In this Season 2. wrap-up episode, I share the 3 reasons why and how Food Entrepreneurs, especially those from Small and Medium Sized Businesses, are succeeding in an unprecedented way versus traditional Big Food companies. Over the last 7 years, the most innovative and high growth products are actually coming from Food Entrepreneurs in start-up and scale-up businesses. These products account for less that 3% of sales in the market but are driving more than 30% of category growth. Some...

Richard Adamson, Oscar McMahon and Dan Hampton are the co-founders and directors of Young Henrys. Young Henrys is a group of brewers, distillers, musicians and artists, united in their passion for making exceptionally good beer, cider and spirits with a deep commitment to supporting their local community. In this episode, you'll hear about a meeting of minds in 2012, with Richard's experience in brewing, and Oscar's hospitality know-how, prompting them to do more than just talk about their...

Sam McFarlane owns and operates a social media and content management agency called Sam Says, which creates stand out social and online content for small and medium businesses and solopreneurs. Her philosophy is that no matter what business you're in, if you're not social online, you're invisible, because when you're amazing at what you do, why wouldn't you want the world to see it? In this episode, Sam shares the 'do's' and 'don'ts' of social media, including how to create content pillars,...

Franziska Iseli is the co-founder of Basic Bananas, a marketing agency that helps small businesses around the globe to attract customers and grow through marketing education and mentoring. Their philosophy is that the more you upgrade your marketing knowledge and strategy, the more your business will flourish. In this episode Franziska walks us through how to create a simple and powerful 1-page Marketing Plan that will immediately focus and strengthen your marketing efforts. If you're...

Ryan Hartshorn is the co-founder, director and Head Distiller at Hartshorn Distillery, a Tasmanian micro distillery that's the first in the world to make boutique batches of Vodka and Gin from sheep whey, a by-product from their family business, Grandvewe Cheeses. In this episode, you'll hear how Ryan and his family ran the Grandvewe sheep cheesery for 13 years, before Ryan bought a cooper still off eBay and against all odds, learnt how to ferment and distill sheep's whey into Vodka. Ryan's...

Tristan Kitchener is the Founder and Director at Kitchener Partners. They're a specialist consulting and advisory firm focused on grocery retailing and the grocery value chain for retailers, manufacturers and growers. Their goal is to increase product ranging, performance and growth of FMCG goods within grocery retailing. In this episode, you'll hear from Tristan how to gain ranging within a major grocery retailer in Australia, who to speak to, what to prepare for and when is the right time...

Hayley Blieden is the founder of The Australian Superfood Co., which is dedicated to increasing the awareness, accessibility and affordability of the distinct flavours and health-enhancing properties of native Australian superfoods. In this episode, you'll hear how Hayley was inspired to research the health properties of native foods that were being used by indigenous sports athletes who she worked with as a sports dietician. Determined to harness the impressive nutritional properties of...

Alison Swindells is the Business Development Manager for Australasia at thefoodpeople. They're a global food trends and ideas agency who have a shared love of food & drink and a passion for gastronomic trends. Their goal is to help small and large businesses develop market-winning products and big food ideas. In this episode, Alison shares 'hot off the press' predictions for 2020 and beyond about global macro drivers and trends for food & drinks. You'll hear about the two very...

Tom Griffith is the co-founder, with friend Emma Welsh, of Emma & Tom's. It's a premium natural juice and snack bar business, that uses minimal processing, all natural ingredients and no added sugar to boost people's health and vitality. In this episode, you'll hear how Emma & Tom stepped out of international careers with a lot of knowledge about investment banking, Ag-science, Cordon Bleu culinary and financial marketing, but very little about premium juices. However, their...

George Gekas is the CEO and co-founder of Badalya, a Melbourne-based food and beverage catalyst that specialises in scaling up food start-ups into national and global markets. Badalya provides individuals and small companies with mentors and a team of professional experts to guide them through the next stage of scaling up their validated business, in the shortest period of time, with the least amount of capital. In this episode, you'll learn when is the right time to think about scaling up...

Francisco Caffarena is the co-founder with Michael Harder of Sprout Stack. It's an indoor farming business, that's set to revolutionise the way fresh produce is grown and distributed in Sydney. In this episode, you'll hear how Francisco and Michael are driven to overcome the challenges of weather disruption, climate change and food miles, that face traditional crop growers. Their combined skill sets, in agricultural science, electrical installation and construction, made an ideal...

Tom Dawkins is the CEO and co-founder of StartSomeGood, a social enterprise that enables cause-driven crowdfunding, innovative partnerships and social entrepreneur education. Their goal is to get people together to help change the world. In this episode, you'll learn about the key characteristics of a Social Enterprise, what makes for a successful crowdfunding campaign and how building a business with social purpose has the power to not only strengthen your business idea but also make a...

