The Launch - Part Two

It is amazing what you can get done in a short amount of time. In the run up to the show, everything I had ruminated over in my head now had to become reality; my first priority was branding. Although I had dabbled in Photoshop over the Summer, trying to project an idea, mostly a feeling, into a visual design that resonates with customers in roughly three seconds - apparently the length of time it takes for someone to scan a supermarket shelf and pick a product - is ridiculous. Incredibly challenging. In 2015 I had no idea what my ‘elevator pitch’ was let alone the brand's ‘personality traits’. It tasted great and made me feel even better - to bottle up the energy I felt was beyond my expertise (and pay-grade); only I knew I wanted a spoon as the brand symbol. An identifiable mark like how iconic the Swoosh is to Nike - plus it signifies the best way to eat it. The rest of the details I looked at other brands for inspiration, visual characteristics I both liked and disliked; colour schemes, fonts and format; working with a freelancer at the time, she smashed the brief. Bold bright colours, simple but striking; a shape unique to the flavour’s ingredients featured on the front of the label - transparent, too, so you could see through to the actual nut butter inside. (Until I realised how expensive cut-out labels are to print, so we colour-matched it to the contents and hoped for the best that nobody noticed). An almond for Perfect Nut Butter, cacao bean for Indulgent Nut Butter, and hemp seed for Protein Nut Butter - although now that I see it, it looks more like a small peach. The first time I saw the logo, with its minimalistic solid black spoon, I remember thinking - this is it.

Off the back of this, flyers, business cards, banners and posters were created to showcase the brand; I created a make-shift online shop to send potential customers to; Mum and I did a photoshoot for social media #WatchThisSpace; and in line with the current trend, I printed my brand slogan #FilledWithFeelGood on a piece of cardboard with the intention of running my first ever giveaway. Take a photo and post it on Instagram for your chance to win a taster pack of nut butter! Genuinely one person entered.

Having never done a food show before - or worked in the food industry for that matter - I had no idea what I was doing. The intention of selling nut butter to the public - the idea that anyone other than me would be eating it was enough to freak me out. Unfortunately, my first attempt at manufacturing did not go to plan. Prior to the show I did a trial run of all three flavours, making them how I would on a larger scale using the industrial food processor, and then sent the finished product to an external lab for microbiological testing. What I did as a bit of a precautionary measure but without real concern of the outcome; full disclosure, at the time it felt like a waste of money and I almost resented myself for doing it. So you can probably imagine my shock and horror when all three reports came back showing positive traces of salmonella! Truly an awful moment! (And no, this is not me admitting to selling poisonous nut butter and getting away with it all those years ago). I immediately intensified my cleaning regime, manufacturing and quality control process, and I did a level 2 hygiene course. Like a military operation, signs were stuck around the kitchen, reminders to “always wear gloves” and “do not lick the spatula, Gaby!”. All three flavours were urgently re-tested and fortunately came back negative (like waiting for Covid results).

With two weeks to go until opening night, however high my PTSD was after the salmonella-scare, I could not put off manufacturing any longer. From one extreme to the other, I massively overestimated how much nut butter to make. An optimistic 1200 jars in a variety of sizes - 800g, 170g, 80g and miniature 30g (almost too cute to eat). Quantities which would have been fine had I forward planned to use any excess; I had the show and nothing else; this also would have been fine had I not decided to label every single one of the 1200 jars - a robotic process starting at 6am to manually apply both front and back. A process made more urgent and stressful because I chose to do a last-minute emergency reprint of matte labels after receiving the recommended gloss finish and immediately regretting it; at this stage, five days to go. But the main reason labelling every single jar was not my finest hour is because I printed the best before date on the label, as part of it - not as a separate sticker. Regardless of the product being just nuts and natural spices - given my new-found fear around contamination and killing people, whilst all three flavours were being tested for their shelf-life at the same said lab - by now I was happy for them to take my money - I decided foolishly to play it safe with a one-month consumption date. 36 days from the start of the show to the end of December, which saw multiple customers buy-and-then-quickly-return their Christmas Gift Pack. Apparently six days is too short a window for someone to eat three jars of nut butter (speak for yourself).

Set up took place on Wednesday 25th November; doors opened to the public at 9:30am on Thursday morning. How we managed to pull it together, remembering the finer details, even - from stamped bags (for free, what a steal!) to a Christmas tree, portable charger and bin - I will never know. But we smashed it; although the majority of my recollection is a blur, borderline surreal, going in with no expectations, I was on cloud nine, all weekend I felt so proud! Seeing someone try Perfect Nut Butter for the first time, the light in their eyes (or maybe just my fairy lights); their reactions, my excitement, the whole experience spurred me on; talking to someone from a local magazine about why I started this business; my dad consistently and instinctively washing sampling spoons after we ran out - my mum, sisters and friends joining me at the front so effortlessly to help promote the products. Not even being directly opposite a competing nut butter brand - of all the hundreds of traders involved - and whose price was significantly lower than mine (typical) - could not bring me down. In fact one of my most profound memories is talking to the stall representative; she gushed about their products, enthusiastically agreeing with my mission, that they too add no type of sugar. Confused, I wondered, but you add honey, is that not sugar? I can picture it, still, I can feel the fire I felt - my passion for product transparency, for not wanting to mislead customers with comments like this. I smiled back at her, quietly confident. I was only just getting started.

On the 29th of November 2015 at 5pm the final announcement rang loud across the NEC; the show doors closed for good. We made it, we did it! I was quite honestly relieved; exhausted and socially drained. Equally giddy, with over £1,000 worth of sales in my pocket, I felt rich! Piling box after box back into my parent’s house - it then dawned on me that all of these leftover jars of nut butter, hundreds of them, had the same shelf-life problem. I had 32 days to shift them, or eat them. Clearly my plan never got this far. Four days of running a business and, metaphorically speaking, I hit my first wall.