Tara Mei: ‘Our message to food producers is you’re not alone’

Running your own business is thrilling. You make the rules and decisions. You can carve out your own path. And you can see, close up, the impact your work makes.

But, boy, it’s a tough gig. Because making those decisions can be almost paralysingly difficult when you’re running the ship. As you grapple with the business of getting on with the work, ensuring there’s a steady flow of income, there are also the accounts to think of, and regulations, perhaps packaging, distribution, marketing. It’s an endless list, and all start-ups will tell you there is no ‘day off’.

Tara Mei, founder of independent food and drink wholesaler Mahalo, and co-founder of speciality food and drink networking and support group, Bread + Jam can relate. But she says producers shouldn’t feel alone. It might feel, at midnight, when they’re tearing their hair out trying to fix yet another problem, like they’re an island, but there is a whole community of people who feel the same way. And it’s important to connect. To join the dots across the industry, sharing ideas, best practice and inspiration, so that everyone in the speicality space can succeed.

Tara’s journey to now started in the kitchen, cheffing around Bath. “My first job was making the ‘family food’. I always thought cooking was a really cool way to be creative, but also it was a quiet process. It’s where science and art meet, so it was something I thought I’d try,” she says, adding she wasn’t sure whether it would be the career for her when she turned up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, unaware of what lay ahead. “But I loved it. I never looked back.”

Having laid a foundation in professional kitchens, Tara says she became taken with the idea of being an entrepreneur, running her own food business making cupcakes.

“I was in the pastry department at The Pump Room in Bath, and I’d developed all these skills, so I decided to go out on my own.” It was a “journey”. One she admits she probably wasn’t 100% prepared for.

“There are so many aspects of running a business,” Tara says. “Just because you know how to make cupcakes, doesn’t mean you know everything about business. There are so many other things you have to think about and take on. And you’ve got to learn how to juggle those things, how to react quickly, how to be resilient, and how not to take things so personally.”

Which is tricky. “Food is so emotive, isn’t it? It can be really difficult to be objective about your business, to make choices that are in the best interests of your bottom line, because you’re so wrapped up in your emotions, and that can cloud your judgement.”

The hands-on nature of entrepreneurship, and how it’s so physical, makes it even harder to detach, Tara continues. “It can be difficult for you to take a step back and look at the business as a whole. Really, you may be doing the job of 10 different kinds of people.”

Spurred on by her own experience, and after meeting fellow foodie Jason Gibb, Tara launched Bread + Jam in 2016. “I think what we wanted to do was to create a sort of unique and authentic place where food founders could come together and support reach other, and share advice, and share stories about things that worked for them, things they wanted to achieve, and to tell the truth about the industry,” she says. “If you’re not in it, it can be quite daunting and difficult to understand.”

The organisation’s beating heart is its annual festival, first held in 2016. And this has snowballed and branched out to include a dedicated Facebook group for producers with thousands of followers, industry summits, and platforms for pitching to retailers. More than 1,000 brands came together for the most recent festival, and they had the opportunity to pitch to around 30 buyers, ranging from Ocado and Tesco, through to Selfridge’s and Planet Organic.

“It was really interesting actually, because we had BP come along for the first time. We’re seeing a lot of that – much larger retailers taking an interest in challenger brands. If you think about a BP service station, you think of Pot Noodles and Kit Kats, but now I suppose they have seen how retailers like Ocado have chosen small producers, and they’re recognising that as an opportunity. More people want to experiment with food, and to have adventures when they’re buying food – even if they’re buying that food on the motorway!”

Mahalo was a lockdown project. “I saw there were loads and loads of really cool producers and brands that struggled to find a route to market,” Tara says. “But on the other side, I knew there were loads of independents and retailers in that fine food and speciality space who were looking for innovative and excitig new lines, and finding it difficult get hold of them.”

