How to Get Listed at Planet Organic: Buyer Pinar Guven on Standing Out on The Shelf

From Raw Vegan to Freelance: Pinar's Food Journey I'm Jason Gibb, Co founder of Bread and Jam, and this is Breaking Bread. Every episode I sit down with the key people in the food world to learn from their experiences. Today. P&R reveals how to turn trends into commercial reality, the high pressure human side of buying, and what rebuilding Planet Organic taught her about what customers actually want. This is her story. So, Pina, as a student at university, you were, from what I hear, already looking at health and Wellness space. Did you always know that you wanted to be in the food world? Speaker 2 I didn't apply until I wrote my dissertation basically, but I was very curious to look at consumers and understand how they decide to buy something or you know, how, what was the intention of them wanting to be more healthier or ethical. But in the end, if they don't buy that product, what are the motives behind it? This is what I started researching about and then in the end, I was very fascinating with what I found. So I decided to work in the sector and one year later, back in 2011, I found myself in London in the first I think, Roman vegan fine dining restaurant of London in that crazy environment. And this is how it all started. Speaker 1 So that was 2011 and you were already looking kind of raw and vegan stuff, which I guess wasn't very mainstream at that point. Speaker 2 No, no. It was very niche at the time and having a fine dining restaurant, right, yeah, is a bit crazy, but it was very, very popular over the weekend. We had celebrities, we had, you know, crazy side dishes. It was a more experiential dining rather than a casual dining. And this is how I moved to products because at the restaurant, the side dishes become very, very popular as well. And as an OPS manager and with the team, we decided to set up a production kitchen so that we can manufacture these side dishes as lovely snacks so that customers can take it home as well. So this is how it all started. Speaker 1 What were the kind of products that you were doing then? Speaker 2 At the time it was raw food boom. So we are. I'm talking about kale chips. I'm sure everyone at some point in their life tasted that raw crackers, coconut macaroons, all these Halti raw snacking stuff, which was fun. Speaker 1 And so were you, you were selling, you're packaging them up and selling them direct to consumers or were you trying to then sell them to wholesalers and other stores? Speaker 2 So we set up a proper production kitchen, get proper certifications, which was a journey because it's very, very difficult to mass do mass production to raw food. And then once we start producing these products, we package them properly and then we pitch them to buyers. And we, I started working with the retailers do a lot of private label for them as well alongside with our current brand. So it was very interesting journey in that sense. And I found myself, you know, working on new product development for a lot of health and Wellness retailers and leading those projects in a kitchen rather than in a restaurant, which was very interesting. And this is how I evolved to a production side. Speaker 1 Right. And then so for the next few years, you actually tried your hand at loads of different things. You did a bit of food service, you did a bit of sales and marketing, you did operations. What did that teach you I guess about the the food and drink kind of system as a whole? What what were your learnings from that? Speaker 2 I really enjoyed what I did in food production and creating new recipes. And once I need to leave South I, I didn't want to go back to corporate world again. So I said, you know what? I will just, you know, work project based with these retailers and wholesalers, which I already had a network with, right. And I decided to work on project based freelance for quite a few years. Inside the Role: What a Planet Organic Buyer Does And actually this is how I end up at Planet Organic as well because at the time I was consulting for the juice menu, we were working on the juice menu of Planet Organic back in 2017. Oh, I see. Speaker 1 So you were kind of external company trying to develop their juice menu of of drinks? Speaker 2 Depending on the project, for example, at the time I worked with the wholesalers where they wanted to have natural and organic product catalogue. I launched a brand new catalogue for them get, you know, their organic certification and things like that. Versus with Planet Organic it was more menu basis and we were working on their juice menu at the time. So it really depend on what they wanted from me. But yes, that was the period where I moved from project to project, which was very fascinating because I had opportunity to experience a lot of different areas, which was very helpful and I was still outside of corporate world. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. And I wondered about that time if it taught you much about kind of fads and trends. Speaker 2 Yes. So especially during my time at the production kitchen, it was all about trends and fads and what we can come up with. And even at the time, I know it sounds crazy, but back in 2012, I remember working on some mushroom bars which we can't even see right now in the UK. So I guess it was far ahead of the market. But working with buyers closely at the time and also understand what can be launched as a mass production, what is commerciality really, really helped me to get through I think right today as a buyer because I know production side very well. That is very, very helpful with my conversations with the brands in terms of what can be done, what can be launched, how quickly can we do things and whether that will be commercial. That was very, very useful at the time. Speaker 1 Did you learn anything about what fads and trends though are kind of sticky and which ones will kind of just disappear and you shouldn't really focus on? Speaker 2 You definitely shouldn't be too early to the market. That's one thing. And obviously for start-ups as small companies, you need to look out for the volume and a mass production so that you can scale up your cost, the volume and you know, control your cost. At the same time, it's very, very important to be mindful about the commercial reality when you go through the trends. I guess also it's important to understand the UK market, well, the consumers, what they want, what are the differences across, you know, different sectors. So yeah. Speaker 1 Cool. And it was at the end of 2017, I think that you took the role as grocery buyer, Planet Organic. What was it about that that I guess attracted you? Speaker 2 So I always loved Planet at past. I also involved in some of the private label projects at Planet. So at that time I knew Planet team and while I was working on for the Juice project, Juice many project, there was an opening in team buying, which is, which was very, very unusual at the time that was a maternity cover. And I said, you know what, why don't I become a buyer? Although I had a lot of hospitality experience because of my food production experience, I got the job and I started working as a buyer at Planet and afterwards I, I became permanent buyer and I guess I never left. I'm still at Planet since then. Speaker 1 And so like it's an obvious question, but what tell me what the buyer does? Speaker 2 It is a very multitasking position I would say. So one day you might be tasting some chocolates which might be nice or non palatable at all. The other day you just dig into huge spreadsheets and working on strategy. Or you might be working a solution for a supply chain crisis. So it is very fast-paced and you need to be really, really multitasking. So yeah, it is. It can be very stressful, but at the same time I think it's very rewarding because whatever you do, all these projects come to life or at shop floor on shaft and you can see your failures and your successes on shop floor, I think which is very rewarding and motivating, especially if you are very into the product world. Speaker 1 And also another kind of basic question, but what does a buying team, a planet, organic look like? How many of you are there? What do you look after? What's the kind of hierarchy? Speaker 2 We are a very small team. I would say we are a team of nine right In each department. We have two buyers, some of us are buyers, some of us are junior buyers reporting all to head of buying and we also have admins supporting us. So no, it's not a crowded team. We I think we are doing a fantastic job. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. And how many? So how many brands would how many suppliers are you looking after? Speaker 2 At Planet Organic in grocery departments we are looking after around 3000 products which makes around 200 brands. Speaker 1 Yeah, wow, that's. Speaker 2 Insane. Speaker 1 Yeah, so they keep you busy. Speaker 2 Very busy I must say. Speaker 1 What? What? Obviously, it's a really super multitasking role, as you say. What do you think makes a good buyer? Speaker 2 I think first thing first is curiosity. I noticed a lot of buyers are very curious in terms of what they do, but also passion is an important part of this job, not just towards food and drink, but also in Planet Organic we have a very big passion towards bringing healthy, good food to communities and that's driving our our motivation. And also, of course, you know, it's a very fast-paced environment. You need to be very solution driven, you need to be able to make decisions under stress. So there are multiple aspects, but I would say passion is the most biggest drivers for the for the job. Speaker 1 Amazing. Turning Global Trends into Local Commercial Reality And you must see so much innovation coming in into you and so many new trends all the time. What from that experience what what makes a product or a brand stick rather than kind of be a fad? Speaker 2 That's a great question actually. So over these years, obviously I had some failures and success stories as well, but what I learnt so far is it's very important to adopt those trends to local markets and consumers in terms of price point, in terms of flavour, in terms of culture. This is very important. Speaker 1 Can you give me an example of what you what you mean though? Speaker 2 It is very important to work with a local brand when you launch a trend. This is what I prefer. I I like approaching small start-ups and then feed them with the ideas and come up with a product together which would fit for the UK customers. Otherwise you can't just copy paste the trend or import something overseas because there are a lot of risks attached to that and sometimes it fails very badly. I can give you an example. So I think this was before pandemic back in 2018. Most likely at the time, high protein was very important and at the cereals category I wanted to create, you know, some exciting bars, some. Speaker 1 Bars. Speaker 2 Yes, so I imported A chickpea granola from States at the time it was flying at