Dare to put yourself in luck's path - Barney Mauleverer

Barney Mauleverer embodies a life philosophy of putting yourself in luck's path through curiosity and generalist thinking. 

Rather than following a linear career plan, he embraced chaos and uncertainty in his twenties, taking seemingly random jobs that ultimately built the foundation for entrepreneurial success. His approach centers on listening first - understanding what customers and buyers actually need before developing solutions.

At the core of his philosophy is the belief that entrepreneurs are the true risk-takers who deserve recognition, not the buyers and investors often treated as industry gods. He advocates for open collaboration over competitive secrecy, viewing global challenges like population growth as opportunities for innovation rather than insurmountable problems. ~

His current Future of Food initiative reflects this worldview - creating platforms for entrepreneurs to share knowledge and collectively address industry challenges while championing the next generation of food innovators.

Key Takeaways

• Embrace being a generalist - Multiple interests and skills can be a superpower rather than a weakness in entrepreneurship
• Put yourself in luck's path - Take varied experiences and stay curious about different opportunities to create your own breaks
• Listen before you sell - Understand customer pain points and buyer motivations before developing products or pitches
• Pre-sell the vision - Test market demand with concepts before investing heavily in product development and manufacturing
• Think like your buyer - Consider what success looks like for the person across the table, not just what you want to achieve
• Fail forward strategically - Use disasters and rejections as learning opportunities rather than endpoints
• Build from customer need - Start with solving real problems rather than falling in love with your own product ideas
• Champion the risk-takers - Recognize entrepreneurs as the true drivers of innovation rather than treating buyers and investors as gods
• Collaborate openly - Share knowledge and work together on industry-wide challenges rather than hoarding competitive advantages
• Focus on opportunity over problems - Frame global challenges like population growth and resource constraints as innovation opportunities rather than insurmountable issues

Daring Creativity. Daring Forever. Podcast with Radim Malinic

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Transcript

[00:00:00] 

Barney: he said, well, look, you know, if you think you got something, you know, book a meeting and, and come up and show me. And literally I left a trade show then and there and got the yellow pages out, uh, and granola manufacturers in Europe, anywhere, any manufacturer,  um, and found four manufacturers, um, told them that we.

Already had 600 stores guaranteed from Tesco. Uh, said that we've, we've already spoken to Bear Grills about putting his face on the pack or, and if it's not Bear, it'll be Jamie Oliver or someone like that. Um, and four factories around Europe put together the Red Bull of granola in their various different formats.

And, um, I had samples coming into my office in Dset. I can't remember which samples came from where. Um, and we went up for a meeting and, uh, there was one particular manufacturer that had absolutely nailed it.  um, and the buyer said that one. And during the meeting he ate the whole pack pretty much.

Um, and he said, okay, that's it. We'll go for that. And, and he literally said, uh, I'm gonna give you 600 stores and, um, uh, and you've gotta be ready in 16 weeks. Uh, oh, by the way, what's, what's the [00:01:00] brand? And it, it was that, that is how Fuel 10 k, um, ended up being born. 

Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast, a show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection. It's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count. It's about becoming more of who you already are. My name is Radim Malinic. I'm a designer, author, and eternally curious human being.

I am talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that sparked lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. Let me begin this episode with a question for you. Let me begin this episode with a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?

Let me begin this episode of a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?  Let me begin this episode with a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create? 

Radim: Today I am speaking with Bani Mara, and my voice is all fucking weird Uhhuh.

Let's try again. Today I'm speaking with Bani Mara, an entrepreneur and champion of [00:02:00] businesses that drive meaningful change. He embodies the philosophy of putting yourself in lax path through curiosity and generalist thinking. In our conversation, we discussed how he didn't follow a linear career plan.

Instead, he embraced chaos and uncertainty in his twenties, taking seemingly random jobs that ultimately laid the foundation for his entrepreneurial success. At the core of his philosophy is the belief that entrepreneurs are true risk takers who deserve recognitions, not the buyers or investors. He advocates for open collaboration.

Embracing global challenges like population growth as opportunities for innovation. His current future of food initiative reflects his worldview creative platform for entrepreneurs to share knowledge and collectively address and, and collectively address industry challenges. It's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with Barney Malara.

 Hey Barney, welcome to the show. How are you doing [00:03:00] today?

Barney: Very good. Rad. Thank you for having me on. This is exciting.

Radim: you are most welcome. Um, normally I've got guests who are, what I would say on the other side of this equation. They're normally creatives, illustrators, designers, our directors, working with founders like yourself on helping them sort of grow their products, design their products, whereas you are very much on the other side of the fence.

You, I call it fence,  uh, being an entrepreneur, creating brands, working in N-F-M-C-G, and actually having a view of, of, where the real stuff is made. So I hope to uncover and join quite a few dots, so we get a lot of value for our listeners, just to show them of, of, you know, of how you see it from them, from, from your side.

But for those who might not heard of you, and that would be for those who might not have heard of you and which might be potentially every of my listeners so far, how would you introduce yourself?

Barney: Ah, okay. So, uh, I have been in fin drink, um, for a very long time. Uh, and I describe my experience, um, as being in the trenches of [00:04:00] FMCG,  uh, complete startup to trying to get somewhere, um, uh, from, from, from brand creation to getting product onto supermarket shelves. Uh, ultimately trying to get product off supermarket shelves into consumer hands.

 Um, and, uh, I've experienced a full circle of, of, of, of. Complete startup to, to exiting, which we did in October, 2023. Um, but there was definitely a bit of a backstory to how on earth all of that happened. Um, so in a, in a nutshell, food and drink all my life. Very passionate about it. I love entrepreneurship. Uh, and, uh, want to now help,  uh, the next generation look into the future of where our food system's going.

Radim: I love that you said I, I spent my life putting food on the shelves and getting them off the shelves into people's hands. Um, how do you trace it back into what led you to that sort of, you know, to that career, to that sort of a lot? What, what led you to that sort of career and entrepreneurship in a way of, of, were you always interested in products or did you start something completely different?

Barney: I, I love this bit. Um, 'cause, um, uh, I, I always refer to this thing called back strategizing. So now that I've come. Got quite far into my journey. I'm 50 years old now. Um, I can look back and say [00:05:00] that I meant to do absolutely everything that I did to get me to where I got to. Um, the truth of the matter is that it was absolute chaos, particularly in the early years.

 Um, there was very little strategy. Um, there was a lot of searching. Um, uh, but there were certain moments throughout my career that that got me to, got me into the seat of where, where I ended up getting to. But a lot of that was about luck and, and trying to put myself in the path of luck. Uh. Um, so trying, trying to put a start point on it.

Um, uh, I, I did a levels, I went to university. I wasn't particularly good at either of those. Um, and I spent the formative sort of years in of my twenties searching. I did so many different jobs. I worked at St. Thomas' Hospital, wheeling patients around. I worked, uh, on the complaints line at Parcel Force. I did a lot of waitering and I, I did a cocktail bar, weighted course, learnt lots of whiskeys and cocktails, and worked in lots of bars trying to figure out what it was that kind of got me outta bed.

Um, I did a [00:06:00] stint in the city. I wore a tie in a suit and walked over London Bridge for about six months. Um, and realized quite quick that that wasn't really my gig. Um, and, uh. There was a moment where I was invited. No, I went, I was on holiday with a friend and the, their husband, um, uh, said, um, you're obviously pretty, um, frustrated by this whole work life thing.