Mitch Well is the co-founder, with brother Alex, of Billy Van Creamy, an ice cream business that makes natural, organic and vegan ice cream, just like you would make it at home from fresh and simple ingredients like milk, cream, sugar and eggs. In this episode, you'll hear how Mitch and Alex's entrepreneurial journey started with a home ice-cream maker and a gap they spotted in the Melbourne food truck scene for sweet desserts. With a little knowledge, a 'can do' attitude and a lot of...

Bronte Hogarth is the founder of Raise The Bar, a social enterprise which transforms spent coffee grounds from local cafés into coffee scrub bars with zero waste packaging. In this episode, you'll hear how Bronte's eco-entrepreneur upbringing and desire to lead a zero waste lifestyle, promoted her to step-change from a career in digital marketing to start her own waste upcycling skincare business. Her goal is to help reduce the 100,000 tonnes of wasted coffee grounds that are going into...

Welcome back, you're in for another inspiration-packed season of the Eat. Drink. Innovate podcast. I'm Susie White, a product innovation coach, author and podcaster in Melbourne Australia and this Season I'll be talking with food entrepreneurs, innovators and start-ups to get behind the scenes and find out how they're building successful businesses and making their mark on the Australian food industry. And I'm mixing things up a little this season by also speaking with food and beverage...

Hello everyone, I'm Susie White and this is a special wrap-up episode celebrating the end of Season 1. of the Eat Drink Innovate podcast. Instead of interviewing a single food entrepreneur, start-up or innovator, in this episode you'll hear about the top 5 limiting beliefs about starting a food and beverage business and how to overcome these. Everything piece of advice is based on the combined wisdom of the dozens of successful food business founders that I've interviewed throughout the...

Shila Barak is the Product Development Manager of Well & Good, and daughter of the business co-founder, Sam Barak. Well & Good is at the forefront of the gluten-free food industry. They create high quality, gluten and allergen-free flour and baking mixes of cakes, biscuits and bread. They also make allergen-free ready baked breads including, hamburger buns, baguettes and sliced bread. In this episode, you'll hear how Sam was motivated to start the business after making a gluten-free...

Nathan Wakeford is the co-founder, with Ben Kelly, of Somage Fine Foods. It's a specialty beverage company known for their premium Kali drinking chocolate, Chamellia specialty tea blends, and raw goods like matcha powder and chai spices, which are sold through food service channels. In this episode, you'll hear how Nathan mixed their first drinking chocolate in his Melbourne lounge room and twelve years on, this Kali drinking chocolate remains one of their best-selling product lines. To...

Tahlia Mynott is the co-founder with Scott Turner of Made With Raw Love. They make raw chocolate and cacao elixirs with certified organic and wild harvested ingredients. In this episode, you'll hear how Made With Raw Love is really a love story all in itself. On one of Tahlia and Scott's first dates, Scott prepared some frankincense and honey raw chocolate. The use of healing oils in chocolate was a source of inspiration for Tahlia and together they have forged an enviable lifestyle...

Andy Fist is one of the co-founders, with Shaun Malligan, of Kooee Snacks, which produces a range of healthy, high-protein, 100% beef jerky snacks made in Tasmania. Unlike many of its competitors, Kooee jerky caters for active, healthy people of any gender, who share the founders' love of participating in outdoor activities. In this episode, you'll hear how Shaun encouraged Andy to embrace his closet-obsession for beef jerky in New York, to start-up a beef jerky factory in Tasmania. Learn...

Christy Loekito is the founder of The Wondersnack Co. which makes premium gourmet bar snacks in small batches, using real ingredients rather than flavourings. In this episode, you'll hear how, as a self-confessed snack-a-holic, Christy was underwhelmed by the bland, boring and overly- processed range of salty nut snacks available and decided to shake-up this category with the creation of The Wondersnack Co. She set about making a range of gourmet savoury snacks from real premium...

Krista and Rob Watkins step-changed their business from banana growing in Walkamin Queensland, to starting the world's first pharmaceutical grade banana flour factory and launching Natural Evolution, a range of natural, nutritious, gluten-free superfoods. As second generation farmers, Krista & Rob wanted to diversify and de-risk their business. Like many primary producers their annual crop return was at the mercy of mother nature, boom and bust cycles of supply, with more than 20% of...

Grant Collins is a mixologist, drinks advisor and founder of Gin Lane, Sydney.In this episode, you'll hear how Grant ditched his passion for personal training early on, to be pulled into the exciting and creative world of hospitality in which he's worked as a bar tender, bar manager, mixologist, drinks advisor, boutique consultant and bar owner. You'll hear how, after having gained extensive bar management experience in the US and UK, Grant moved to Australia with his future wife, and drove...

Sarah Holloway and Nic Davidson, are the creators of Matcha Maiden, a range of matcha powder products and co-owners of the plant-based, sustainability-driven café, Matcha Mylkbar in Melbourne and Sydney. In this episode, you'll hear how Sarah was unable to drink coffee for health reasons and became hooked instead on the nutritional properties of matcha power when working in Hong Kong, for its distinct flavour, high level of anti-oxidants and gentler caffeine level. On their return to...