States, right? And it was so tasty. Yeah, the brand looked fantastic and we all thought, okay, this will sell very well. And it didn't work very well because I, I mean, there are lots of reasons, but I think I haven't localised it enough, right. Versus afterwards I, I had a short visit to Thailand, to a detox centre, to my ex employers actually. And over there I experiment low carb keto diets. And I thought, you know what, because people are very into high protein, I think they would be very into low carb as well. Can we experiment this in the UK? At the time there was nothing in the UK this. Speaker 1 Is back in 2017. Speaker 2 Exactly, no one knew anything about keto at the time. I came back and I approached couple of brands to see how we can produce a keto low carb granola and actually it worked very well because we worked together with the brand and we managed to launch the first keto granola in the UK and since then it is selling very well. This shows me how important it is to localise these trends and work with brands which are in the UK rather than simply importing them. Don't get me wrong, there will be areas where it's important to import as well, and I do import products. But for big trends, I think it's very important that the brand is present here, understand the consumer and they can act Yeah on it. Speaker 1 That's so incredibly collaborative. But I suppose for the the listeners, it would be good to know. Did you, were you already working with that brand or did you go out and look for them and they were doing a similar product and you thought they could do this kind of keto granola? Speaker 2 I searched for days. Oh really? Online all you know trade show exhibitor lists. I, I literally searched for them, at least I would say 2-3 months to see how close we can get. Obviously at that point, I, I would never find a brand who would be producing it because no one, most of people were were not aware of that trend. But what I was looking at is any manufacturers or brand owners who are trying to do anything functional in the area so that I can feed them with the idea of having a low carb granola. It could be paleo, it could be grain free at the time or high proteins or something close and similar so that they would be open for the new ideas. This is how you incubate new brands and new flavours to the market. You will never know what you look for, but if you find a a a brand who is willing to go beyond, you can start working together and launch successful products together. Navigating Listings: Margins, Promotions, and Delisting So if a brand kind of has, has the product that is on trend and, and, and you think consumers will like it, what about all the other stuff, the kind of the operational, the commercial reality of it? What? What? What do you look for beyond just the product, I suppose. Speaker 2 So we need to make sure costs are controllable from their side because when you launch a product as a buyer, and this is my style with all of my relationships, it needs to be win, win. I want that brand to flourish and be successful in the market. If it is something we work closely together, I might have won or maximum two months of exclusivity. Just talk about it during the launch. However, I want them really to be available in the UK and flourish so that they can actually control their costs, have a profitable price and margin model and so on. It really depends on the brand and how, how experienced they are in the market because some brands have no idea what they're doing. They never manufactured anything like that before versus some brands will have an experience of manufacturing things. So it is really, really different in terms of how you approach both of these cases. But I guess my production background really helps in that sense because I can always give them advice on recipes or production or packaging. So this is what we do together. Speaker 1 Yeah, that's amazing. I'm kind of obliged to ask this, but I don't know if I'll get an answer. But like what are the margin expectations at Planet Organic? Speaker 2 It depends per category of course. I cannot disclose that here. Speaker 1 But I think it's also quite important for suppliers to understand because if you're talking about, you know, it's got to be win, win. They got to kind of an early stage kind of building those margins to their to their business because it's not only your margin, it's often the wholesaler's. Speaker 2 Margin, exactly. And they often do these conversations with the wholesaler rather than us, OK. So obviously at the time of the listing I might give them an indication, Yep, especially in terms of setting up the recommended retail price right for the market to make sure they have enough margins for everyone. But at the end of the day, I can't really step in for it. Retail prices as well. So that's a conversation they would make with the wholesalers. But if they need any support, of course, we would give that. Each category has a completely different dynamic. But I would say at Planet Organic, we are in line with the market. Speaker 1 In the market, that's what you're saying to me, that's. Speaker 2 A very political answer. That's true. Speaker 1 OK, cool. And so do you only take suppliers through wholesalers then or can they supply you directly? Speaker 2 In grocery, I prefer working through wholesalers, but in other departments that plan to gain for example health and body care, they buy a lot of direct supply as well. So it's really depends. Obviously this is case by case, but at the time of a listing, because