Why don't you come down to Dorsett and work for me? Uh, you can live in our house, um, and I'll pay you a hundred pounds a week, uh, and you can be my secretary. Um, and I, and it was a bit like that advert that we all go say, would you like to spend a career in a, the city for the rest of your life? And I just said, B straight away,  uh, whatever B was.

 Um,  so I said yes to, to this, um. Wonderful offer. I had no idea what I'd said yes to. My poor parents were beside themselves thinking I was gonna be a merchant banker or something. Um, and I ended up moving down to Dorset and working with a friend, uh, who had a factory that was held together by elastic bands and razor blades, uh, making garden closs, uh, plastic garden.

Uh, and my [00:07:00] role ended up being selling these things to garden shops. And for the very first time I realized that actually I really liked the sort of practical side of something physical, that you then go and sell to a shop and then the shop has to look good in the shop for someone to pick it up and pay for it.

Um, so that was my first sort of not quite FMCG and, and definitely not food, but my first experience in, in the sort of, okay, I kind of like this, this sort of thing. We're making something, we're selling it to a shop and someone's gonna buy it off.

Radim: I have to, I have to rewind back by a few steps because everything that you've said, what you did in your twenties made me instantly smile. Because when you said initially, like it was, you know, I was meant to do everything I was doing and it was a chaos. I just love that innocence that you and I are sort of nearly similar age.

And when I, when you said like I was, I was wheeling hospitalists, I, I, I was wheeling pa patients around the hospital working on a complaints line and working in a bar. That all made sense back then because I feel like we've, we've removed that innocence that now our children kind of should be on a path of becoming someone quite focused quite quickly.

'cause it feels like the society puts that pressure on us. Like, because everyone seems to be accomplished at least. Pre not presumably, or like not, I mean at least that's, that's how it seems. But when you were describing the Santa Mrs hospital and, and the complaints line in a bar and six months of city, that feels to me like building blocks of an entrepreneur's career.

Like it just feels like you've seen some of the things firsthand, how they work, how people complain, what they like, what they dislike, like how to, how to not be in the right place, how not to be in places that you might regret later. So when it came to your eight A and b difficult choice, like do you wanna be in the city or BI

wasn't, yeah, I wasn't expecting that you'd be selling something that, as you said, was put together with razor bands and razor bands.

 No, with, with rubber bands and razor blades. Like, but there is something about that almost presume in invincibility [00:08:00] when you start, when you make a first sale, when you realize that some of this stuff really works. Right? How did you feel that way?

Barney: So actually know, I, I have spoken to lots of young people. I've got four kids of my own now all starting to think about, you know, what they're gonna do for careers. And I'm literally like, just go and try lots of different things. Just work in a bank, work in a hospital, work in in hospitality, and go and figure out what it is that you enjoy doing.

And equally what you don't enjoy doing,  uh, what you think you're good at, what you think you're a bit shit at, you know, put crosses against stuff because the rest of your life is ahead and it's okay to take a little bit of time to figure it out. And so this whole back strategy thing, I can now wrap up that.

Apostle of my life and say, well, I meant to do that. You know, I meant to jump from one job to the next dog to the next job and work in the factory, endorse it, selling garden stuff. Um, but actually it was, as you say, it was the forming of me, I discovered by accident, I suppose. But, but just in a curious way, what, what is it that gets me outta bed in the morning and what do I [00:09:00] enjoy doing?

And I realized that I'm, I enjoy being around people. I enjoy physical products. I wasn't that excited about pushing other people's money on spreadsheets in, in the city, but I, I can now have an opinion of what all my friends who ended up staying in that industry have. Um, and it, it just wasn't for me. Um, but I wouldn't have known if I hadn't gone to try stuff out.

Um, and I, you know, it took me until. Age 25 to get very lucky. Um, I, uh, was working with my friend in Dorsett for 18 months. Um, went around the world. We went to trade shows, um, in Chicago and France and all over the place. Um, and, but I realized that the, the, the garden industry wasn't a particularly exciting industry for me, but I really enjoyed the, the work that I was doing within it.

 So sort of tick, tick to the sort of type of work I was doing and, and cross against the industry that I'd, I'd fallen into. Um, and I then decided, and this was back in 98, 99, so 19. 98 for those who don't have a calendar that go back [00:10:00] that far. Um, um, uh, I, it was the era of the internet. The internet was just coming out.

Um, and I was living with a guy who, um, had been working in it and we ended up, uh, on the side of my gardening business thing, uh, on the side of that, set up a website, which was, um. A voucher website or coupon, a bit like red letter days, if you remember Red letter days where I would phone up extreme sports or absorbing or tank driving or what have you, and say, could I get 10%, 20% off the value of a, a ticket?

And I'll sell vouchers to, you know, as birthday presents or stag do things to people. Um, in London, I was still living in Dorsett at the time, so I, I, I knew that I wanted to transition outta the food industry into this sort of extreme, sporty sort of, um, world using this voucher business. And the idea was to then, um, sell my tickets to all the people I'd met in the city during that time.

So they're the guys with the money. Um, uh, and I was gonna create something that they would buy, um. But I realized I needed to be in London [00:11:00] for this to actually work. And so I gave my notice in to my friend much to his dismay and disappointment. Uh, although we're now best friends, I live in Dorset again.

Um, and, uh, moved to London looking for and I, I needed a job to pay my rent in London. Um, and I was about to enter something called the Shell Livewire Competition, um, which was a sort of business plan competition and you can win, win some cash prizes and what have you. And the people who won it the year before was this company called Innocent Drinks.

Um, and I ended up on their website, um, because they were obviously winners from the year before. And, um. And I thought, well, they looked quite fun, didn't really know what a smoothie was. Um, but wrote a letter to them saying, I'm, I'm looking for a part-time job. Um, I'm setting up my own thing. Um, can I come and see you?

Uh, and have you got, uh, a few hours in a week? Um, and I went, ended up going for a full on interview with Adam, Richard and John from Innocent Drinks, the founders, um, who couldn't quite work out what kind of a person I was. Um, 'cause I was sort of looking for a part-time job, but I had my own business that I wanted to [00:12:00] get going.

 Um, and I, I think they, they kind of gave me an opportunity that no one else would've done. And said, okay, well why don't you come along,  um, and, and work with us. And I was the seventh employee at Innocent Drinks in the year 2000. Um, I call it oh oh seven of course. Um, uh, then I can remember it. Um, and innocent. Then became what it then became. And very quickly I realized that actually innocent was the one that was, was my calling rather than my own,  uh, internet startup thing. And so the, uh, the voucher business subsided. Um, and I then threw myself, uh, innocent drinks.

Radim: So we are gonna talk about innocent in in just one second. But you said for those who haven't got a calendar, go in that five, it was 1999, you mentioned absorbing what? Absorbing 

Barney: I.

think it still exists. It's when you get pushed into a big inflatable ball and then someone throws you down a hill and you roll within it. Yeah. Uh, don't, don't do it. Terrible sport [00:13:00] head injuries, injuries. injuries,  

Radim: your, your running theme around all of this is no, having something that gets you out of bed, you, you've said it quite a few times, so you find yourself as the seventh employee of Innocent. Is that quite a sort of early start that it wasn't as big back then or the production wasn't as big? Like, um, what was the first learnings from them building a company, your new farm role there?

Like you're finding yourself back sort of liking the products because again, products is another recurring theme in this conversation so far. So. I love the fact that you went in there and said, I'm looking for a job. They created almost a role that wasn't there, that you sort of made them happen. Made them create.

