FMCG Innovations and Trends by Sophia Nadur

65% of high-potential start-ups fail as a result of conflict among co-founders or between founders & other members of the management team.  In a  Financial Times  article, founders - including Tg Green Tea's co-founder Sophia Nadur, discuss why agreeing a ‘pre-nup’ can avoid a cocktail of conflicts. https://www.ft.com/content/2e5f512a-88df-11e7-afd2-74b8ecd34d3b

It’s #WorldObesityDay today. 2/3 of Britons are overweight or obese, up from 1/2 just 20 years ago. I am one of those statistics but am doing my best to change things, for me and for communities here and abroad. A research physician & I invested our life savings to develop a truly healthier drink to help wean us off our sugar habit. It’s better than virtually all of the new drinks offered by big companies to retailers.  WATCH this 1 min World Obesity Day VIDEO However, a big UK supermarket told us yesterday that unless we spent £££££s with them, we would not be stocked. Despite all the promises made to be more responsible, retailers are continuing to fill shelves with certain food & drink, simply because big companies have deeper pockets. These restrictive practices happen not just in the UK but all over the world.  This plea is not about a drink I want to promote. There will be other startups with better products too. How much money do retailers, manufacturers & lob

Wessanen 's purchase of Clipper Tea in 2012 was a good fit from the start given both companies' ethical credentials. If a recent BBC investigation into ethical practices among leading British tea brands is true (link to BBC story HERE ) , this M&A may hurt  Pukka Herbs ' clean image among millennials. However, the bigger issue in my view is the impact on growth of the $5bil European tea category in the mid-term given increasing retail market dominance by one company (Unilever also owns Liptons, PGTips, Pure Leaf, T2, Lyons among other tea brands). Link to article on Unilever's acquisition of Pukka HERE .

My mother has Type 2 Diabetes. Like 20 million Brits, I am at risk to get it too if I don't lose weight and/or change what I eat and drink. But changing behaviour is really hard.  We all want that healthier food and drink to look good and taste good too. However, what we're seeing on store shelves are lots of drinks  being reformulated to take all/some sugar out and put instead lots of aspartame, sucralose and weird ingredients in that actually none of us want or need in our diet. We also see lots of healthier drinks are quite expensive and, even though health should have no price attached to it, we still have very tight wallets so we do want healthier food drink to be available at an accessible price. So the real " sweet spot " - the "holy grail" - is a drink that is  nutritionally sound, naturally functional and available at an affordable price. Like Tg green tea .  A drink that was inspired by ancient Chinese

Like much of the developed world, t he UK has an obesity problem . 60% of the population is overweight or obese from eating too much and exercising too little. Reducing portion sizes a proven intervention that changes health behaviour and helps to reduce obesity There have been numerous studies since the early 1990s that show reducing  portion sizes  of the food & drink we consume would help reverse the obesity epidemic. BBC health editor,  James Gallagher , reported in 2015 [ link ] the findings of research based on 6,711 people that took part in a wide range of clinical trials. Professor  Gareth Hollands  (among others) found that eliminating " large portions could cut up to 279 calories a day out of people's diets " [ link ].... equivalent to an extra kg of fat to contend with every month. Research in the British Medical Journal states that  reducing portion sizes  becomes easier when there is availability of smaller pack sizes  of popular food & dri

The promotion of gluten-free diets among people without celiac disease should NOT be encouraged , a long-term prospective cohort study reports. ( Link ) The British Medical Journal reported in May 2017 findings from health research conducted on 100,000 people over a 15+ year period. Professor Benjamin Lebwohl et al.'s study had as its objective " to examine the association of long term intake of gluten with the development of incident coronary heart disease ". The research findings concluded in part with this statement: " .....the avoidance of gluten may result in reduced consumption of beneficial whole grains, which may affect cardiovascular risk. The promotion of gluten-free diets among people without celiac disease should not be encouraged." Wheat and other whole grain food have been a staple in the human diet for thousands of years. However, gluten, a storage protein in wheat, rye, and barley, triggers inflammation and intestinal damage in people