we have very good relationship with different types of wholesalers, we can always advise the brand the best way to the market. So that's that's not a problem indeed. Speaker 1 And sorry, just remind me what what does grocery cover your area? Speaker 2 So when we say grocery it's the entire food and drink and there is a bit of non food which are detergents, household anything ambient covers under grocery from baby food to pasta and to pasta, snacking, chocolate, whatever you name it. So it's. Speaker 1 Not it's not frozen, it's not fresh. Speaker 2 No, all ambient, all ambient and I must say because of the moment in bakery and chilled. Although some products are ambient, they might have very short shelf life such as tan 15 days. We would still consider these products under fresh, although they are ambient. Same with the drinks, they might stay as at ambient temperature, but because they are merchandising chillers they would be fresh product. Speaker 1 And So what does if you do find a kind of a product that you like, what does a listing look like for a a new supplier? Like how many stores? Is there a trial period we. Speaker 2 Usually don't have any trial present. Once we do something it's available in all of our stores and the website immediately. And yes, we don't have any, you know, pilot projects or sale or return. It's very straightforward. However, of course we would continue monitoring the, you know, sales performance throughout the years. I would say typically I would, you know, carefully monitor for the first six months and see how things go. And I would definitely give any brand at least a year depending on the brand because unfortunately some brands at past thought that the products will sell by themselves. That never happens, especially there are very competitive. There are a lot of competitive categories such as snacking or chocolate where you got the listing. The competition is very high, which means you really need to support your brand and be at shop floor with tasting such sessions, engaging with the customer have have a an appropriate promotional plan. They will promote a lot but never promote a lot. So there are fine balances, but if you just leave it as it is, it's not going to stop. It's. Speaker 1 Not going to work. Yeah. And tell me, give me a bit more kind of detail about what a promotional plan might look like or how often do you have to sample? Is it like 1 store per week or you know what what what roughly guidelines would would be a good launch? Speaker 2 Do you think the product launch, I think a 360 approach is very, very important during the product launch, especially if you are launching something very niche to the market or the competition is very high like snacking for example. I would support it with a price promotion straight away, straight away so that we encourage customer to try as long as the brand is at Shop Law doing lots of samplings and tasting sessions and really communicating with the customer what's special about this brand. And then the customer will have opportunity to try different flavours and really engage with the brand and understand really the story and why we listed that brand. I there is no one formula if it's for all I would say, but I think overall I think minimum twice or three times per year promotions are good level of any, you know, fast-paced impulse product category. Also in terms of tasting sessions, they need to heavily be, you know, tasting at shop floor at the beginning of the launch and then they can decide. It depends on the product, seasonality and all sorts of things. Sure. Speaker 1 But do you want say it's my product, Do you want me to be in there every day for a week kind of thing? Speaker 2 No, no, you don't need to exaggerate that. And also we need to give space to other brands as well. But you will, you will, you will understand how, how many times you need to be a shopper. I would say definitely, maybe for the first time for the month during the campaign, twice per every store would be very helpful. Speaker 1 Yeah, cool. And then, and then what happens if the brand isn't doing well with, if the product isn't due, how do you how do you communicate that to them? Speaker 2 That is, I mean, at the beginning of my career that was a very tricky conversation because imagine you put a lot of time and effort with these brands and then after a range we you might need to shrink the range or delist them all together. Having said that, that would never be a surprise for any of my brands. Before it comes to that stage. I would always step in, ask for more promotions or I don't know, sampling. I would always provide sales data any decision in terms of the list or category shrinks that would be attached to a commercial data and they would also see and understand where they are and it would never be a surprise. But at the end of the day, sometimes we work very hard to get there and it just doesn't work. So that's that's the reality. But majority of them do work if they engage with the customers and really like what they do and immersed on it. Rebuilding Stronger: Planet Organic's Recovery & Standards Can can you remember the first brand that you kind of delisted? Speaker 2 Yes, I'm not going to name the brand, it does OK, but just many, many years. I think it was again back in 2018, I had to delist the brand which I really love and we still work together. So I, I didn't know how to, how to give, you know, how to give that bad news in a sense. And it took me two days to draft my e-mail. I was very upset about it, but at