What was it like to be in a company that's focused purely on a, on a product that more or less spoke to your soul, even though you had to find out what smoothie was?

Barney: Yeah. Do you know? Um, so what I've realized, uh, there were two big turning points, um, for me. One was about me, um, and I would credit Adam ballon [00:14:00] my boss there,  uh, one of the founders of understanding which buttons to press in me to get the very best out of me. No teacher, no lecturer, no, no guardian, no parent, no, no one else had ever.

Figured out me the way he did. Um, and I think he turned me into a, a,  kind of, I, I was at that stage in life also where I just wanted to really roll my sleeves up and, and get down dirty and, and, and learn real quick and, and get good at something. I think. So that was one big thing that happened in the early days of innocent.

The other big thing was the food industry. Um, the food industry, I would say is probably one of the. Best industries. Um, if you're not sure which industry to throw yourself at, uh, because it's, it uses your five senses. It's your taste, your touch, your smell. Everybody's gotta eat. Humanity depends on it. Um, you can say, you know, recessions, knock out premium products and stuff, but no recession's gonna stop you eating food.

 Um, you can sit at a dinner party table and, and rather than talk about your, your job [00:15:00] in some insurance company, um, you can, you can talk animatedly about, you know, the different flavors of fruit in a smoothie. And,  um, and, and whoever's sitting next to you will, will at least have an opinion whether they like it or not.

 Um, and so a really good sort of topical product. Um, and, and on top of that, innocent was a machine, um, in, in getting things right. Their product tasted amazing. Their brand was, was, was industry defining, which of course I didn't realize at the time, but looking back at it, they, they were almost, you know, doing B-Corp before B-Corp happened.

Um, they were, they were pushing boundaries that had never been pushed before. Um, and I had just assumed that's what everyone else did too until I came out of it. Um, but I learned so much in a very short space of time. Um, my first job, uh, my job, my job title, uh, when I first joined was a fruit nut. Um, and I was given a cow van, a Renu Kangu van that was dressed up as a Friesian cow with a tail and eyes and a mo horn and black and white, um, body.

And I was told to go and sell innocent smoothies to anyone that might wear a kilt.  um, and so, uh, [00:16:00] I then drew on a map, um, where people might wear a kilt. They didn't have to wear a kilt, but they might. Um, so off I went in my caravan with a van full of smoothies and went up to Scotland over to Wales.

I was over to Ireland, down in Cornwall. There's a stretch down in Cornwall where the Celtics sort of hang out a bit, and Northern France, there was a little bit there too. And I spent my first year selling smoothies to anyone who might wear a kilt. Um, and through that learned the whole process of wholesalers and how wholesalers then supply in independent stores and, and then what products need to look like when they're on shelf and how you merchandise and all.

But, but real live, it couldn't have been the, it was the best MBA in how to kind of get a product on shelf. Um, so that, that was early stuff that was invaluable.

Radim: As you, as you can see on my face, I've got questions. Why people in Kilt?

Barney: I think this is just the alternative way that innocent guys approach things. It's like you could have said, you know, anywhere outside of London,  um, but [00:17:00] actually to, to make it a little bit more fun. Um, and, and, and topical. And, and, and I kind of knew what they meant, sort of. Um, uh, they were incredibly strategic.

Um, I often kind of would go away on a, a week's trip or, or so and come back and what they had said they were gonna do in their business plan at the beginning of the year, they had delivered plus. So every, they, they were incredibly good at doing what they say they were gonna do. And that was probably one of the other lessons I learned.

Radim: So here's my question. When you mentioned business plan, I always think to that quote, that business plan is only as good until it meets the customer. Everything changes. But you said they did everything in their business plan plus more. So how focused was the operation? Because you said that it was the, Adam was the one who unlocked thing was, he said he pressed the buttons in you that nobody else could have done in, in what has managed to do in the past.

And at that age you said you felt like, no, rolling up your sleeves. Sorry, my voice ly doesn't work.  And you said at that age you felt like rolling up your sleeves and actually do some proper work. So how was it that you've seen their vision, their mission, their drive, and as you said, them [00:18:00] becoming B Corp almost before B Corp?

How focused and observant and you know, mission wise, were they at that time because it, again, 25 years ago, were people as focused as they're now or is it just sort of an impression that we're making for ourselves?

Barney: I think they were quite unique. There were three of them and they covered different, different areas. Adam sat in the sort of commercial seat, so he was my direct boss. Um, John was more operational financial, and Richard Reed was, was more creative. Um, and, and so if you draw a sort of linear line of, of the, the skills required in, in startup land, you need to sort of know about ops and finance, but you also need to know about fluffy creative, and in the middle you need to be able to pull the whole lot together and make some money.

Um, and so I think they, they were also ex Bain and McKinsey, so they were very well trained. They were incredibly smart out of, uh, Cambridge as well. Um, and, and that's the way they liked to do things. And interestingly, later in life, trying to emulate [00:19:00] anything that they had. Done was very difficult because they were, they were just so wired and trained and focused in, in, in, in what happened.

Um, and quite interestingly, they, their early teams that, that joined when I was there. So I was there for five years. Um, uh, all of them, uh, that they were hiring sort of generalist, entrepreneurial minded young people who hadn't quite found their own thing yet. On reflection, looking back, um, after I left, a few of the others left and then went on to set up their own things themselves.

So it was almost like a, like a, like a, a a, place to learn how to do it and then go and do it yourself, an incubator of sorts.

Radim: It, it is the G word generalist. I mean, whenever I speak to someone who, I mean, and, and looking at your record so far, you were a generalist. You were looking at, obviously you were looking, looking around the corners, you were looking like how to add up all of these numbers to get to the equation that add not equate, something which is valuable, which actually goes somewhere and generalist.

I had just recently, somebody said like, oh, is it time for generalists to finally get the, um, what's the right word? The, um, it's not vision, um, appreciation. Somebody said recently like, oh, is it time for generalists to to be seen? You know, is it, is it, is it a good thing to be a generalist? I'm thinking it's always been a good thing to be generalist [00:20:00] because you've got your specialist with their talent and they do that one thing over and over again.

Whereas our belief is the generalist that have changed the world.

Barney: You 

Radim: You need, you need your specialist, but it's the people who are sort of looking around the corners.

Barney: I think, you know, this is a topic I talked. A lot about, uh, I wasn't an A grade student, a star, this, that, and the other. Um, uh, and I could never really understand why, why that was so important to be so driven academic down one channel. Um, I was always interested in multiple sort of subjects. My A levels were, uh, were geography, French and maths.

I mean, you couldn't get a more diverse mix. Um, and um, and again, reflecting back on, on my career so far, um, and having kids that are coming through, my daughter's 20 and then we have a 19, 18 and a 16-year-old. Um, uh. Encouraging them to think beyond just the subjects they're being taught. Um, and, and it doesn't suit everyone.

And some people really are specialists and they want to be, you know, mine into biochemistry or they want to mine into the legal [00:21:00] system and be, you know, you know, you have introverts and extroverts and all sorts of,  um, characters and not everyone can be a generalist, otherwise nothing would get done. Um, but I think it really helped that I was in the sort of commercial seat at innocence.

So the, the sales end, because you needed to understand about product, you needed to understand about brand, you needed to understand about finance and operations, and you also needed to be able to wrap it all up and explain that to your customer. Um, so. I would say that most commercial sales type people, particularly when they're opening new business, not necessarily just account management, are that they need to be interested in the whole gambit rather than just their being a cog in, in the, in the bigger thing.

