In our first event of 2020, we’re delighted to welcome Mike Stevens, founder of the confectionery brand Peppersmith. Mike will be talking about his start in food and drink when he joined the startup team of Innocent Drinks, where he was Head of Operations for 6 years before moving into an international role and launching Innocent into new territories. He will then tell the story about leaving Innocent to launch, scale and eventually exit his own successful brand in Peppersmith. There is much discussion recently, about consumer goods brands and the role of DTC (Direct to Consumer) vs traditional bricks and mortar retail. Mike is passionate about this dynamic and will be drawing on his extensive experience from Peppersmith and Innocent to give us some invaluable guidance and advice on how to build brands in today's market place. We’ll be discussing his knowledge of things like branding, sales, supply chain management, raising investment, international growth and exiting a business post-sale. Mike has recently moved to Poole and is currently in the process of writing a book about DTC brands and will be sharing his insights about how the best DTC companies became successful.

In this interactive chat, Mike will be covering:

Launching and scaling a brand

Raising investment

Selling then exiting a business

What makes a direct to consumer (DTC) brand successful

Why DTC is the best strategy for today’s consumer product startups

About Mike

Mike joined the Innocent Drinks team as Head of Operations back in 2001 and after running the entire supply chain for over 6 years and then successfully launched the brand in Scandinavia in 2007. In 2009, Mike and a colleague from innocent decided to shake up the confectionery industry and launched Peppersmith, a company specialising in healthy chewing gum, mints and sweets. After 10 years of growth, and customers including Sainsburys, Morrisons, Waitrose, Boots, Holland and Barrett, Ocado and Amazon, Mike decided to sell the business. Mike no longer runs the business but remains an advisor and cheerleader for the brand. Mike is a start-up and challenger brand mentor and is currently writing a book about how the best DTC challenger brands became successful.