If you’ve found yourself uttering the words, “Do you have any nut butter?” at your local supermarket over the last year or so, Pip Murray is probably the reason why. Granted, nut butters aren’t something new, but their latest, healthier iteration has her handiwork all over it. Don’t be fooled though: she’s far from one of the wellness types who preach deprivation and turning to the other side. Oh no, in fact, it has actually always been part of her mission to steer clear from that approach and instead, simply offer a more nutritious version of the holy grail peanut butter sandwich.
Since launching last year, you’d be hard pressed to find a supermarket her jars aren’t sitting pride of place in. Fortnum & Mason, Sainsbury’s, Ocado: the list goes on. What we loved when we caught up with her over breakfast though, was that she’s the first to admit that the brand’s rapid rise to success hasn’t been all plain sailing. Prior to launching Pip & Nut, she had absolutely zero experience in the food world and the realities of running a business were miles away from her day to day life as a producer at the Science Museum in London. Ahead, she talks about how she managed to get her idea of the ground, dealing with rejection and why critics need to jump on the nut butter train.
HOW HER LOVE OF PEANUT BUTTER BEGAN: I started running when I was at university. At first it was just a loop around Regent’s Park but as I got fitter I started taking part in 10k, half marathons and eventually marathons. It was around that time when I started to really love peanut butter. It was my post running treat on toast with some banana on top. It always felt like a relatively healthy thing to have post run, as it’s naturally high in protein, but fundamentally it’s just totally delicious.
WHERE HER LOVE OF FOOD STEMS FROM: I come from a big family, I’m the youngest of four, and throughout my upbringing we always sat down every evening for a meal around the kitchen table. As I got older I often cooked for my family and was given a night of the week to do so. I think that’s when my interest in food really started and in many ways taught me a lot about the importance of a balanced meal and taking time over both the preparation and eating of food.
THE EUREKA MOMENT: Peanut butter isn’t something new, in fact it’s something that many of us have grown up having in our cupboards but there were a few things that I noticed that I didn’t like and felt was lacking in these kinds of products. Firstly, the majority of the brands on the shelf, including many that looked more natural, always contained palm oil and often cane sugar. A lot were so processed that they barely even tasted like peanuts. For me was, that was the first problem: peanut butter was meant to be a healthy thing to eat so adding these ingredients is totally unnecessary. On the flip side, those nut butters that are healthier were a little ‘too’ healthy looking. It struck me that so many great health food products are never picked off the shelves because they either look a bit unexciting or talk about all the functional benefits of the products rather than highlighting the fact that it actually tastes nice. That’s what I wanted to see change. I wanted to introduce a much more engaging brand to really bring this product to life and in doing so, introduce it to more people and hopefully encourage people to think differently about what a health(y) product is.
FYI – THE PEANUT BUTTER YOU LOVE PROBABLY ISN’T THAT HEALTHY: I think lots of people don’t really know about the issues behind palm oil. Not only is palm oil one of the biggest causes of deforestation, it’s also high in saturated fats which aren’t great for the heart. Palm oil is found in lots of different products and in peanut butter it basically acts as a stabilizer. It doesn’t enhance the flavor in any way and that’s why we try to avoid. Healthier nut butters – the ones that don’t contain palm oil or perhaps use alternatives such as almonds or cashews –always ended up gathering dust in health stores, which seemed like such a shame as they often taste so good. I don’t think people were discovering those ones because there just wasn’t a brand that really made it relevant enough to a broader demographic to encourage buyers to stock it.
WHY SKEPTICS NEED TO JUMP ON BOARD: Nut butters are naturally high in protein for starters and contain no refined sugar; that means they don’t give you the peaks and troughs of energy that sugary foods do and are better at sustaining you for longer. What I think is most important is the fact that nut butters genuinely taste delicious. Rather than making you feeling like you’re sacrificing something just to eat something healthy, you feel like you’ve eaten something really satisfying and tasty.