the end of the day, it wasn't performing well. And in the end, I decided, okay, I will send it on a Friday afternoon and then we'll see how it goes. But it turns out they really understand. This is what I learned as all when you when these decisions are commercial, yeah. And the brand can clearly see where they need to be and how they are performing. Usually they are not even surprised. And they are cooler than buyers in terms of, oh, I know I was seeing the sales don't worry type of conversation rather than oh, why did you delist us? Because they know it's coming. And at that period, often also they might be leaving it as it is and, you know, stop fighting for those products. Speaker 1 It's really good that you you appreciate though the the the impact that that could have that that's very good to hear. So in the, so in 2018, Planet Organic was was bought by a private equity firm and in the spring of 2023 it went into administration. I think the troubles were kind of exacerbated by COVID and high overheads and low footfall and things like that that a lot of people experienced. But Renee, Renee Elliott, the the founder bought it back and save lots of jobs. I think a few stores were closed, but basically kind of rescued it. What was your experience of of that period? Speaker 2 It was a very hard period and as a team we worked very, very hard. As you know, Team Bank and other departments, we worked very hard because what we experienced both from brands and from industry, everyone was very upset and later on everyone was very scared that Planet Organic might be gone. We all worked very hard together and make sure that didn't happen and we came back stronger than ever, which is very exciting. But that wasn't easy. That required a lot of hard work at the backstage as a team, which was very important. Speaker 1 What kind of what did it involve? Was it cutting out lines that weren't working? Closing down stores that weren't working. Speaker 2 So as a company, we revisited our standards and upgraded our standards to make sure that reflects the company mission and vision. To give you an example, in food and drink for example, before administration we were around 65% organic. Now we are more than 80% organic and we are always looking for organic, healthy and natural products in line with our, you know, upgraded standards. We are still working on our standards and immediately we see the commercial effect of this increase. Now the company is doing very, very well and thriving and we are really profitable. Speaker 1 So that kind of brings your journey kind of almost up to date in, in telling your story. And as you say, plan organic flourishing is very profitable. You double down on your organic proposition. So I kind of want to dive a little bit more into the the buying role. So kind of entrepreneurs listening can understand more about how you work with emerging brands. So my first question is like nowadays, where do you look for new products? Is it do you wait for them to come to you or do you actually go out and look for them? Speaker 2 Both actually, I mean trans and E products can come in many places. It could be social media, you look abroad market, you know, understand what's going on. At the same time, I really enjoy, you know, networking events in the UK, summits, you know, mini pitching events versus trade shows. I mean, don't get me wrong, I really love trade shows, but it's not an area where, you know, you look for new trends and new products, but you catch up on what is already available in the market. And the cost side of the things are very high, which means that a lot of start-ups and small brands won't afford to be on a trade show. So although I love visiting trade shows for different purposes, for new products I prefer smaller pitching sessions. Speaker 1 Feel free to mention Brett and Jack. Speaker 2 Brett and Jam is not a time yes, we quite enjoy. Speaker 1 Good, good. So if if they're kind of inbound kind of enquiries, how do you like to be approached? Speaker 2 I would say straight to the point because I receive a lot of pitching bags which are copy paste. Sometimes even I can't manage just forget to remove the retailer name the previous retailer really. So it's really, really copy paste information which is not really helpful and every retailer are different as well. Speaker 1 So we'll say kind of Whole Foods on the top, the Whole Foods buyer. Speaker 2 Selfridges or something. So I would say I would prefer less information to the point and more straightforward, highlighting unique selling points and why I should list that product apart from taste. Because taste is very important, don't get me wrong, but it helps with building repeat purchases. It's not a reason to launch a product and by default we expect it to taste good. My product taste the best in the market is not a unique selling point. So that brand needs to be very clear, straightforward and know what they're doing in that category and highlight us why I should list them then that would caught my eye and. Speaker 1 Would it make a difference if they've got? Because I think a lot of early stage brands are a bit confused about what their the main USPS are. Would you prefer to see kind of three reasons or 10 reasons? Speaker 2 I think 3 is better over 10 I would say. And you know, I don't necessarily expect keywords or anything. If they tell me their story and why they come up with that product, that would tell me their unique selling point. And you know, often they see a gap in the market or a need of launching a product. So