Post by Sandra

Annie from Spoon very kindly agreed to talk to us over the phone to answer some of our questions. We were planning to go up to London to meet with Annie but unfortunately due to uni commitments we couldn't make it.

This is a summary of what Annie told us:

Q What are Spoon's brand values?
A Taste is the most important thing, with pure maple syrup and ingredients, reflected in the simple packaging design. Simplicity - a small number of high quality ingredients. It was a definite choice not to make health claims on the product packaging.

Q Who do you see as your target market?
A Young professionals and creatives who are fairly affluent, and are interested in exercise and nutrition as part of a fun balanced lifestyle and who want to look after themselves. Also young mums and other females. They are hoping to expand out of London more, throughout the UK.

Q Who are your main competitors?
A Dorset Cereals, Rude Health, Lizi's. Plus other high-end granolas and mueslis.

Q What led you to chose your current branding and packaging?
A Annie designed the packaging herself (she has a marketing background). Card was chosen as it is recycleable (pouches were originally used but were not recycleable in the UK). Colour was added because a potential stockist suggested the product would stand out better on the shelf. The boxes are robust whereas the pouches often look a bit crumpled.

Q What is the benefit of running your pop-up shops?
A Annie said she originally thought she might open a breakfast cafe/shop but decided her passion was really for granola. The pop ups were really testing the market for the cafe idea. They also work well for participating in lifestyle events with other like-minded brands (not just food companies).

Q What areas do you hope to expand into in the future?
A Spoon has a new product launching in June - a muesli with added granola which has less sugar and more raw ingredients than the granola. They would consider single serving products, porridge pots, yoghurts and compotes. Their passion is breakfast products.

We sent Annie a thank you email and a link to our blog.

It was reassuring to see that our research was confirmed by what Annie told us, particularly in relation to brand values, competition, and target markets.