THE COMPETITION THAT KICK STARTED IT ALL: This is probably the most random part of the Pip & Nut story. I was still setting up the company and working at my old job. Like a lot of start-up entrepreneurs, it’s a big step leaving you job let alone being faced with the daunting prospect of still paying the rent. That’s when I came across Escape the City. They were running a competition where they offered one start-up the opportunity to live rent free and have desk space for 3 months; the catch being you have to live in a shed in the back garden of the co-founders house. I entered the competition on a complete whim, not really thinking that I’d win but having pipped 3,000 people to the post, I got a call from one of the founders saying that I’d won. An hour later I quit my job, and one month later, slightly shell shocked, I moved in. By doing this I managed to reduce my overheads completely, managed to keep my life in London and gave myself a 3-month runway to get the business off the ground.
LIFE BEFORE PIP & NUT: I worked as a producer at the Science Museum in London which involved large scale theatre shows that toured the country. I’d always worked in the Arts and studied Anthropology at university so I’ve always had a creative streak which I think really helps me now with Pip & Nut. Having said that, I’d never run a business or had any experience in FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) so it’s been a huge learning curve to get my head round how to launch and scale a food brand.
ON TAKING THE LEAP AND LEAVING HER JOB: While I’m naturally a bit of a risk taker – I think you have to be if you decide to launch your own brand – I’m never one to gable everything. That’s one of the reasons why the Escape the City competition was so fortuitous. It allowed me to take the leap without having to worry so much about money. I’ve always had a rather optimistic outlook when it comes to Pip & Nut too. I whole heartedly believe in the brand and what we can achieve and I have done from day one and I think that’s so important. Even when I was disheartened getting rejection from buyers, investors or manufacturers, I’ve never thought that we’re not going to be one of the breakaway food and drinks brand of my generation. It’s really important to get your head down and look at what needs to happen next too, so whether that’s simply getting a proof of concept on your product (I trialed the brand for three months at a London market to get some feedback), or trying to win a new business, you need to make sure you keep focused and don’t get too distracted by the myriad of things that you’ll have to think about.
THE LAUNCH PROCESS: I spent just over 18 months working on the brand before we launched and in lots of ways that’s actually pretty! Given my lack of experience I spent the first six months getting proof of concept to build my confidence before scaling it up. That took me to Maltby Street Market in Bermondsey where I’d make the products in a small commercial kitchen in North London and sell them at the weekend. I did this for three months and it really helped me get close to my customer on a micro scale while also learning a little bit more about what’s involved in running a company. It’s after our success there that I felt confident to move forward. This meant finding a factory (which took me 8 months), and then developing the brand. Once those two things were pinned down, that’s when I raised investment and then pressed go on production a couple months later to launch the brand in January 2015.
DISMISS CROWDFUNDING AT YOUR PERIL: When pitching to angel investors I found that many said they’d put £10k or £20k into the brand but many weren’t willing to commit the full amount I needed. That’s when I turned to Crowd Cube, an equity crowdfunding site, to pull all these potential investors into one place. I was completely overwhelmed by the response of the crowd though, even with some investment lined up, there was a real snowball effect that happened with the pitch which was just great to see. When you’re on Crowd Cube, there’s a bar that shows you how much funding you’ve received and I’d watch it obsessively. What was crazy though was the fact that, on day seven, the pitch went from 40% funded to 100% in 24 hours and 12 hours later, we overfunded by another £20k.
THE SECRET BEHIND BAGGING SAINSBURY’S, OCADO AND FORTNUM & MASON: I wish I could say that these retailers to come to me but it’s a case of knocking on a lot of people’s doors and trying hard to get in front of buyers. Whether that’s sending a really nice parcel to their desk, hand delivering something or just regularly updating them with new information about the brand. I think what’s helped though is the fact that the buyers we work with have been really supportive of the brand and really understand what we’re trying to achieve. This has meant they’ve worked with us to grow the brand in store and I’m incredibly grateful for all their support.