if they communicate, indicate that well as the buyers, I'm happy to, you know, lead them to understand what their unique selling points are. Often brands are very experienced nowadays, so they know where they are standing at when they approach us. But of course, if they start from the very beginning, I'm happy to lead them if we see any potential. Speaker 1 So you, so you often like them to tell their kind of founder story and through that you can work out the problem that they're trying to solve and therefore what they're what, yeah, what they're addressing in the market. What I'm assuming by what you're saying, you like an e-mail, an inbound e-mail to you or is it LinkedIn or is it kind of samples sent to your office? Speaker 2 I lost the control of my LinkedIn. I will be understood here. The inbox is floating as much as my emails. So I think they can check our website for example, and there is a buying e-mail on the website and they can send an e-mail to that address which will be directed to the right buyer. Because often unfortunately, I receive a lot of irrelevant pictures which are either not my category or do not comply with our standards and so on. So I think they can get a better response if they reach out to the generic e-mail address so that they can be, you know, they can be turned forwarded to the right buyer and they can get a response much quicker. Speaker 1 So there is someone genuinely monitoring. Speaker 2 That. But obviously if you think about that, we receive sometimes hundreds of olive oil, let's say Peaches, they all are alike. And if I'm not doing a category range for olive oils, maybe it would be a year until I look for a new branch because it is a very slow paced category. It's literally one in one art versus a snacking brand. There are more chances of getting, you know, an answer as quick as possible. Having said that, I think at Planet Organic Art response rates are slightly higher than the industry. If you approach any multiples or supermarkets to be able to get a listing, you need to wait 18 months sometimes versus if we really see a potential, I might list the product within two to three months if I really wanted to. So we have some opportunities to be able to act on it fast. Doesn't mean, of course this is our lead time, don't get me wrong. But if we really see something new, innovative in the market, of course, I want to be first in the market to launch that product. So I'll do everything I can to launch it as quick as possible. Speaker 1 Hey, I just want to pause here for a moment because one of the biggest reasons why start-ups fail is because they don't manage their finances well when they get listed, whether it's cash flow, commercials or cost of goods. I always say that right from the start, you need serious financial expertise on your team. Our sponsors, Harmonic Finance, specialised in exactly this, finding finance and accounting talent for startups and scale UPS like yours. So whether it's a permanent CFO or fractional support to get ready for scale, they understand the unique challenges of emerging brands. Check [email protected]. How to Engage Buyers and Avoid Being Ghosted So that kind of leads me on to one of the biggest gripes of, of a lot of young brands is this kind of thing about buyers ghosting them. You kind of send a, you send an e-mail to the to the buy or to the kind of generic e-mail address. You might get a response, you might get no response and you kind of don't know if it's going to the right person or anyone's reading it at all. What's your advice to the brands that that's happening to you? Feel ghosted? Speaker 2 I mean, they shouldn't feel that. That's not our intention. I must admit. If you think about the, the, the, if you think about my inbox, yeah. And the number of emails I receive. Forget about the internal conversations. If you go if I go on a holiday for let's say 2 weeks and once I come back minimum, I have 1000 of emails waiting. Yeah, that could be easily 1500, maybe more depending on the season. And it is literally impossible to read them and acknowledge them one by one. But what I do is if it is something which we can start a conversation immediately, I acknowledge and say I'll come back to you within six weeks. Please don't send any samples at this stage because that's also important. I don't want to disappoint brands before we review the product because then what happens is they send and it's, you know, samples and expect a positive outcome from which you know something which might not necessarily comply with standards. I don't want to waste their resources. So I think it's very important not to send answer the samples. My typical listing processes, once we start the initial conversation, I might ask further questions to the brand about the product, usually ingredients and nutritionals. I always review that, an idea of you know, recommended retail prices and then we go back to them if we need, you know, samples. And then probably we will have a face to face meeting to discuss about the brand, what they are looking for, what we are looking for and whether we can work together and the conversation moves from there. We never decide on a listing from an e-mail. I'll be honest with you, that's more like a networking opportunity and see what's out there. Having said that, of course I'm reading every single e-mail, even if it is, yes, I am because sometimes there are so important, you know, products or information, I might not necessarily reply them all. I'll be honest and there are a lot of irrelevant emails