The Friday Accelerator with Karen Green

What’s the most distressing thing that can happen to a founder? Losing the business you started, nurtured and poured your heart into has got to be up there.

Bonnie Chung founded Miso Tasty and was soon listed in a thousand Sainsbury’s stores, had Jamie Oliver using her product TV and became a regular guest chef on Sunday Brunch. In short, she helped put miso firmly into the mainstream. Then, that business was no longer hers.

Now a self-described “recovering entrepreneur”, Bonnie is refreshingly honest about why. She talks about the burnout of running a busine...

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 to twelve stores. She talks openly about what makes a product right for Whole Foods' shelves, shares the pitch mistake...

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 family's coffee shop in Newry, County Down. Soon Deli Lites' New York-inspired sandwiches were in serious demand, with no loans and no outside investment. Now the strongest sandwich brand on the island of Ireland, the...

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 and never went home. Find out how she's scaling up a global hot sauce challenger brand from one of the smallest countries on Earth. 

Claudia didn't set out to build a hot s...

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 Chicken Rice - in March 2025. Within two months, Yumm Singa was listed in Selfridges.

The road there wasn't so straightforward. She had a brand name she loved, a trademark already registered...

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 someone like you. Mex Ibrahim has spent years trying to change all that — and she's blunt about why it's still so hard.

Mex is co-founder of Women in t...

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.

In this conversation, Ramona talks about what that journey actually looked like: from a one-bedroom flat full of chickpeas to mainstream retail, via a brand name she had to abandon for a reason no...

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 Foods, Planet Organic, Abel & Cole and more, and has just completed a raise with Piper Private Equity.

This is a candid conversation about what a decade of slow, deliberate building actually looks like, including the moment when it didn't go to...

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 from Heineken.

In this episode, Huib shares the origin story - including tracking down Sherpa Tenzing's family to get their blessing - and the product formulation and innovations that defied industry norms. He's disarmingly honest about the emotional reality of competing...

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 built a thriving food business in the UK's super-competitive health-conscious market.   FitBakes is the UK-based brand that makes low-carb, high-protein bakes with real ingredients. Originally from Brazil, where healthier baking is second nature, Ella spent over 20 years in the c...

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.

In this conversation, Milly shares the story of that accelerated their growth, the challenges of balancing profitability and growth, what it's like being part of a much larger organisation now and how By Ruby has...

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 aspects of that success. Listen to this episode to discover: