Lucy and I met at a playgroup in 2011 when our children were just a few months old. We bonded over a mutual inability to correctly do the actions to the ‘Wheels on the Bus’ and within weeks became firm friends. We got talking – as many parents do – about how best to persuade our children to eat healthily and it wasn’t long before Lucy told me about her idea for a healthier ice lolly made with Greek yoghurt. Because the lollies on the supermarket shelves were full of sugar and ingredients with unpronounceable names, it was clear she was onto something, so we set about creating our own recipes in our south London kitchens, guided by our chief taste testers and children – Claudia and Fin.
Some of our initial recipes from our kitchen at home were terrible – my rhubarb and custard lolly got a resounding ‘Yuck’ from the kids, but after months of research we created two delicious Greek style Frozen Yoghurt lollies in Strawberry and Mango flavours, which we made with 100% natural ingredients and which were lower in sugar than anything else we could find in the shops.
We named our business after our children and initially we planned to grow it organically, selling our lollies at local farmer’s markets but all that changed when we entered a competition called ‘Pitch Up with Sainsbury’s’. In conjunction with StartUp Britain, the retailer invited fledgling food businesses to pitch their products and over 400 hopefuls applied. Because we were at such an embryonic stage of the business we thought nothing more of it, but a few weeks later we got a call saying that we were one of ten businesses that had been invited to a ‘Dragon’s den’ style pitch at Sainsbury’s H.Q! We immediately went into over-drive, honing recipes, creating packaging and building a website – all in the space of six very frantic weeks.
The day of the pitch arrived and I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous! It must have gone well though, because Sainsbury’s offered us a 12-month contract (6 months of which was exclusive) to supply lollies to 250 of their stores. At this stage, we still hadn’t sold a single lolly and had never made more than 40 lollies in one sitting. Imagine our panic when we found out the first order was for 16,000 lollies!
Scaling up in such a meteoric way proved challenging and It took us a while to get into store. We missed one launch date and almost missed the second because we couldn’t find a suitable manufacturer. Eventually with just six weeks to go, we called Sainsbury’s and asked for help and they suggested a factory in Holland which they use to produce their own label lollies. The factory agreed to take us on and by the skin of our teeth, Claudi & Fin made it into the shops! Right from the get-go I’m proud to say sales were great and Sainsbury’s extended our listings to 430 stores. Once our exclusivity period ended with them we were delighted to secure other listings with Waitrose, Ocado, Budgen’s and Londis as well as Supervalu and Dunnes in the Republic of Ireland. In spring of this year, we also launched into 450 Tesco’s stores with our existing products and one brand new one – a mixed flavour pack of 8 mini Claudi & Fin Greek style frozen yoghurt lollies.
For the first couple of years we ran Claudi & Fin from home, managing our supermarket accounts, marketing and sales from the kitchen table and my spare room. We were keen to keep things as lean as possible and because office space in London comes at a premium being at home was the most cost-effective solution. We got ourselves a speedy internet connection, a business landline and a P.O. Box and in a few days we were good to go.
Lucy and I live a few streets away from one another so it was really easy to work together or apart depending on what was needed the time. Occasionally we ventured out – the owner of the local café probably knows an awful lot about the inner workings of our business since we held almost all our important meetings there!
Eventually, in 2014, the volume of Claudi & Fin stuff started to overwhelm our spare rooms and when we had a 5ft lolly costume made to promote the brand at festivals, we knew it really was time to move on. Lolly H.Q. is now a 20-minute drive away and houses the giant lolly as well as a growing team of lolly ladies. We’re really excited about the future and are busy working on new healthy products which we hope will be hitting the shelves in a supermarket near you soon!