Um, so generalist versus specialist is a really good subject. Um, and it's okay to be a generalist. I recognized that I was a generalist very late in life, and I wish someone had said to me much earlier in life, do you know what? It's okay. In fact, um, it, it, it's a superpower, uh, if you [00:22:00] know how to use it.

Um, and, and I, I genuinely think that's, that was a revelation. But late thirties, forties, I, you know, suddenly like, oh, that's why I'm not that good at anything in particular. It's okay.

Radim: Um, beautifully said, absolutely, beautifully said. So you spent five years at Innocent, and as you said, lots of generalists who were part of the same cohort have left and started their own thing, because I think you guys got a great education in business and, and product vision. From, from, you know, from your, uh, well, from the leadership at Innocent after five years, what was the nudge to go and what were you looking for next to do?

Barney: Yeah, so I, um, I ended up, um, uh, coming out of that original role of selling smoothies to anyone who wore kelps to running the UK sales team,  uh, as we were going into supermarkets. And then my last role in my last year was the European manager. So we were opening up, uh, France, Germany, Belgium,  um, and looking at other markets too.

Um, and. I had always got this thing in me that I did want to do my own thing. Um, I joined Innocent thinking that it was [00:23:00] gonna be a part-time job. Uh, 'cause I wanted to run my own thing. I obviously hadn't quite got my business idea kind of grounded properly. Um, and I also genuinely didn't have the skills for it either.

Um, but I felt after five years, innocent, you know, my time was, um, uh, you know, if I didn't do it soon, I was going to start getting caught up in, uh, I, I'd got married, we got a mortgage, um, first kid on the way. Um, there was a moment where if I didn't get on with it, um, I was, it was gonna become more and more difficult to start my own business.

Um, but I never really meant to leave innocent. Um,   uh, I had spotted an opportunity within the lifecycle of, of that brand building where. Um, the founders were looking at a potential US launch using Starbucks as their lead customer, and Starbucks was growing very rapidly back then. Um, and that would've got them really, really motoring.

 Um, I then pitched to my boss Adam, saying, well, look, can I, can I have France? France is a, a really tough market. Um, uh, I, I dunno why the French don't get what a [00:24:00] smoothie is. I was completely blinded by the,  I, I could not understand why people wouldn't buy smoothies. It was just the best product. Um, uh, so I had blind faith that, you know, I could convert the French, um, finally.

 Um, and he was going, really? You wanna do that? Um, and I said, well, look, you're gonna focus on America. Um, I'm the European guy actually. If I just took France off you and I'll act as agent, I'll be your agent in France. Um, and I wanna build a little team, but I wanna be able to do other brands as well. Um, which was a little bit contentious.

'cause you then step out of the, the family of innocent into this kind of weird place where you think you're running your own business, but your boss is still your main customer. Um, uh, so that was quite an interesting move. But, um, innocent was my first customer for a year. France was our target market, and I set up a company called Fresh Marketing, which was all about trying to.

Challenger brands in the uk. They weren't called Challenger brands back then. They were called New brands, um, uh, launch into the French market. Um, we had a little office in [00:25:00] Paris. Uh, I spoke very rubbish French. Um, I used to talk a lot about ONGs, which are the trends. We used to talk about the triangle sandwich, having a go at the baguette, you know, all that sort of stuff.

French didn't find any of it funny. Um, and uh, spent a very long time trying to get innocent going in France. And we did, we launched it into Monterey, into casino, into Kafu, uh, a lot of the food service places and, um. In the meantime, the American thing for the innocent guys subsided. The Starbucks buyer left or something happened where it didn't happen, and Adam, Adam, Adam then turned his attention back to Europe, uh, and his first call was, Hey Barney, what's this thing you're doing in France again?

Uh, can we have another look at it? Um, and I think at that point it became really clear that, you know, France was gonna cost quite a lot of money to get going, and that isn't an agent job that needs to be an in-house job. Uh, so we, we dutifully shook hands, um, and I handed back the business to them, but had taken on brands like Eat Natural cereal bars and Forest Feast and Burs [00:26:00] chips.

And there were a handful of others as well that we worked with Naked Bar, which ended up, um, uh, selling for Gazillions later in their, uh, kind of, um. Uh, journey. But yeah, the, the, the handover of the move from, from innocent drinks to fresh marketing was definitely an emotional one. Um, and it was at that point I realized that I'd just stepped off a, firstly a rocket ship.

And secondly, a very, very special,  um, place and experience. And again, all my friends and my parents were beside themselves going, what are you doing? Um, but I needed, I needed to do this. Um, and I didn't really have much more of a plan than we're gonna represent brands and try and get them into international markets.

Radim: Again, I think it just proves the fact that you wanna get out of your bed for the right reason. Because in hindsight, yes, you step off a rocket ship, but you kind of build your own rocket ship. You know? Uh, these, these were the beginnings of your next rocket ship because where was the way the story? Heads it, heads in the right direction has, has in the right and the right reason.

Barney: I was, I was living in London. I was, I [00:27:00] was on the 5:00 AM Eurostar, uh, frequently. Um, and 'cause I was far cheaper than any of the other ones. Um, and, and for me even back then, so I must have been 20. Uh, nearly 30, 30 years old at that time, uh, with a one, one kid in a mortgage in London. Um, uh, and I, we wanted to move back down to Dorsett and actually that wouldn't have happened if I stayed in employment in London.

Um, so that was one of the drivers. Um, but the other was just, just wanting to do my, you know, be my own captain as it were. Um, and I saw an opportunity, which I thought was credible, um, help helping brands launch overseas. Um, and so export then became a very big part of, of my life, um, for the next 20 something years.

Um, and, and even today, which we can get into later. Um, but. Um, and, and again, this was all about people, culture, society, food, habits, and then you've got all the underlying sort of pricing, logistics, labeling, et cetera. Um, which I was just sort of fascinated by. Um, and, and spent many a year at a trade show around the world, um, and touched many, many sort of brilliant brands in, uh, along the way, um, and learned from them [00:28:00] too.

Um, so this is that generalist thing again, multiple brands and, and what have you.

Radim: exactly. Well, let's talk about your, your rocket ship that you've built because you've, I know the story of how you got to build your next, well about how to build your food product, and you started with something then the question was about something else. You adapted, you changed obviously what you end up with, the product that it was, and the brand that you built and exited a couple of years ago wasn't the first idea that you had.

So. I believe it all started with a popcorn, right?

Barney: Hmm. Yeah. So in true strategic fashion, um, uh, we recognized quite far into our fresh marketing journey that we weren't creating anything of real value. We were a middleman. We were an agent, we were a distributor. Um, we were creating value for the brands we were working with, um, but not for ourselves. Um, but that was kind of okay for us.

Um, the next part of the journey was actually how do we. How do we create our own product brand, uh, that we can build real value into, uh, and, and experience that journey of [00:29:00] complete startup and, and take it as far as we can. Um, we were lucky enough to have built quite a good distribution business, refresh marketing, so that became our incubator for testing a whole load of ideas.

Um, and my first stupid, ridiculous idea was, was flavored popcorn. Um, there was a brand in the US called Ogies, um, that was doing Parmesan pesto flavored popcorn, um, and a variety of other things. And I asked for samples on the premise that we might help them launch in Europe, um, which was a bit, uh, mischievous I suppose.

