know that because of the numbers, and 60% of the people would know your brand if you are in that supermarket for one year.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Would you say it's a minimum of 12 months or even longer than that? Again, depending on the level investment, depending on the company, it's it's not something they're gonna see within six months, for example.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

You can be visible within one year, but if you don't are consistent and follow up in a right way, you will can lose this also very fast. You know, you have to always be do every three or four times a year your promotion to give new impulses, have no new products, of course, innovations. So this will take you much longer than one year or six months. It's it's the one thing that gives you a first push, but then you have to follow up, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:26

And for you, really building that brand at San Luca, what sort of people were you bringing into your team? Were you bringing people in that were experienced in branding specifically, or what sort of skill

What skills matter when building a brand team

SPEAKER_01 12:36

sets were you looking for to really help you build the brand?

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Normally it would look like for that they have studied marketing or something like that. Normally would have that they have some years' experience or in an advertising agency or in a company which were branding.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

And um, how big was your team at that point? What did you grow your team to at San Luca?

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Uh when I came back like 14 years ago after my maternity leave, um there were like 11 people there in the team. 12, 13

What separates good employees from great ones

SPEAKER_00 13:09

years later, it was like 25 people, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:12

And um what do you tend to look for in terms of maybe the more if you were looking for a more experienced marketing uh or branding uh professional within your team? What sort of is it skills that you look for? Is it behaviors? Is there anything that really separates um you know the average employees from the exceptional? What sort of what would you say really makes them stand out?

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Yeah, first of all, the attitude. So you like to have to like your to work and and give go the extra mile. Passionate people are nice for me. And I will do it like I've done it always. That's not uh attitude for me. I think to be open to learn, lifelong learning is so important.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, very important. No, I completely agree. Same with us in our team, you know, this the learning, um, or just being willing to learn and willing to develop yourself and always looking for the new opportunities is so so important. Do you find that um is there ever a need to bring somebody into a marketing team marketing team with experience in produce, or just it does it just not matter? Does that produce knowledge just not

Does produce experience matter in a marketing hire?

SPEAKER_01 14:27

give it too much benefit to the marketing?

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah, no, it's it's it's helpful, absolutely helpful, because it's very special, you know, uh to work in in fresh produce. I had one once she came from Z Men's, you know, Z-Mens, it's a technique company like washing machines, long-term projects, and she was sitting there after months. I quit. And honestly, how can I do my work in a good way if I have to do five projects on the same time? And I thought, wow, she's already just five overwhelmed, but the others are having like 20 or 30 at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Yeah, it's a different mindset. And it's it's uh you need some extra skills.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Which industries do you transfer quite well into produce? I mean, I imagine most of the food or maybe drink industry. Yeah, fast moving consumer goods,

How Nuria stepped into leadership

SPEAKER_01 15:26

FMCG, probably. And you you you talked again previously about how you stepped into leadership. Tell us a bit more about that experience.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

So I started like this uh 20 hours uh uh a week and um days a month as a creative director and just as a creative director. I have done this before, so I said okay, I can do this from Germany. And then he called me after six months at nine o'clock in the morning, Nuria. You know, I would like to dismiss our marketing director. Will you take on his job? And I said, hmm, I don't know. I don't have so much experience, I'm far away from the team. Uh I don't know. I said, okay, think about it. You have time till one o'clock. Okay. Two hours. Always fast. Then at 11 o'clock, HR called me. So, so Stefan dismissed now the marketing director and told the team that you would take over.

Managing a team in Spain from Germany

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Okay. Right. Yeah, that's a decision made. Decision made. And you know, I I love this because I mean I learned so much at St. Luca. I'm really, really deeply grateful to Stefan and the opportunity he gave me all the years, and uh, on the other, all the people I learned from so many people in San Luca so much, and as I'm a big learner, I I'm really grateful for that time and for that opportunity. And then we had lots of work to do also, and I managed this also from Germany, but the team was in Spain, and I wasn't always I'm not the most diplomatical person, I would say. I'm very honest, very direct. And Nadine came to me, he I love her, and she said, Nuria, you know, if you're communicating like this with us, I feel uncomfortable like

Learning to lead across cultures

SPEAKER_00 17:11

that. And that's why I stepped back.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Did you did you did you have any idea that's how you were coming across at the time?

