Turning meal pots vegan is good for business at BOL

The food model’s vary of “energy shakes”, “posh noodles”, salad jars, soups and wholesome prepared meals have soared in recognition since founder Paul Brown turned the agency vegan — serving to turnover near-double this yr to £18 million.

Not way back, Brown, 42, was, as he places it, “a standard meat and two veg Northerner”, whereas BOL’s bestsellers have been Jamaican jerk rooster and Kerala rooster meals.

Then in 2017, Brown watched Netflix’s Cowspiracy documentary, learn John Robbins’s Meals Revolution and “started pondering extra concerning the results that our closely meat-based food regimen was having on each folks and planet. I shortly realised I might be a part of the answer, not the issue”.

He determined to show BOL vegan. It wasn’t a well-liked choice — “it halved the dimensions of our model in a single day,” Brown admits.

“We misplaced a lot fridge area in outlets as a result of I needed to inform Tesco and others, ‘sorry, I’m not making your best-selling Jamaican jerk rooster any extra, as a result of we’re going vegan. “At the moment we hadn’t made the brand new recipes to interchange them, and being plant-based wasn’t a ‘large factor’ like it’s right now. It was fairly scary — traders have been actually involved that we have been going to exit of business.

“Trying again, it was one of the best choice we might have made.”

Final month — albeit “Veganuary” — BOL bought £2.5 million-worth of its creamy chick’n soup (made with jackfruit), Japanese rainbow slaw salad jar and its different 34 merchandise.

The agency expects retail gross sales to hit £30 million this yr.Vegans’ acquire got here at winter sports activities’ loss: it was whereas working in California — the place a damaged wrist destroyed Brown’s desires of being knowledgeable snowboard teacher — that he first dreamed of recreating the West Coast’s contemporary, wholesome comfort meals in Britain.

“I beloved the ready-made meals on the market that was so vibrant and good for you.”However as soon as he returned to the UK, in 2001, “I couldn’t get funding for the thought. I didn’t know what to do subsequent. Someday, I had an Harmless smoothie in a café, and on the bottle it stated, ‘come say hello at [its HQ] Fruit Towers’. So I did, and ended up getting a job promoting their smoothies out of the again of a van for a couple of years.”

Brown, considered one of Harmless’s earliest staff, ended up staying 14 years, finally working its meals division and introducing its Veg Pots which, he claims, “basically modified the prepared meal class within the UK — till then it was principally over-processed, unhealthy merchandise.”

When Harmless was purchased by Coca-Cola in a deal value £320 million in 2015, “it quickly turned obvious Harmless could be all about drinks,” Brown says. Coke closed Harmless’s meals division, and Brown secured £500,000 backing from angels together with Harmless founders’ funding fund Jam Jar to launch BOL in April 2015.

You’ll be able to definitely hear and see the Harmless-isms in Brown: employees are “epic crew members”, BOL’s workplace is “The Veg Pad” and is perched subsequent to Paddington Basin, which Brown jokingly calls “our infinity pool”. He says working on the smoothie agency “was my enterprise faculty — I dropped out of college however learnt a lot at Harmless. My contacts from working there have been invaluable in serving to Bol develop quick.”

Having a bulging contacts guide helped Brown safe a powerful itemizing in Tesco in his first yr of enterprise.

The pandemic, nevertheless, hit BOL exhausting: considered one of its largest prospects was Costa Espresso, whose outlets have been shut; its well-liked salad jars have been for workplace meeting-hoppers and places of work have been empty. “We misplaced 40% of gross sales, however in contrast with so many eating places and different companies, I used to be simply grateful it didn’t go to zero.”Bol diversified, together with launching as an add-on in Whats up Recent meal bins, and on Deliveroo, the place the account supervisor by accident listed Brown’s cell quantity for buyer supply points.

“Fortunately the one name that got here by way of was from a comparatively native Deliveroo buyer who didn’t obtain two of the soups he’d ordered. I simply requested what he wished and the place he lived, and jumped on my bike and delivered them.”

Superstar followers now embody Made in Chelsea’s Ollie Proudlock — who has invested in considered one of BOL’s 4 subsequent fundraisers, alongside fits together with Addison Lee’s CEO Liam Griffin — and Katie Piper, Kirsty Gallacher and Natalie Pinkham. Brown needs to launch in Eire this summer season, and throughout Europe too. “The plant-based motion is right here to remain — and now is a superb alternative for modern meals companies to go mainstream.”