But they sent me this massive box of samples and they were amazing. They were brilliant. It's like, we don't have this in the uk. And so I then said about how know we, what, what factories. Possibly make this product for us. And most popcorn in this UK is cinema popcorn, sweet and salty. Um, and there were factories that pumped out that stuff in massive big bags.

Um, we were able to convince a company to have a go at it. And, and the, our. Biggest mistake  um, was to [00:30:00] choose air popped popcorn over oil pop popcorn back then. 'cause we thought air pop much healthier, lower calories, et cetera. But it just didn't taste as good as the oil pop stuff. And it went a bit soggy when the bag opened.

And oh my God, we went through so many iterations of that. Um, we. Launched that, um, at exactly the same time as Metcalf, Julie Metcalf, who founded Pratt, he'd sold that for gazillions and, and got into flavored popcorn and there was Metcalf skinny popcorn. So he, and, and he was using the oil based and calling it skinny popcorn, which was frustrating.

Um, but with his weight and might and brand and name, he was able to beat us into every retailer that year. Um, and uh, there was a catalog of errors where our factory then got bought by a bigger company who then said, we're not gonna make anyone else's brand. We're just gonna stick to cinema popcorn. So we then had to go and find another manufacturer.

And by that time. Lots of other people launched into flavored popcorn. [00:31:00] You could buy a popcorn machine on a credit card, you could put it in your back garden and make popcorn and put flavoring on it. Um, and we were just too late to pick it up. So that was our first sort of, foray into, into, own brand.

And it was expensive and hard and emotional and we were still running fresh marketing in parallel to this. Um, but not to be put off too much. We then tried a whole iteration of other things when, when coconut water was getting going. Um, we saw the trend in America. We'd look, look there for inspiration.

 Um, we took a bit too long to launch our product, um, which was made in a factory in Austria upper a mountain where coconut trees don't grow. Um, we had so many issues with this product. Uh, the first production, um, uh, the, because the product was created an altitude, the bottles paneled the panelings when they get sucked in, um, which made the, uh, the, the shrink wrap label around the bottle buckle, and it just happened to buckle on the barcode, so none of the barcodes scanned.

 So we then had to [00:32:00] manually put a barcode sticker on all of, uh, the whole thing was disaster. Uh, anyway, we pulled, pulled that one quite quickly. We, we got, we did a, a long life yogurt drink. we did a brand called I Am Super Beans. Um, I'm super, which was a project actually with Tetrapak. They were trying to bring in their tetra recar to take on the Heinz baked bean tin, and we worked very closely with them.

The only factory in Europe was in Italy that could use this machinery. Um, we created the brand, got it on the shelves of Asra and Sainsbury's only for a little thing called Brexit to, to happen. Our margins destroyed,  um, and the whole project fell apart. Um, which was emotional. Um, uh, we launched a Crisp brand 'cause, uh, Bert's Crisps, who we'd built up over the years, um, took it all back in house and they happened to be our, our biggest brand.

Um, yet we had a pretty good view of what flavors and products and, and customers would want a crisp brand internationally. So we launched a, a brand called True Spirit, um, in Belgium. Um, and uh, again, [00:33:00] that was at the same time as Im super, so we had quite a few projects happening at the same time, trying to launch multiple brands at the same time.

Talk about being a generalist. Um, it's all strategic. By the way. All of this is strategic. Um, and Brexit took Yeah, got the better of that one too. Um, and then, and then the fuel thing came about, um, 

Radim: Because I, I, I believe somebody came to you with a question because you were, you were promoting a popcorn at a trade show or some kind of event, and somebody says, this is all good and well, but I'm looking for the Red Bull. Of breakfast cereal. I think that's what you told me. And by the way, I didn't know all of these little brands that you try to, 'cause I felt like, oh, maybe there was just one thing and then it led to another and then to another little did I know there was about another 15

Barney: So my. My theory was that you, you, that, that, 'cause I didn't know what the next thing was. And because we had, so, we had so much energy, uh, and we kind of figured out that you could pre-sell stuff and if a supermarket said yes, then you know, you could work extremely quickly to then create the product and the packaging for it all to be put together.

Our, I [00:34:00] think our record was 16 weeks from, you're, you're on shelf in 16 weeks. Uh, what's the brand? Literally we go away and try and create a brand. Um, but um, yes, we were at a show in London called Britain's Next Top Model with our popcorn brand. Um, we were dressed up and uh, the brand was called Diva Popcorn.

And, um, they had three hulking men on this stand, uh, at the most ridiculous show. Um, I don't know what the buyer was actually doing at that show. Um, uh, but um, we could see that they had a Tesco badge and, um. Uh, and he said, don't worry, I don't buy popcorn and stuff. And, uh, we, we asked, you know, well, what do you buy?

And he said, well, I'm, I'm the breakfast buyer at Tesco and just here for inspiration, uh, quite like your brand. Um, and we got talking to him and he said, um, we asked him, you know, what's going on in breakfast and are there any, anything, any opportunities? And he said, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm trying to find the Red Bull of granola.

Uh, granola is the only category growing at the moment, and uh, energy is a big thing. Uh, obviously outside of the category. Um, I wanna try and bring energy into the [00:35:00] category, the. And we said, well, what, what if we found you the product and, and had a really good brand, um, would you consider, um, having, having a chat to us?

And he said, well, look, you know, if you think you got something, you know, book a meeting and, and come up and show me. And literally I left a trade show then and there and got the yellow pages out, uh, and granola manufacturers in Europe, anywhere, any manufacturer,  um, and found four manufacturers, um, told them that we.

Already had 600 stores guaranteed from Tesco. Uh, said that we've, we've already spoken to Bear Grills about putting his face on the pack or, and if it's not Bear, it'll be Jamie Oliver or someone like that. Um, and four factories around Europe put together the Red Bull of granola in their various different formats.

And, um, I had samples coming into my office in Dset. I can't remember which samples came from where. Um, and we went up for a meeting and, uh, there was one particular manufacturer that had absolutely nailed it.  um, and the buyer said that one. And during the meeting he ate the whole pack pretty much.

Um, and he said, okay, that's it. We'll go for [00:36:00] that. And, and he literally said, uh, I'm gonna give you 600 stores and, um, uh, and you've gotta be ready in 16 weeks. Uh, oh, by the way, what's, what's the brand? And it, it was that, that is how Fuel 10 k, um, ended up being born. Um, go on.

Radim: Uh, uh, uh, uh, as you're speaking, like my head is literally popping up with so many questions because what you're display in here from the experience is often what, in my opinion, and from my experience, from the branding side, what's what people get wrong. They want to be as ready as possible. Have the product ready.

Beautiful. You know, like, okay, now we go and ready to sell to someone. Whereas you're like, you didn't have anything as you said, like how do you pre-sell something? Like how do you sell a concept and then work out how to do it? 

So on, on, on my side of things, it works from here to there, whereas you're working from there to here.

Does it make sense? Like it's, it's, it's the whole different mentality.

Barney: so this is, this is a really important bit, which I, I, I, I have now sort of put into various sort of anecdotes and nuggets, [00:37:00] but I think that so few. Founders really think about the alternative perspective, actually the perspective of who, who's gonna buy your product rather than, so a lot of salespeople go into meetings and say, um, yeah, we've got the great, great flavors and the pricing's this and the bestselling that, and we're a B Corp and what have you.

