Roberts, who set up the company with Kong and two others in 2019, had been focused on marketing but said her role had naturally expanded to encompass business strategy and people management.
“I lead more of the strategic side, where the business needs to play, how we get there most effectively, how we create the right culture. Chris leads on sales and the commercial numbers side,” Roberts told Food Manufacture.
“We were both fitting the role of CEO but doing it in slightly different ways.”
Commenting on the announcement, Roberts said she felt excited to be in a role that better reflects what she has been doing at the company for some time.
“I think people often misunderstood what I was doing or maybe would attribute things that I was doing to other people,” she said.
“We’re quite different characters,” she added on the topic of her co-CEO, “but I think we complement each other really well. It just seems like quite a natural fit.
“I think it [the appointment] will help us with the future growth of the business.”
“I am delighted to be working with Elin as Co-CEO,” added Kong. “Elin’s bold decision-making, rooted in consumer insight, is one of the fundamental reasons Better Nature Tempeh is now the UK’s fastest-growing meat-free brand, and her compassionate yet firm leadership has helped create a workplace culture that gets the best from our team, day in and day out.
“I can’t wait to see what heights we manage to take the business in the coming year as Co-CEOs!”
Fastest growing UK meat-free brand
As Kong referenced, the brand has been growing quickly, with data from Nielsen IQ June 2024 highlighting it as the UK's fastest growing meat-free brand in retail.
This time last year, Better Nature Tempeh wasn’t available in any major UK retailer; fast-forward 12 months and the brand is now stocked nationwide in Tesco, Asda, Ocado and does regular WIGIGs with Lidl. In fact, according to data from Nielsen IQ, it has witnessed growth of 20066% year-on-year (YoY).
Overall, the tempeh category is growing 57% YoY, with two of the top three Tempeh SKUs in the UK (by volume) owned by Better Nature Tempeh. Moreover, the start-up is responsible for 76% of the growth of the UK's tempeh category in the last 12 months.
The company has been reliant on external investment, and in October 2023, it smashed its crowdfunding target to raise £500k via Seedrs. This was part of a £1m+ fundraising push to drive mainstream retail growth for its tempeh range across the UK and Europe.
The raise followed a £1.6m seed round in 2021 and a £700k seed plus round in 2020.
Currently, the 8-strong business co-manufacturers its products. Speaking with Roberts on the future, she said that the present model is working, but a factory was not out of the question in the future.
“We're experiencing quite a big increase in demand at the moment, which is great, but that obviously comes with some challenges in terms of capacity. At the moment we’re trying to figure out what our future plans are – what does that involve?” She told Food Manufacture.
“Internally, none of us are manufacturing specialists, so there's always a bit of a wariness of setting up ourselves, especially as Tempeh is not the most widely consumed food and the way you make it [is very specialist] …there are specific mechanisms. It's not necessarily the easiest thing to outsource.”
Nevertheless, she said a factory is “definitely something” that they are “considering quite seriously” for the future.
In other news, Iceland has appointed a retail law specialist to exclusively advise on all property matters.
