Cover of The Friday Accelerator with Karen Green

The Friday Accelerator with Karen Green

The Friday Accelerator with Karen Green

By: Karen Green | Helping food businesses sell more and sell better
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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

Copyright 2025. All rights reserved. Art Cooking Economics Food & Wine Leadership Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Retail Listings: What Buyers Look For with Jade Hoai, Whole Foods Market UK

    Retail Listings: What Buyers Look For with Jade Hoai, Whole Foods Market UK
    25 Sep 2026

    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 that can cost a founder a listing, and explains why she sees success as "win-win-win". She also tells me exactly how many cold emails land her inbox each year, and the best way to get your chance at Whole Foods. Listen to discover:

    • What makes a product right - and why taste comes before anything else
    • How to fix a common pitch mistake before you get in the room
    • What happens when your supply chain lets you down
    • The "win-win-win" principle that shapes how Jade sees the world
    • What gives her the biggest thrill when she's on the shop floor
    • The best way to actually get noticed and get listed at Whole Foods Market UK
    Chapters:

    0:00 — Welcome to Whole Foods: one store to twelve 0:09 — What makes a product genuinely right for the shelf 0:13 — Who is the Whole Foods customer, really 0:16 — Listing economics: from shelf to off-shelf to scale 0:21 — What producers can do to make a buyer's job easier — and "win-win-win" 0:31 — How many cold emails a buyer really gets 0:36 — How to actually get listed at Whole Foods

    Links and Resources:

    Quarterly pitch days for new and challenger brands: https://www.wholefoodsmarket.co.uk/pitchdays

    Access the range review portal and calendar (sign up for access): https://grocerycentral.amazon.com/

    Connect with Jade on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jadehoai/

    Get your copy of Karen's book Buyer-ology: https://buyerology.co.uk/get-buyerology-free-1

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    Ever wondered why sometimes achieving goals is effortless and other times, it feels like pushing water uphill? Get your Friday Accelerator scorecard to find out why. Answer ten questions about your approach to work, goals and success, to access your personalised report and action list. Go to fridayaccelerator.scoreapp.com now.

    If you want a regular dose of inspiration and impetus for growth, resilience and success, subscribe to The Friday Accelerator wherever you get your podcasts - https://pod.link/1849435884 - and why not leave a review too.

    If you want to accelerate your personal and business performance, you can book a discovery call at https://calendly.com/buyerology/friday-accelerator-1-1
    Show more Show less
    38 min
  • How to Deliver 27 Years of Profitable Growth | Jackie Reid, Deli Lites

    How to Deliver 27 Years of Profitable Growth | Jackie Reid, Deli Lites
    4 Sep 2026

    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 business is split 60% own-label and 40% own-brand. Supplying supermarkets, workplaces, hospitals and more, Deli Lites is growing internationally through airlines in Germany and Aer Lingus at home.

    All that without taking a loan to start the business, and every year of that 27-year run has been profitable - through COVID and global uncertainty, as well as through the current cost-of-living squeeze. Find out what's kept Deli Lites growing, which customers are driving sales and how NPD is keeping their range ahead of the curve.

    Listen to this episode to find out:

    • How to stay profitable for 27 years running, through COVID, wars and constant cost pressure, without ever taking out a loan
    • Why "we couldn't make enough" is a great problem to have, and what it forced Jackie to do next
    • The customer listening habits behind Ireland's strongest sandwich brand
    • How they're bringing new customers to the category rather than eating into existing sales, and the growth rates of their new innovations
    • Why 27 years of instinctive leadership worked, and how she's continuing to develop the business - and herself
    Chapters:

    1:28 — "Filled to the corners": the midnight kitchen and the first 300 sandwiches

    6:24 — Going up against "sad, boring looking" sandwiches

    9:40 — The 60/40 split behind Ireland's strongest sandwich brand

    12:27 — Deli Plus, and building a range around what customers need next

    17:42 — What customer research revealed, and why it changed everything

    21:28 — The gamble that paid off and opened up export markets

    25:14 — "A chip in my head": 27 years of instinct, and finally going back to school

    Links and Resources:

    More about Deli Lites: https://delilites.com/

    Connect with Jackie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-reid-786a92a1/

    Kilimanjaro climb for Women's Aid: TBC

    --

    Ever wondered why sometimes achieving goals is effortless and other times, it feels like pushing water uphill? Get your Friday Accelerator scorecard to find out why. Answer ten questions about your approach to work, goals and success, to access your personalised report and action list. Go to fridayaccelerator.scoreapp.com now.