 But very rarely do they put themselves on the other side of the table. So if you're sat, uh, uh, with, I don't know the Sainsbury's buyer, what's going through the Sainsbury's buyer's head right now, um, they're going, Royal, I need to sell more per square inch of shelf space than my predecessor. I needs to be more profitable.

 I want to get my bonus and I want my boss to give me a promotion. That's what they're thinking. Um, and, and, and this becomes very personal. And you go, okay. So if you start your meeting, uh, with that buyer saying, Hey, I think I've got a way of helping you get a bigger bonus this year, you immediately start tapping into the way that.

They are sort of thinking, and they might find that a bit weird. Um, but you [00:38:00] qualify it with, look, we can now demonstrate that we are bringing new consumers into the category at a much better margin than, than, I don't know, Kellogg's, weeds, bits, whatever. and it, it, it was a little bit like that startup.

It, it was the buyer saying, this is what I want, rather than me saying, this is what I've got, will you buy it? And, uh, so you're morphing yourself into the recipient or the buyer of, of, of, of the project. And I think that sort of empathy is, is a really valuable thing to share with anyone. You know, a lot of designers do this where they've got beautiful designs, but who's it for?

Who's gonna buy my product? It's like, why didn't you ask them? 'cause that's quite an easy question first. Um.

Radim: What you're describing goes to that meth, goes to that logic of the sale happens when you're listening. What you're describing is that logic of the sale will happen when you're listening because as you said, lots of designers will come with a ready-made sort of solution.

They will come with an idea like, maybe you should have this, this, and that without having a foggiest clue. About what the brand needs or what the buyer needs, or what is the buyer's motivations? Because I remember you and I had a conversation in the, in the past about the fact that you were approached by design [00:39:00] agencies or creative agencies going, Hey, we would like to work with you.

And you're like, you don't know my pain points. Like, you don't know what I need. I don't need a prettier packaging. I, you, I've got my issues maybe somewhere completely different, but the, this, this, this, this, this logic of the cell happens when you're listening goes to the fact that you listen to a buyer from Tesco's, he wanted a Red Bull of granola.

Then you did your bit, the way you did it, going from there to here. You watched him eat a whole bowl of cereal going, this is good. We actually hit that visualization of 600 stores and that's how we started building your brand. I mean. It's absolutely brilliant because as I said, like I've got guests on the show who are working in the other direction and I think, you know, from the founders and the creators, we sort of meet halfway through, hopefully, you know, somewhere halfway point and we get the work done.

But I just love the way that you had a totally different logic and that's how you made your 

Barney: I also think there's something about in that branding piece, um, I might have mentioned this before, but you know, a lot of, uh, brandy [00:40:00] type people talk about the demographics, their target demographics or their sweet spot demographics in, in terms of wealth and age and what have you. But, but if you put, uh, prince Charles and the late Ozzy Osborne, um, uh.

On onto that profile. They're probably both as wealthy as each other, um, same age. Um, yet you would probably speak to them slightly differently through branding. And so, so it's psychographics, it's, it's the need state that these people want. So what kind of people are they? Um, that, you know, what, what's, what mobilizes motivates the consumer rather than their defined sort of sort of what you learn in geography, A level,  um, sort of pop, pop population flows and trends.

It's, it's, it's about what's going on in their head. Um, so I think it's quite interesting, but we, we, we got to the, the happy point of, um, launching into 600 stores without a brand, um, uh, lit, literally, uh, on PowerPoint. I, for some reason had this image in my head of, of this guy standing on a pile of granola, silhouette of a guy and quite sort of energizing, energetic sort of call outs and what [00:41:00] have you, and, and put it into PowerPoint.

And that was then translated into packaging, uh, to try and meet the deadline. And I always loved the word fuel. 'cause fuel was, you know, and again, energy. Um, uh, so the brand originally was called Fuel on its own, uh, which of course we couldn't trademark. Um, and we sent a press release to the buyer saying, would you mind, you know, can we have a quote?

Um, he said, well, you know, have you got a branding? You know, let's have a look. Um, uh, 'cause he was exci as excited about it as we were. We sent him a box from the. Production line. Um, and he said, ah, do you mind if we don't mention my name on this press release? We were like, oh dear. Um, we hit the 600 stores, but very, very quickly we had a call saying, um, this is a disaster.

It is not working. Uh, the branding's rubbish. Um. Uh, product's good. Um, but, um, I'm afraid we're, we're, we're gonna have to pull out of this. Um, and after much, much begging, we said, look, could, can you just give us 200 stores? Take us down to 200 stores? Um, and we've got this new brand, we've got this [00:42:00] new look and feel.

We just didn't have enough time to reflect and think about it. Um, and we met, we had met a guy, um, who had worked at Relentless Energy, who helped create the feel your 10,000 hours. Brand with lots of depth, about 10,000 hours being, you know, the number of hours it takes to become perfect at your craft, whatever it is.

Um, and he said, you know, you're in a sea of yellows and blues on, on the shelves and, and breakfast. Why don't we go black? Let's be a black brand. We really stand out just because of that. We had there,  our, our logo became fueled. Your 10,000 hours written out like that. Um, and then over time we shrunk it down to fuel 10 K.

 Um, uh, it was such a convoluted journey. Looking back at it, you should see the, the lineup of packaging that we did over time. Um, uh, yeah, that was a journey in itself. Um. But, but the buyer agreed to that gave us 200 stores. Then we started appealing to a very unique kind of consumer that wasn't buying Kellogg's or We Bricks or Jordan's or, or what have you.

 Um, and,  and then [00:43:00] that was the starting blocks of Fuel 10 K done. Um, and from there we grew. We moved into porridge, we moved into drinks, and what have you.

Radim: Let me ask you a question. 'cause I mean, it's a great story and I think, yeah, there was a D word, it was a disaster, there's a, there's a, there's a quite a few recurring themes I've got on this podcast, and some of them is a rejection, or let's say failure or, you know, a disaster.

We can actually add to the same category. How did you guys feel? Because obviously again, it shows your. Relentless, um, adaptability or like not thinking like, okay, this could be potentially the end of the road, but you made it not, you just made it a chapter and you, and, and you, and you learn from that and you, and you built on top of it.

 So how did you deal with the fact that, you know, luckily what you had in, in the box was good, but demand standing on a granola with the PowerPoint design wasn't exactly helping you to conquer that.

Barney: Yeah. Um, genuinely, we were a test. I was te test and learn all my life. Um, and I, I think what really helps again, get you outta bed when you're doing stuff [00:44:00] like this and you hit massive rejection and disasters, um, is, is what the alternative looks like. You know, if you, if you don't get it right, um, and the older you become, uh, the more deeply unemployable you think you are.

Um, and with. More kids arriving on the scene and you, you kind of go, well, if that didn't work, something, you know, let's try this and let's try that, and let's try this. And so I think the personal motivations, um, helped a lot. Um, and I think you gotta be a bit careful that you're not flogging a dead horse and, and you just keep relentlessly making mistakes and may maybe you're not the right guy for this.

Um, uh, but I just knew that we had something and it was worth just going that one more time. Just one more time. Um, until luckily, we, you know, we cracked, we cracked something, um, having had so much rejection and failure of all the other brands as well. Um, and meanwhile, fresh marketing was kind of keeping us afloat.

So we, we knew we had a bit of a, you know, we could always slip back to that if, if everything really did fall apart. Um, but we were so keen on Keen and yeah, wanting, wanting [00:45:00] to create our own thing.