unfortunately, like things like I don't look after. For example, I receive emails for for from cosmetic brands, which I'm a food buyer. I'm sure they know. I think they hope that I would forward that to the colleague. Or sometimes you might receive an e-mail from the other side of the world trying to sell you containers of organic. I don't know walnuts, which is again irrelevant. That's not what I do. So among all these emails, to be able to find the right information is so difficult. So I suggest all brands to be, you know, straightforward. Summarise as much as possible. Speaker 1 Be succinct. Kind of. Speaker 2 Exactly and bespoke emails because one retailer might have different angles than planet Organic. So if they can highlight that product, can sell it Planet Organ, that will be super helpful and that would catch my eye OK in that crowded, busy inbox. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so if I'm a new, I don't know kombucha brand and I'm emailing you and I don't hear anything. I'm an ambient kombucha. Do you think it's a good idea for that for me to follow up like a month later with a bit of news and then another month later with a bit more news? Like I've won a great Taste award or I've had this press coverage? Even though it's a one way conversation, do you think it's a good idea for brands to kind of keep you up to date? Yes. Speaker 2 Yes, definitely. That depends on the frequency. I'll give you an example again, I think this was a couple of years ago. One of the account managers, I think he was very ambitious. I must business. And what happened is, I mean, it took me for a while to to recognise that actually he is sending emails with the same intervals at the same time like every other three days. At 10 AM, he was sending me emails. And at the time I checked my inbox and in a month I had 30 emails which were all signed at the same time. Yeah. And I noticed, you know what, probably he put the alarm on and emailing me constantly, which is not very helpful. And I already told him we can't review the product because it's not up to our standards. At that point, I was very angry actually, because that becomes something else. It's almost like a harassment if someone keeps emailing you despite you say no. And I checked our conversations. I was very nice at the beginning. I ended up calling the company founder and I told him, look, it's great that you have ambitious account managers, but I think you should monitor what they are doing. This is what he has been doing to me over a month and he, he was surprised to be honest. He was so apologetic and so that could happen. But yes, it's, you know, acceptable intervals if we didn't say no. And often we explain the reason behind it. If we say no, let's say we are very strict on our standards for animal dried ingredients. If a product has a milk or egg which is non organic in the product, it could be the best product in the world, but I can't list it. Yeah, yeah. And if I explain it to the brand, if they still continue to e-mail me for the same product, that's not working. But overall I think as team we are very approachable and we try to be as nice as possible. Speaker 1 Are there any other kind of small things that supplies should be considerate of in in terms of the way buyers work, like certain days of the week they should reach out to you or anything like that, or ranging windows or? Speaker 2 It really depends. It really depends on the products and range. Reviews can also vary from buyer to buyer. If something is new, I want to know about it as soon as possible, right? I wouldn't wait for a range, yeah. Speaker 1 Yeah. So are there any brands that you've worked with who kind of stand out in the way that they've launched and and grown sales in Planet Organic? Are there any brilliant case studies that you can kind of share how they, they, you know, why they were so good? Speaker 2 I think this will resonate with the example I gave earlier. We launched Keto HANA with HANA together. Speaker 1 Keto. Speaker 2 Keto Hana That was the first keto granola in the UK and they are still selling very well as a low carb cereal brand. Speaker 1 And why was that so good? What, what, what? What did they do that kind of? Speaker 2 They were the first low carb granola in the category. If you look at cereals, breakfast cereals category, they're often very high in sugar. And even if we, you know monitor the sugar levels and moderate the category overall, still I think overall granola are very indulgent and they were the first brand to to give a low sugar, low carb angle to the category which was new for UK market and it still sells well. Speaker 1 But are there any examples of not, not not just the kind of the, the product being innovative, but the way that they've activated it or the way that they've driven it or invested in Planet Organic or given you exclusivity, Is there any great examples of that? No one's done it perfectly yet. Damn. Speaker 2 It no, no, not that. Let's cut here. Speaker 1 OK. Speaker 2 I I don't feel, I'm not sure whether it's a good thing that I would give any brand names. Got you. I'm not sure I. Speaker 1 Don't want to shout out anyone, That's fine. Yeah, yeah. So what role do you see Planet Organic playing in terms of the journey of an emerging brand or supplier? Is it is it kind of a stepping stone to bigger retail or do you, where do you think it comes in the journey? Speaker 2 We are the first certified organic retailer in the UK market. We are not as big as a multiples supermarkets, but I think our impact for