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Yeah, well, um, yeah. Maybe I had sometimes some idea, but I don't have the time, and you know, I have to go forward, and it's comp I you know, I was just focused on the but in Spain particularly you have to take into account the emotionality. Sometimes we have to sit on a table together, look in the eyes, and then you case something. You know, it's a little bit you have to earn the trust, and I was going too fast-paced and not enough patience. And as I said I'm not so diplomatic. I was really grateful to her as well, and thank you so much. And I'm really sorry, I don't want to make you feel like that. That's not what I'm in that. I'm just going after what I have to do. But um, you know, sometimes it's better you go a little bit slower and take the team with you instead of going very fast, but you lose half of the team because they don't you don't build the trust you need to build.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Great feedback from a team member to come and say that to you. So yeah, I can imagine why that was so yeah, helpful at the time just to understand. And what did you then do? Um, how did you then implement those changes? Like what steps did we take to kind of re-engage with the team,

Rebuilding trust with the team

SPEAKER_01 18:25

for example, or build that trust?

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yeah, we did like team activities. Once we went together to Barcelona and we hired an Airbnb because I tried to understand the people, I was talking twice a year together, was then the feedback talks, how did you feel?

SPEAKER_01 18:40

And you were linking the team in Spain, but you were located in Hamburg, you were living in Hamburg, leading a team in Spain. How did you manage that? I guess what sort of um what sort of systems or processes did you need in place to ensure you could manage your team remotely?

SPEAKER_00 18:58

So we had a weekly weekly the status with all the projects. We had all the projects in our list. It was like one hour meeting. I came one time in a month to Spain for one week. So I was there with my team, very close to them always, and with the other in the companies, the other departments

The real challenges of managing remotely

SPEAKER_00 19:17

always managing things around that.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Yeah. And um and what were the would you say are the main challenges that you experience with managing a remote team?

SPEAKER_00 19:28

It's an advantage and disadvantage because sometimes you don't know how they are, and maybe they feel bad the cat has died, and you don't know that, and then you say something, oh that's not good, do it that way. Maybe you if you see the face and you see, oh she has a bad day, maybe you wouldn't say this, you know, or say it another time. Yeah, you you can't be so empathic, empathetic or uh that's one point. On the other hand, it's for the cause, I would say it's good because you're more objective also for the results. You must sometimes you have to do things uh or say things people don't want to hear in that moment, and it's more easy if you're not so much involved there day to day, you know. It's it's yes, yes. Yeah, it's the same coin, is this one side and the other side of the same coin.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

And um going back to because you said obviously giving people you know feedback um from your side, did is that something that you had to tailor how you were giving feedback both from m working remotely and secondly from the culture differences that you you explained?

SPEAKER_00 20:36

We had like uh 30 different nationalities working there. It's not just uh Spanish guys, but you know, so you have to take in that into account absolutely. First of all, how are you doing? And if you know, first the nice stuff, and and maybe also uh how uh what what's going on and like that, you know, a little bit to understand where your uh feedback is going on to and which stage they are if before giving the feedback.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Try to tailor the feedback to find out how they are first or get to build that relationship, essentially, and then decide how you're going to give the feedback, maybe depending on their response or the circumstances. And what would you say are the biggest leadership mistakes that you see companies making, particularly when they're trying to build brands or hiring mistakes? Doesn't have to be leadership, maybe just hiring

Leadership and hiring mistakes

SPEAKER_01 21:29

mistakes.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

I think first of all, you have to trust. I mean, when you have a leader, you have to trust the leader that you have, and the people if you're hiring the people because you think they're capable, so you have to trust them, and when they are doing something, they have something in mind. Instead of judging to understand them. I think this is one of the biggest points uh in life in general. It's often people are judged or whatsoever, but you judge you should first of All try to understand. I love very much the concept of walk a mile in my shoes. Sometimes you have conflicts of interests, and to understand why they are and how to solve this together and not one against the other, I think this is a very bad thing. So I think you should trust the others that they all want to do their best. And if they can't do it, it's be there are reasons and to understand and to help to to solve the reasons or to to solve the situation, you know.