Radim: I mean, what you created was your rocket ship. Uh, you built it up, uh, it was successful. And you exited that business not that long ago, and you started writing your next chapter. The next chapter is now, which is the future of food. It's your, how would you describe it? Future of food is your organization, competition, movement, community.

Tell me about future of food and how did you decide on the mission, on the vision, and is it literally some of many parts? Are we adding, are we adding up everything from, you know, wheeling, patients from in St. Thomas is all the way to now to the future of, you know, food or society, future of the world.

Barney: Well, I think, I think that the, the one little bit in between. Fuel. And, and the next part was, uh, we, we haven't talked nearly enough about team and, and I had a business partner, um, on fresh marketing. I had a third business partner on, on Fuel 10 K. We hired really smart specialists in, in role. Um, and I spent quite a long time really trying to understand what motivated those people to want to be even more than they could give.

Um, uh, and, and for anybody sort of listening in on this crazy story, um, it literally, without the, the people and the engage people around me, it would, [00:46:00] none of it would've happened. Um,  but luckily in October 23, we, we sold Fuel 10 K pretty successfully to, to Premier Foods. Um, uh, everyone on that Fuel 10 K journey who had been with us for a reasonable amount of time benefited I think, um, significantly from that sale too.

Um, uh, and. Alex, my business partner, and I stepped off on, on the, the following day, after signing. Um, and suddenly there's this sort of void. The, the pressure of, of going through an m and a deal with a multinational listed company was quite something. Um, but also the constant journey of pressure on us right from the very beginning, even from the age of 20.

Um, uh, there'd always been that kind of niggle and pressure and, come on, you can do it, and get on. And, um, and suddenly all of that evaporated. Um, and it took me a couple of months to, rationalize everything. But very quickly, I, I wanted to get back into the food industry. I wasn't, I didn't wanna start a new brand, um, but I wanted to engage with [00:47:00] other, uh, entrepreneurs, innovators, who were really Doing a similar journey to what I've just been through, um, but also doing really good projects. Um, previously in 2023, um, I'd run a, uh, with, with Fuel 10 KI run a, a competition called the Future of Food, um, and Fuel 10 K was the subject. Um, the schools involved. So we had 20 schools that applied to to join this competition.

 They were advisors to, to the brand. And the year was 2043. What will you be advising Fuel 10 k to, to launch and, and why will it work against the mega trends of 20 years time? Um, and it was such a brilliant exercise. We did it purely, not, not brand building anything else, but just, just enjoyment really. Um, the schools got a lot out of it, I think.

 Um, and I was able to persuade some of some of the big guys in our industry to come down and be judges at that. So we had Adam Leland, who's the editor of the, the Grosser Magazine. We had Rebecca Oliver Mooney, who's head of commercial at the co-op. She [00:48:00] brought her daughter down to it and, and had a few others from Mintel.

We had someone from the DBT Department of Business and Trade. Um, it was phenomenal. Um, and Adam Leland at the end said, if you wanna bring this into the real world, we'd really like to be involved in some way in the real world, meaning the food industry. And so that was my sort of spur on and I thought, you know,  you know, let's, let's, let's have a go.

And so, last November I booked the Royal Geographic Society, um, the whole place for, for the day. Um, and, uh, free to enter, free to attend, not-for-profit. Um, uh, we had six amazing judges. We had speakers who came in to frame the, the future of food. And, you know, what's coming down the tracks. We had 105 entries, uh, which we had to whittle down to 16 finalists.

And we spent the day championing entrepreneurial endeavor in front of 350 people in, in the food industry, from investors to retailers, to journalists, to manufacturers. Um, and we were talking about things like, how do we reduce plastics in our foods? How do we, how [00:49:00] do we, what are we gonna do about ultra processed food?

What's the impact of weight loss drugs? What, what are the different things that, that entrepreneurs can create and add value to in this food ecosystem? And we know, we know there's change. We know populations are changing, we know ice caps are melting. Um, and so that's, that was, yeah, our first iteration.

And I thought, I thought that was gonna be a one-off, and I'm then go and do something else. But, um, yeah, it was the wash up afterwards where everyone was like, Hmm, I think you're gonna do that again.

Radim: I have to say that I, I got to hear about your project and about you from your brother, uh, who I to share office with, and he says, this is what my brother does, da, da da, da. And I'm like, I looked it up. Fuck me. One more voice. I was drinking coffee and not water. Uh, and I've looked it up. I've looked up your website and I'm like, I'm gonna send bar an email to say, how can I volunteer?

Be part of this? Because what you describe the reasons and the trial session and the mission and purpose of what you're, do the future of food, it create this incredible energy in the room with the founders, with the myriad of different finalists bringing something to the table, which is, which were unusual because people, people showed up for themselves.

People, people showed up because of their curiosity. And as you said at the beginning of this conversation, that the food industry is one of the most exciting industries because it appears to five senses would've learned in that room on that [00:50:00] day. And it was such a pleasure to be part of the event and helping you with some of the, you know, some of the design work and you know, the basics.

It was the fact that I've learned so much more rather than when people show up for themselves to, to, to just to, to project and just to, to, to, to broadcast their mission. There was none of that. There were people with genuine interest about now and about the future and how we can potentially do it so much better than we do it today.

Because I have, for example, my takeaway from the event was, you know, there's lots of people trying to make baby formulas, but one of the speakers was talking about the fact that there's no category for people for over 60 fives. It's like, that's gonna be bigger category than the 5% category for 

kids. 

Barney: They're gonna be 10 million more people over the age of 65 by 20, 50, 10 million in the UK only.  And no one, you know, every, when you do those demographic things we were talking about earlier, you go, well, you know, you have the, the zero to two year olds, the two to 15 or 60, 16 to 30 and, and, and then it goes 65 plus.

It's like, hang on, this is like a whole load more sort of layers above that. And it was just, [00:51:00] yeah, crazy. Um, but. It was, it was amazing. I think, um, I was listening to someone else's podcast the other day. Um, uh, Rory Sutherland, he's a sort of behavioral science guy. I love him. I love that whole behavioral science, um, thing.

And he was saying that, um, that often you can get an awful lot more and become more successful if you don't feel like you have to generate revenue from every revenue stream. And, and sometimes, you know, giving you get a lot more back in different ways or, or what have you. And I think that's what the future of food competition and all the people who've, who've supported.

And you've been incredibly brilliant and generous with your time and design and skills. Um, and elevated, you know, what might have been a another. Silhouette man on a pile of gran, um, realizing I'm not a designer. Um, uh, and, and his point, because he was saying, what, you know, I do podcasts. I don't charge to be on a podcast, but I wanna share my experiences and what have you.

And, um, but he obviously charges to speak in front of, I don't know, the city Christmas ball party at [00:52:00] HSBC or something. Um, and so it's about being part of the ecosystem and where I, I love that whole concept of, um, uh, free information flow, um, and sharing collaboration. Um. And I think there's way too much of this, um, management consultancy thing where it's like, I've, I've got this nugget of information and I'm gonna wrap it up and sell it to one company for lots of money, and then I'm gonna change the logo at the top of it and sell it to another company.

Exactly the same thing. And my view is it should be open source. Now, a lot of this stuff should be open source. Um, and yeah, it's that, again, that's what I want to sort of have a, have a go at blowing up some of the, some of those sort of hanger honors, as it were, and, and support supporting the entrepreneurs who are taking the risks out there.