Mahalo means ‘thankyou’ in Hawaiian, and we’re called Mahalo because as well as that, it means ‘mutual respect and admiration for each other’ and that’s something that’s important to me. Sometimes in the supply chain, it can be a bit of an aggressive environment. The nature of the industry means margins are tight, and everyone feels they have to hustle to protect their piece of the pie. Sometimes we can forget why we got into this in the first place. Because we are passionate about good food!”

From her bird’s eye view across the industry, Tara says she’s seeing a real appetite right now for retailers to try ‘something different’. “Independent retail is about discovering new things. Doing that food shop at the weekend where you go to the butcher or the farm shop is, for us, a really important part of our recreational time, and I think that sector, in particular, is really exciting.”

These retailers are “championing those small batch producers who are running their own businesses”.

Product-wise, Tara thinks there are some brilliant things happening in the drinks world right now, with NPD left, right and centre from existing and new brands, energised by consumers’ thirst for the ‘next big thing’.

“There’s a huge new wave of drinks that do things…functional drinks. And also drinks that are not just in the to-go space. People are being more innovative with what they consume at home as well. Cocktail making is big. But so is the no and low movement, which is continuing to grow.”

In food, Tara says it’s interesting how the conversation around plant-based has shifted so drastically. Plant-based and vegan products are “as prominent as ever”, but being plant-based “is no longer the central message. It’s interesting to see how lots of these options are focusing on sustainability instead. Plant-based is no longer driving these products.”

Spreads, from nut to seed butters, are in a ‘golden era’, Tara says, again, reflecting that this is an intriguing category. “Unlike chocolate, people are a lot more brand loyal to things like peanut butter. While, with the example of chocolate, you can enjoy a really high-quality bar, and you’ll be open to discovering another, with peanut butter there are often strong feelings involved. People know what they like, and that’s been really positive for some of the small batch brands.

“Once they get listed by a farm shop or deli, and the rate of sale is looking good, it’s very difficult to knock that listing.”

The flipside is it can then put newcomers trying to penetrate the market in a frustrating position. They need to, Tara says, try to do something completely different. A lot of the messaging is around not containing palm oil or sugar. But that’s almost become the standard now. That’s not enough for consumers.”

The rate at which Brits consumer peanut butter, she says, is faster than condiments, meaning the rate of sale is much higher for independent retailers. “The are reluctant to change”.

What does she think the ‘next big thing’ on the indy food scene will be?

“I think people are much more open to discovering things from countries that aren’t so widely represented,” Tara says. “Korean food had a quick moment, but I think we’re now looking at other parts of the world. South American and even Eastern European foods are coming through.”

While independents have historically pushed ‘local’ and ‘seasonal’ as they should in fresh lines, Tara says increasingly she’s finding farm shops and delis are building out their ‘world’ sections, which is promising for small producers. “They are thinking much more about their curation, and getting people to discover ‘hidden gems’. And that’s such a positive thing.”

Tara’s top tips for setting up a food or drink business

1. Independents pose a huge opportunity. There are 15,500 farm shops and delis in the UK, and that’s way more than all the supermarkets. Farm shops are such an interesting, vibrant community of people to be working with. Engaging with them first as a small brand is a great way to set a foundation for feedback, and to get a reaction to what the public want. I think there’s a real pressure on small brands to explode into the nearest supermarket, but I’d say there’s nothing wrong or lesser about choosing to build your business within independents.

2. It’s important to plan your pricing structure with the future in mind – thinking more long term. The great thing about the food and drink industry in the UK is there are such variants in price because brands are important to us. Think of peanut butter. You can get it for £1, or for £10. That’s a lot of elasticity. Having a high RRP is nothing to be scared of, but it can be really damaging to your business if you haven’t got the industry in mind when planning out your price. It’s difficult to reverse engineer that when you’re already in the market.

3. You’ve got to have respect for the way the industry works. Founders have a lot to think about and a lot to do in the first year or two of business. Sometimes it can feel like things don’t make sense, or we’re having to do things like work with a wholesaler or retailers, and we don’t understand why they take up a space in the supply chain. It’s important to open ourselves up, to understand why things are the way they are, so we can play the game to create the business that we want.