HOW TO STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD: The wellness market is definitely getting even more competitive, it’s true. I think there are a number of ways though that you can make sure you keep your footing in this kind of environment. It starts though with having a really great brand. Creating the brand was my biggest investment by far but and what it gave me is an incredibly characterful brand that truly stands out. Having a product that’s on trend has definitely enabled us to get in front of opinion leaders and influencers and word of mouth has really helped create some noise around us. The fact that we’ve managed to get some great distribution in a relatively short space of time has made a huge difference. It’s all very well and good having a brand but if people can’t buy it anywhere there’s no point in marketing it. That’s why we spent the first year really growing our store availability so we can they focus on marketing.
THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES TO GET OFF THE GROUND: There have been so many! In the early days, before the brand launched, I found getting a manufacturer to agree to work with me was difficult. Not only is making a product that contains nuts a big no-no in the food manufacturing world (nuts being an allergen) but also because not many manufacturers want to work with a brand who has no customers and therefore no guaranteed volume! Getting my first round of investment was a tough one too. Quite rightly, angel investors are wary about investing in new entrepreneurs, especially businesses that have yet to have any real trading history, but in order to scale the product I needed a capital injection to meet minimum order quantities and keep cash-flow positive as I grew the brand. Now that the company has being trading for 18 months, I find one of my biggest headaches is now actually managing that growth! Inevitably money is always tight and you have to be really careful not to overtrade and grow to quickly so keeping close tabs on those spreadsheets is a necessary evil!
HOW SHE COPES WITH TOUGH MOMENTS: In the beginning you’re the one packing the vans, taking the bins out and having to do 14-hour days just to get what you need to get done. But my biggest tip is to make sure to celebrate the good times when they are good because inevitably they’ll be something lurking round the corner that might really throw you. Taking the time to reflect on what you’ve done or crack open the champagne when you win a big piece of business is essential in order to pull you through other times when it can feel like a bit of a slog.
WHY A GOOD SUPPORT SYSTEM IS EVERYTHING: Fundamentally there are only so many hours in the day and you simply can’t do everything yourself but also if you bring the right people on board you quickly learn that in actual fact they bring so much more to the table and can take the brand in new directions that really help grow the brand! I’m totally reliant on them and I am incredibly proud that they’re part of the Pip & Nut family! I simply couldn’t have got Pip & Nut where it is today without my team. They’re the ones who are up at the crack of dawn helping at events, working weekends and having to deal with the fact that there are 101 things to do and simply not enough time. I’ve also got some great mentors on board whom I lean on a lot when needing to make strategic decisions about the business. They help sound out the options and pick me up if I’m feeling overwhelmed or uncertain. Then there’s my friends and family who were there when I first spoke about launching the company. Never once did they laugh at me or tell me to stop and instead listened to me, patiently, rabbiting on about all things nut butter!!
STAYING HEALTHY IN A CULTURE OF LEANING IN: I’m the first to admit that it’s something that I’m still working on. It’s so easy when working long hours to eat badly, sleep less and exercise infrequently. But what I’ve found is that there is no point in being hard on yourself if you find yourself slipping into a bad habit – life will always get in the way sometimes! Importantly though it’s about trying to make small positive changes to being healthier and where possible building this in to your routine. Whether that’s cycling or walking to work rather than getting the tube or trying to get to sleep 30 minutes earlier rather than staying up late on your laptop, it will really help towards feeling a little healthier every day.
WHAT’S NEXT: We’ve just launched two new flavours: a Limited Edition Crunchy Maple Peanut Butter and a Cashew Butter. Definitely worth tracking them down in store! We’re also launching a new range of products outside of nut butters, which is both exciting and a little bit terrifying. They’ve been in the pipeline for almost a year now so I’m looking forward to launching them soon! On top of all that, we’re also working on simply getting our nut butters into more stores. We’re still only in a faction of the stores that we could be in so we’re working hard to make sure our products make their way into more stores around the UK.