Radim: I think we need to, um, I think we need to talk about the fact that future of food is happening for the second year. It's happening in November this year. Um, uh, after this episode goes out, sorry, before this, sorry, how to say it? We need to talk about the fact that future of food is happening and is actually growing and, um, I think there's no stopping you in in the mission because I think it's just, it just comes from your soul.

It comes from the right, um, from the right place. 'cause you said like, I've been in the trenches on and off at the beginning you said, I've been in the trenches doing this, but. It's not [00:53:00] really trenches anymore. It doesn't feel like trenches. It feels like you know, it, it is the right thing to get out of bed for what I want to know, uh, about future of food, what was the thing so far that surprised you the most that you've learned from the founders or from the inventions?

What has surprised you that you didn't even know after 20 odd years in a, you know, in the food industry?

Barney: Uh, yeah, there were a few things. I think fir first of all, um, what I've really recognized since leaving Fuel 10 K,  um, is that there are many, many, many common issues that founders and management teams are going through, and they're all trying to figure it out themselves. Um, and there is no. Real sort of safe zone stroke platform for them to share each other's pain.

Um, and this goes right up into sort of supermarket land. You've got these big supermarkets who all know that they need to reduce plastic, they need to figure out the plastic bag thing. They not have chlorinated chicken or, uh, talk about the sort of wax on lemons, you know, just to make them look pretty.

Um, they, [00:54:00] they could all collaborate if there was a platform for them to, in a safe place away from competitive IP and all that sort of thing. Um, all agree. Let's, let's go together and, and, and let's say that we're, we're never gonna buy cardboard for our own label breakfast from these guys or these sources anymore because it's destroying the planet.

Um, and then they would have buying power together, et cetera. So this whole collaboration thing, I think around entrepreneurs, um, they're all trying to do the same. Thing in their own different ways. And I think that was probably the biggest revelation. Um, we never, I, we never formally fundraised ourselves.

Um, but I've been surprised how many of them are constantly fundraising all the time. of course it's expensive out there. Um, so that's a whole process that I've, I've really tried to understand and that I've invested in a few of them as well myself. Um, but took myself off on a, on a course, uh, an eight week course to, to sort of understand the dynamics between the investor and the entrepreneur.

Having just been through what I've been through with Premier Foods, I kind of [00:55:00] then thought maybe I should learn about what the hell just happened. Um, uh, and that was revealing. So I feel a little bit like, I know a bit more about, you know, how to value things and, um, and financially, um, but. But there are so many cool people doing cool stuff out there, and it's really hard to get airtime with the right people.

And I have a real issue with the fact that investors, buyers, journalists, they are all seen as the gods in the industry, and we must all bow down to the buyer. Whereas actually it's the entrepreneurs that we should be crediting for taking the ballsy risks and, and, you know, the emotional strain it takes to get these things out, the hatches.

Uh, and I think we should be crowning them more and making them not have to pay so much to, to, to make stuff happen. Um, so that's, that 

Radim: Uh, 

Barney: is a view.

Radim: it's, it's definitely the view and I think it's a very, very good view actually. You know, putting a focus on the people who go through much more stress and strain and burnouts than the buyers, you know, than, than, you know, the, the, the [00:56:00] journalists because it, it's, it's. No business is ever easy really to make successful, like as you said, it, it, you need a catalog of chaos, disasters no fuck ups to, to, to get to the other side.

Because yeah, if it was easy, and, and that's the famous quote, if it was easy, everyone would do it. But it's the people who put themselves in that position that they're often driven, they're often driven by the enthusiasm, by the vision, by the obsession. And you use the word fuel. You know, I believe in creativity.

We all have that fuel, that reason that gets us out of the bed for that reason. And, you know, fuel 10 k became your, your trademark, uh, kinda word for your mission. And, and that's still, I believe that fuel is very much there. And I think what you're trying to create and what you're creating already and how you, you know, shed information through, through your channels, through your LinkedIn, like kind of putting focus on where the hell do we actually go with all of this.

Because it's, it's the fact that we all know that UPF is bad for us. But it's also very easy to buy it and, and, and, and, you know, and eat it. And the, the alternative, which used to be the norm, you know, because of [00:57:00] the population, the number of population, it's, it's no longer commercially viable. Therefore, we have the alternatives just for that reason, for not for  uh, convenience, for the easiness of, of, of, of production and, and, and, and, and consumption.

So it's all of this that sort of is like a raising tie because you know, you at one, we all know that we'd rather not do it, but then do we turn a blind eye to this and 

Barney: Well, you know, I went to, um, the science museum and David Attenborough was doing a kind of history of the world in about 45 minutes. And, um, and, and you could have watched it on YouTube probably, um, but. Uh, the, my one big, kind of, my one big takeout was, um, uh, he was born in 1926 and at that time there were 2 billion people on the planet.

There are 8.2 billion people on the planet now. And you kind of go, why is it all so hard and is there enough food? It's like the population has just quadrupled in the last a hundred years. Um, the number of cars on the roads, the resources that are being used, an awful lot of the world has become more middle [00:58:00] class and outta poverty, so more demands.

The internet's opened up, you know, more demand because I want. I want the latest gadgets and, and what have you. There's no surprise. There's so much strain on our resources. Um, but we need to adapt. Um, and, and I think, thank goodness, the sort of robotic AI areas coming through. And so what, what I'm really excited about is like, and this should be about opportunity rather than issue.

And pointing fingers and blame. The opportunities are, are, we know that populations are swelling and getting older, so how can we use the tools of today to, to, to, to. Feed them, um, in the, so keeping it within the food industry. Um, of course there's clothing, there's energy, there's defense, there's you all sorts of other industries.

But I'm going to keep it in, in the food industry 'cause that's a bit I sort of vaguely understand. But what are our kids gonna be doing? So if my kids come in to and follow a similar journey to me in 20 years time, um, the world's gonna be quite a different place. Where's a good place for them to start?

Um, and so if I can inspire them and get speakers in and say, well, these [00:59:00] things are happening. Um, you know, may maybe don't go down this route now 'cause that's sort of done. We've got enough pizza, let's move over here and talk about vertical farms or seaweed replacing plastic or, you know, wonderful sort of fermented cheese or lots of cool stuff.

Um, uh, and that's about future proofing the food industry. And I think the UK's a great place to start, but this isn't just a UK thing.

Radim: I love how you round up this conversation with the word opportunity because people sometimes wait for the opportunity to come their way. But what you've told me in the last hour is pretty much creating your opportunities is how you get to where you want to be, how you apply yourself, how do you express yourself, how do you find your fuel? Because yeah, there is a lot more people and that will be it for, for a while, but it's finding your own pocket of, of, of existence and, and finding the best way of applying yourself is, is exactly what you've done. And yeah, your story is inspirational. What you've created is incredible. And I, and, and I'm so excited personally to be part of future of Food and, and on the sidelines doing my little bit [01:00:00] because yeah, it, it's, it is the future of what we need to do and how we need to think.

So Barney, thank you so much for your time today and Yeah, I'm so excited we got to capture this conversation.

Barney: I think let's, let's continue to be lucky. But to be lucky, you had to put yourself in the path of luck, and that might be quite a wiggly journey. Um, and here we are today from your one email, uh, a year ago or whenever it was. Um, who knew?

Radim: Thank you.

Barney: Thank you.

 Thank you for listening to this episode of Daring Creativity Podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions, and suggestions, so please get in touch via the show notes. So please get in touch via the email, in the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me. Rad Malid.

The audio production was done by Neil Mackay from 7 million Bucks Podcast. Thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode. [01:01:00]