natural and organic market in the UK is inevitable and we are leading the market in terms of innovation in, in in many cases. So I think that's a big threshold for a brand when they got listed. This is when they get a lot of a lot of attention in the market for a larger opportunities as well. So I would say it is important. Speaker 1 So do you, do you kind of expect them to go onto larger retails or do you want them to kind of stay with you forever? Speaker 2 Not forever. So for independent market it is fine obviously as long as they have a good pricing strategy and they taught it well. Of course they can go to supermarket. A lot of supermarkets have accelerated programmes and you know, newness programmes nowadays, especially for organic. I expect them to list more and more organic products, especially this year. But as long as the brand has a good plan, I don't mind. But obviously if this is something we created together and I would expect couple of months of exclusivity but not more than that, I would rather them to flourish in the UK market and grow. Longevity, Functionality, and Clear Messaging in Food What, what trends are you, what trends in innovation are you kind of excited about and looking at in terms of Planet organic at the moment? Speaker 2 Overall, I mean, I can talk about grocery or in 2026, I'm expecting an exciting moment from clean eating to more longevity and you know, biohacking space, meaning that I think we will see a lot of functionality in everyday food in simple formulations, which still tastes good, but some functionality attached to that not being too niche, but you know, available in different formats in in your cupboard, either it's a cereal or a hot drink. We might see some functional ingredients such as, I don't know, Lion's mane, ashwagandha, turmeric. These type of key ingredients would be important, but I think more important than this year, which would be great for us. I, I expect a big movement on organic and regenerative organic because customers are demanding more and more transparency and high quality food. So I think it's going to be a great year for organic and we already started experimenting it in, in, in our upgraded standards. As I mentioned previously, now we have more than 80% organic in food and drink selection, which was welcomed very well up with our customers. In addition to that, I think customers would expect more from brands, like when you eat something that needs to do something good for you, is it good for your mental health? Is it good for your brain health? It can capture a lot of areas. Is it good for your gut? And these shouldn't be very complicated recipes. It should still resonate with the end customer without confusing them. As a result. I think for gut health, for example, I expect to see a lot of activated sprouted, fermented ingredients. It could be in in in cereals, it could be in pasta. I think also we will start seeing a lot of savoury snacking because typically snacking categories driven by sweet savoury. Because of these moments, I expect some MPD coming in savoury because we will start seeing more nuts and seeds and these activated ingredients being used which can be linked to you know, brain health or gut health. Other than that I think low carb low sugar still be important but we will see keto being evolved into grain free format which captures more customers. It will be interesting to follow monk fruit in the UK which means monk fruit. It was a novel food and there are some forms now which can be used. Speaker 1 OK, so it was it. It's only been recently allowed as an ingredient. Speaker 2 Exactly, exactly. So it would be interesting to watch out whether that would be pick up, pick up. Other than that, I think overall flavours would be important. I will see a lot of umami flavours, miso, black garlic, all, you know, fermented pickled flavours and Asian infusions, Korean cuisine. These would be interesting to watch out. What I would say is I think function this year will meet with flavour, right? And balance will come into everyday life with these simple additional, you know, products in our cupboards in, in, in everyday use. Yeah. Speaker 1 I see a lot of functional stuff coming in, but often it's not really clear what function is. They're trying to kind of hit so many different things. I guess it's been clear about what it's focused on as well. Speaker 2 Yes, I think it's very important to make sure they are clear about what they are doing and they have a very strong positioning in the category because that happens with the packaging. Quite often you pick up a product and the front label has multiple claims, like endless claims and you notice is this a gluten free product or is it vegan or is it local? Oh, there is fibre in this sense. So I think it's really important to understand what they are doing and which claims are really relevant with the category. Sometimes less is more. I really love this approach. I think once they know their position and the gap in the category and whom they are competing with, they should design that product accordingly to keep in mind a customer needs to understand that product and the packaging because sometimes it's so complicated. Even as a buyer I need to ask so many questions, so it needs to be simple. Speaker 1 Yeah. But you know, that's amazing insight, really valuable. Really appreciate your time, taking the time out from your incredibly busy schedule. So thank you very much. Speaker 2 That was fun for me as well. Thanks so much for inviting me. Speaker 1 Thank you very much.