Inside Young Foodies – Building a Community for Challenger Brands

When it comes to the world of food and drink challenger brands, collaboration is far more effective than competition. The Young Foodies Community Team works hard to create an effective and supportive network that empower the brands of tomorrow to thrive!

But how do they manage all this? We spoke to Bryony, our Community superstar, to find out a bit more about the work they do.

Inside Young Foodies - Building a Community for Challenger Brands 1

Hi Bryony! First of all, could you just explain what community means in the start-up world?

Hi! To me, community means: Connections and Opportunities Making a Mighty and Unique Network that is Informative and Time saving, brought together by Young Foodies (it would be wrong not to finish with that!)

Who are the Young Foodies Community Team, and what are their roles?

As the Community Team, we have one simple objective; add value to the brands in our network. We do that by truly understanding them and their needs, and then coming up with creative ways to deliver on that. My colleague Jake spends a lot of his time meeting brand owners and team members to impart knowledge from his years at Mars. Meanwhile the rest of us create content, events and experiences to support our brands.

Why is the Young Foodies Community Team so valuable in your opinion?

As cliché as it might sound, when I see all the brands together in one space it’s so incredible to see the power of being a collective. Our brands support each other, share stories and expertise, and as a group, they represent a massive and incredibly exciting part of the F&B industry. Our job as the Community Team is to help our brands realise just how much more opportunity arises when they work together! Beyond this, being a Young Foodies Community member gives you exclusive access to events, content and resources specific to starting an FMCG Food and Drink business, and that’s just the beginning!

What is your favourite aspect of working in the Community Team at Young Foodies?

Aside from Community being the best team at Young Foodies (I’m totally impartial), I love getting to know the community as people and not just as brands. Putting yourself in their shoes makes it so much easier to understand how they work and where they need the most support. We are in an incredibly supportive and friendly industry which certainly makes our lives easier.

Tell us about your favourite Community event since you started working for Young Foodies last year.

Events are just one of the ways we get our brands involved in the Young Foodies community, but definitely one of my favourites! As for my favourite event? That’s a tough one! I think it goes without saying that our Christmas Party was pretty epic (400 foodies in one room!), but I would actually have to go for one of our learning events, specifically our Sustainability event in May. We had three incredible speakers; Caine Folkes-Miller from the bioplastic producer Floreon, B Corp ambassador Ryan Kohn from PROPER and Adele Jones from the Sustainable Food Trust. It was great to see so much engagement and discussion from brands, and I learned so much myself too!

Inside Young Foodies - Building a Community for Challenger Brands 2

Summer Social summarised in three words — go!

Exciting, competitive and cheese bites (I know that’s not one word, but they were insanely delicious).

From your perspective, what do brands most value from the community?

Start-up life is pretty fast-paced and you always have 101 things to do, with very tight deadlines. So, I would probably say that they value the time-saving aspects of being a community member. As well as being a bank of advice and information that all small brands need, the Community Team gives brands a chance to share what they’ve learned, and that collective experience saves everyone a lot of time and costly mistakes! I’d also say that I think brands really value being part of a community where the members understand each other and can connect not only on a professional but also on a personal level.

*Bonus Question*

If you could eat only one Young Foodies brand for the next 5 years, which would it be?

Wow… that’s incredibly difficult. Can I not just have them all?! Hmm, if I had to specify though, I would go for anything sweet — I can’t live without peanut butter or chocolate in my life!


If any of this resonates with you and you would like to explore working with us, have a read of our services page or get in touch.

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