The Friday Accelerator with Karen Green

The Friday Accelerator with Karen Green

Business growth expert, former Tesco and Boots buyer, and author of Recipe for Success and Buyerology®, Karen helps food business founders, leaders and entrepreneurs achieve faster, smarter growth. She's helped deliver food business growth for over 1,000 clients, securing over £350m in new retail listings with supermarkets and more. Listen to learn from Karen's food founder interviews: How to stay focused and on track to achieve your goals; The strategies behind their biggest wins; Top tips for growth, resilience, and leadership

Episodes

September 24, 2026 • 37 mins

Every founder wants shelf space at Whole Foods. But what does a buyer there actually look for? Jade Hoai, Whole Foods Market UK's Executive Leader of Purchasing, talks about the Whole Foods mission, what they're looking for from new products and brands, and the best way to get noticed and listed at Whole Foods Market UK.

Jade has been with the UK business since day one on Kensington High Street, all the way to this year's expansion...

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How do you stay profitable for 27 straight years in one of the most commoditised categories in food? What happens when your biggest problem isn't finding customers, but making enough sandwiches to keep up with demand? And how do you keep genuinely listening to what customers want?

Jackie Reid co-founded Deli Lites as a teenager, cutting and filling sandwiches at night in her...

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What do you do when events beyond your control hit sales in your biggest growth market? How should you react when a branding expert tells you yours looks 'safe'? Why would you launch a chilli brand in countries where, apparently, nobody eats chilli? Claudia Castellanos is the founder of Black Mamba Foods. Originally from Colombia, she worked in Italy, then spent 4 months volunteering in Eswatini...

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Singapore has one of the world's great food cultures. But walk into almost any British supermarket, and you'll find Thai, Japanese, Indian, Korean and almost nothing from Singapore. Megan Tan noticed that gap when she moved to London. Leaving her career in corporate law, she started running supper clubs from her flat. Then she launched her first product - a ginger chilli sauce inspired by Hainanese Chic...

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Why are so few of the FTSE 100 led by women? If you asked a young person on the street to name a famous businesswoman, would they struggle? And if you're building a food business without a financial safety net behind you, would you expect to receive investment — not because you've been turned down, but because somewhere along the way you absorbed the idea that it simply wasn't an option for someon...

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Ramona Hazan built the UK's #1 hummus brand (Ramona's) from a one-bedroom flat full of chickpeas to the chillers in Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons, and Waitrose. In this episode, she reveals the exact supermarket listings strategy and retail negotiations that got her there - plus the brand pivot no one saw coming. If you're a founder chasing major retail, this is the playbook you need.

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Ros Heathcote founded Borough Broth in 2015 with no food industry background, no manufacturing experience and no contacts - just a gut health problem, a systems-thinking brain, and a butcher who was paying to throw his bones away. Within a year, she had a Selfridges listing. Today Borough Broth is stocked in Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Ocado, Whole F...

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Huib van Bockel spent eight years as head of marketing for Red Bull UK and Europe before leaving to launch Tenzing, a natural energy drink inspired by what Sherpas drink when climbing Everest. Now approaching its 10th anniversary, Tenzing is the fastest-growing energy drink in the UK, stocked in all major supermarkets, and recently received investment ...

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What made Ella Rauen-Prestes walk away from supermarket listings most founders dream of? Discover how the Fitbakes founder turned strategic pivots into challenger brand growth, moving from cakes to bars to bread. In this food entrepreneur interview, learn how successful FMCG founders prioritise profitable growth over scale and navigate product-market fit with real-world insights. Karen Green explores the leadership decisions that b...
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    November 20, 2025 • 33 mins

    Milly Bagot co-founded ByRuby with a mission to create premium frozen meals that taste like "one of your really good friends - who happens to be a great cook - has filled your freezer for you." What started as a side project at Finn's deli in Chelsea transformed into a standalone business that grew fast and caught the attention of Charlie Bigham.

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    Kelly Dowson is the managing director of FIS Group, the innovation and research business on a mission to help reimagine the future of food and drink. Listen to this episode of The Friday Accelerator to hear how this consultancy business went from front room to 40 people inside 15 years.

    Kelly shares her experiences, learnings and approaches to the personal and business aspe...

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