Having spent over 10 years working for third sector organisations, such as the United Nations’ agricultural division before becoming the CEO of Slow Food UK, an environmental and community charity, taking the leap to set up my commercial business, Piccolo, in 2016 may have seemed a risky move – but I’ve not looked back since.
In fact, I believe I’m making more of a difference with Piccolo than in all my time in the third sector. I loved my time at the UN and Slow Food UK, and learnt so much about both food and resourcing.
But most important for me was learning about people, and how important a healthy food journey can be to those who often may not have had any previous food education.
Piccolo was born from this passion to want to both provide a balanced and convenient baby food, and to help educate families around food – it is this philanthropic angle that is becoming increasingly important to both me and my team.
After almost three years Piccolo is available in supermarkets across the UK and myself and my co-founder – infant nutritional therapist Alice Fotheringham – continue to develop baby food and snacks that are 100% organic, tasty and nutritious, while remaining committed to giving 10% of Piccolos profits to support food education.
One of the most exciting social campaigns for me has been teaming up with Tesco on our annual month-long ‘One for One’ campaign, where for every pouch bought in Tesco during the period, we donate a pouch to support families in need across the UK.
Now in its third year, this has been a phenomenal success. Moving forward I want to keep doing more good with the business.
Millennial consumers want more from companies now than just a product, which is why businesses such as ourselves that have a purpose beyond just profit are doing so well.
We’re always speaking to our customers about what they need and have taken their feedback into account to develop our plans
for this year, with some big new product launches that we are very excited about.
Watch this space.