    If you want a regular dose of inspiration and impetus for growth, resilience and success, subscribe to The Friday Accelerator wherever you get your podcasts - https://pod.link/1849435884 - and why not leave a review too.

    If you want to accelerate your personal and business performance, you can book a discovery call at https://calendly.com/buyerology/friday-accelerator-1-1
    Show more Show less
    32 min
  • From Eswatini to the World | Building a Challenger Food Brand with Purpose

    From Eswatini to the World | Building a Challenger Food Brand with Purpose
    31 Jul 2026
    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 sauce brand. A Colombian marketer working in corporate Italy, she went to Eswatini — one of the smallest countries on Earth — for a four-month volunteering stint. Sixteen years later she's still there, running Black Mamba: a purpose-driven range of hot condiments made with organically grown chilli, packed in glass, produced by a workforce that's 94% women, and sold across South Africa, the UK and — the market that surprised everyone — the UAE. Then, at a trade show, a buyer she desperately wanted to convert asked, "Would you be willing to make your brand look more African?" And then a passing brand expert summed up ten years of work in three words: "It looks safe." This is a refreshingly honest conversation about what those two gut-punches set in motion — and about the commercial reality underneath a feel-good brand story. Claudia is candid about how the criticism landed and answers the question that makes many scaling founders uncomfortable (do you make a profit? She also admits that she "sucks at operations". Listen to the episode to discover: The Gross Margin rule that brutally decides whether a new product even launchesWhy a buyer telling her to "look more African" was the best bad feedback she ever got — and why she still refuses to put an elephant or a sunset on the labelUnderstanding Black Mamba's customers — chilli heads, ethical foodies and African AdmirersWhy sustainability isn't what sells the sauce (and the thing that actually does)What happened to sales in her fastest-growing market when the US-Iran war broke out — and how she respondedThe founder's-sanity mantra she repeats when it all gets too much Chapters: 01:31 — From corporate Italy to Eswatini: the four months that became sixteen years02:59 — Why chilli was an economic decision before it was a product one05:37 — Scaling: VC money, and choosing to go deep instead of wide08:11 — The UAE, the war, and a 45% overnight drop10:15 — "It looks safe": the rebrand, and African-ness without the clichés14:33 — The Good Food Manifesto, and why flavour beats purpose at the till17:46 — Three avatars, one jar: segmenting the message not the product23:41 — "Do you make a profit?" and the 40% pricing rule27:41 — Building a team where the talent doesn't exist, and "I suck at operations"31:00 — Staying sane: optimism, breathing, and open heart surgery33:11 — Quick-fire questions, Fridays and productivity hacks39:36 — Books, flow states and the founders she actually trusts Links and Resources: Online shop and stockists: https://blackmambachilli.com/Connect with Claudia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudiacastellanos/ Recommended Reading: Traction by Gino WickmanThinking Bigger by Sarah Dusek -- Ever wondered why sometimes achieving goals is effortless and other times, it feels like pushing water uphill? Get your Friday Accelerator scorecard to find out why. Answer ten questions about your approach to work, goals and success, to access your personalised report and action list. Go to fridayaccelerator.scoreapp.com now. If you want a regular dose of inspiration and impetus for growth, resilience and success, subscribe to The Friday Accelerator wherever you get your podcasts - https://pod.link/1849435884 - and why not leave a review too. If you want to accelerate your personal and business performance, you can book a discovery call at https://calendly.com/buyerology/friday-accelerator-1-1
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    42 min
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