- MASTERCLASS
How Clive's Pies became Clive's Purely Plants
with Esther Pearson, Managing director
Esther Pearson led Clive’s Purely Plants through the transformation of becoming a vegan-only food manufacturer. This resulted in them finding investment to scale up their production and Clive’s are now listed in supermarkets and independents across the country. In this prelude to her appearance at Vegan Business Tribe Live at the London Olympia in November, Esther shares with us what she learnt from that journey and her biggest advice for others wanting to follow in Clive’s footsteps.
In this session:
- How Clive’s grew from one man delivering vegetarian pies on a bike in the 1980s to a company that now employs more than 40 people.
- How Clives Pies transitioned to become a fully vegan company and what that meant for its customers and sales.
- Why removing animal products had a lot of practical benefits, such as helping manage allergens on site.
- How Clive’s managed the change within the business, where the majority of the employees were not vegan themselves.
- How Clive’s moved factory so that their staff could live in an amazing area and walk to work.
- Why consultation and listening is important, but also why you also need to learn how to be persuasive as a business leader!
- Why Clive’s decided they wanted to retain ownership of their own manufacturing.
- Why Esther sold her house to invest her own money in the business.
- How Clive’s attracted investment from VegCapital and allowed the previous business owners to exit the business.
- Why a cultural fit with an investor is hugely important in a vegan business.
- How Clive’s produced a compelling business case for how investment would accelerate growth.
- How Esther’s 20 years in the charity sector gave her a good grounding for getting investment in the company.
- Why getting the right people on board to grow a company is as important as getting monetary investment.
- Why you need to bring specialist knowledge into a business if you want to grow.
- Why there is no set route to getting your product into the national retailers.
- Why you need to show that you can bring ‘incrementality’ into a retailer’s range, not just take spend away from products they already sell.
- Why you need to be on top of your data to prove this.
- Why supermarkets are not going to help you drive sales of your product – it’s your job to sell from that shelf space, not the retailer’s.
- Why luck and timing is always an important factor – so don’t lose face, be tenacious and create those opportunities.
- How to get your product in front of buyers and decision-makers.
- Why achieving consistency is key as a product manufacturer – both in product quality and supply.
- How to approach the plant-based sector now being much more crowded.
- How you can also make a retailer’s private label food, as well as selling them your branded product.
- Why you should approach scaling up like stepping stones, and why you shouldn’t be afraid of taking a step back first to get your core fundamentals right first.
- Why mentorship and surrounding yourself with the right people is hugely important.
- Why you should always ask for criticism and ask how you can improve as a business leader.