The first hire a produce brand should make

SPEAKER_01 22:33

And if a if a produce business then is um serious about building a brand, what would you say is the first key hire that they should consider making?

SPEAKER_00 22:43

Yeah, a brand director, you would need somebody who has like experience in doing that, right? I mean and also what is also a good idea is an in-house designer. Yeah. So and also I think experience in-house to be fast, because you often have to be fast, and with advertising agencies, they are often busy with other clients who pay probably more. And uh yeah, and uh somebody you need the feeling for the brand, the visual feeling, and this is so important, and to have it consistently all over all what you're doing, not just uh packaging or communication, or but PR. I was even involved when we built our new building. I was sitting there with the architect and saying, Yeah, nature, please, uh waterfall in the company and what uh you know,

Why brand consistency goes beyond packaging

SPEAKER_00 23:37

you have to think about the brand is the feeling you have to give the feeling everywhere, not just like in advertising. It has to be to be credible, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:45

So it's within the business, it's through the business. You're almost living the brand day to day in terms of the environment you're working in, everything essentially. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And um, how do you see branding particularly let's talk about the European market? Um, how do you see branding evolving across fresh produce in the

How branding in fresh produce is changing

SPEAKER_01 24:04

maybe over the next few years?

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Well, I see there's lots of demand in doing a brand because everybody hurts, oh, brand more margin. That's the idea of a brand, right? And and uh the the pull effect from consumers, so you uh uh it's easier with retailers to negotiate eventually. Um, yeah, but as said before, it's an investment, first of all, in terms of money, but also in terms of nerve, because you have to everybody will say, I you don't know how ever I've heard this. This is not possible. This is not possible from the warehouse, from the legal department and the commercial. No, but the clients, what's that? And they always doesn't matter to me. You know, we want to if we want to have a brand, we have to do it because if we do the same thing, we have done always, or uh others are doing. We have to give an extra service or extra value because if not, you are not a brand. If you're having the same packaging as others, you will be not more than others. So um this will cost more money or will cost more uh complications in the production process, and then it's good if you have somebody in the company who really loves the brand and that uh on the executive level, CEO, owner whatsoever, and think I want the brand, and okay, there's a risk, and but we I will take it and I will go for it. But because if you you can't, there's no such thing as a free lunch. You can't have more if you don't do more.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

So and what would you say? So we've talked about the future in terms of branding, but just at the industry as a whole, what would you what excites you the most about the future of the fresh produce industry?

What excites Nuria about the future of the industry

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah, I think that people want to be a brand. That's a good sign already. So they see an added value to be a brand. And as said before, in the fresh produce, we are far behind other industries with brands. So there are lots of opportunities. And consumer love brands normally, uh, premium brands are growing in the last year. There are some studies from McKinsey or whoever, so that brands are growing because it gives people security and trust. And the more wars are out there, the more they love to have like a nice island where it's safe, where you can feel trust, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

It's what they know, it's that something that's consistent that's um makes yeah, like makes them feel safe, I imagine.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's why uh there's so much opportunity for fruit brands, and I love that they're so much interested in it right now. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Great. Well, Nuria, this has been a yeah, a really insightful conversation. If anybody out there you know has an interest in learning about branding and marketing, this is absolutely the episode they they need to listen to. Um so I suppose though, before we wrap up, if listeners do want to connect with you, if they have any questions regarding marketing or branding in produce, would you be happy for them to reach out? Absolutely. Everybody can reach out to me. I love that very much. Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

And where's the best place for them to connect with you? I think email would be great also. I'm reading all my LinkedIn uh messages.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Great. Well, that is everything. So, yeah, that's it for today's episode. Thank you so much. Um, thank you, Nuria. It's been great. And um, yeah, I'm sure we'll keep in touch.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Yeah, thank you so much, Lucy. It was so nice talking to you. You're really a good interviewer. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Thanks for listening to Behind the Fruit, a podcast by LCR International. We are global experts in fresh produce executive search. Hit subscribe if you enjoyed this episode, and for more industry insights, connect with us on LinkedIn.