Vegan Business Tribe Podcast

136 - Battle of the Brands 2025

David Pannell — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 07:30:00 +0100

Four vegan brands come together for our live final to win a day of one-to-one meetings with major retail buyers who are looking for innovative new plant-based products.

Who will impress our four judges and win a free place at veg-net 2025 in London? Listen to all four finalists get grilled by our 'vegan dragons' plus hear what the judges had to say in our secret closed-doors deliberation to pick the winner.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

135 - Incubator diaries: omnibus 7 (the final!)

David Pannell — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 07:30:00 +0100

Join David as he goes through the ProVeg Kickstarting For Good business incubator. This is it, the final omnibus, as David returns to Berlin for pitch day.

This is an omnibus edition of several of David's video diaries in one podcast. You can watch each video diary separately as they are released on our YouTube channel or in the Vegan Business Academy on the website.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

134 - Incubator diaries: omnibus 6

David Pannell — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 07:30:00 +0100

Join David as he goes through the ProVeg Kickstarting For Good business incubator. In this sixth omnibus episode, we find out if David got through to the final pitch day...

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

133 - Incubator diaries: omnibus 5

David Pannell — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 07:30:00 +0100

Join David as he goes through the ProVeg Kickstarting For Good business incubator. In this fifth omnibus episode, David tells you what happened after the first in-person week in Berlin and takes you through the creation of the new slide deck.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

132 - Overcoming founder fatigue

David Pannell — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 07:00:00 +0100

How to win back your motivation as a vegan entrepreneur. 'Founder fatigue' can happen in any business, but especially if you have a high emotional investment in your business's cause. You still love your business, you still believe in your mission, but you're tired, stressed and burnt out.

Left unchecked, founder fatigue will kill your business. You'll stop showing up. You'll stop going out and looking for opportunities. You will find yourself, subconsciously, sabotaging your own business.

But all is not lost! In this episode, David brings you his top 5 tips for reinvigorating your enthusiasm for your business and re-connecting with your mission.

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Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

131 - Is Veganuary's new campaign kind of WEIRD?

David Pannell — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 07:30:00 +0100

We talk to the man behind the new Veganuary campaign. Sausages are literally pigs stuffed into their own intestines. Kind of weird, right? Veganuary's 2025 campaign takes a new bold direction to the supermarket-friendly campaigns we've seen in previous years. David is joined by Veganuary's Creative Manager Andrew Jolly to discuss the thinking behind the new campaign, and to ask: does it go too far, or not far enough?

Find out why Veganuary decided they needed a new direction with their marketing and how the campaign faced censorship from the advertising industry before it was even released.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

130 - Incubator diaries: omnibus 4

David Pannell — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:30:00 +0100

Join David as he goes through the ProVeg Kickstarting For Good business incubator. In this fourth omnibus episode, David takes you behind the scenes of the first in-person week in Berlin, Germany.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

129 - Incubator diaries: omnibus 3

David Pannell — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 07:30:00 +0100

Join David as he goes through the ProVeg Kickstarting For Good business incubator. In this third omnibus episode, David heads to the ProVeg offices in Berlin, Germany, for the first in-person week of the programme (via the Animal Rights Conference in Luxembourg).

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

128 - How to support vegan businesses (live episode)

David Pannell — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 07:30:00 +0100

Live panel discussion on what support the vegan business sector needs. The last few years have been tough for all businesses. The Covid pandemic, the cost of living crisis and Brexit have seen hundreds of thousands of businesses being forced to close, and many of those are vegan. In this panel discussion, recorded live at the Vegan Party Conference 2024 in London, David is joined by Veganuary founder Matthew Glover, Keith Lesser from Vegan Accountants, Mitali Deypurkaystha from The Vegan Publisher and Daisy Botha, founder of Vegan Fairs.

We look at what support vegan businesses need, from the small traders through to the large food companies, and how the general public can better support the vegan business sector.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

127 - How to rescue your failing business

David Pannell — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 06:00:00 +0100

What to do if your business is failing and how to turn it around. We know that it takes time, hard work and tenacity to make a business successful. But what if there's no light at the end of a tunnel and the money is running out?

David's been there. In this episode, he shares the 8 steps which will first slow the decline and then help you to turn your business around. That is going to mean facing-up to some hard realities about your business and taking what might feel like a step backwards in order to take a huge leap forwards.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

126 - Incubator diaries: omnibus 2

David Pannell — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 07:30:00 +0100

Join David as he goes through the ProVeg Kickstarting For Good business incubator. In this second omnibus episode, David finishes off the 'pre-programme' before heading to Berlin for the first in-person week. David talks about the importance of finding a co-founder for your business, carries out a role-model analysis of other organisations that support cause-driven entrepreneurship, and explains how to create a 'problem tree' to explore how your company or organisation can truly make a difference.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

125 - Incubator diaries: omnibus 1

David Pannell — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 07:30:00 +0100

Join David as he goes through the ProVeg Kickstarting For Good business incubator. Have you ever wondered what it's like to get a place on a business incubator? What do you learn and what kind of support do you get? In this first omnibus collection of his video diaries, David shares his journey as he works through the pre-programme before he heads to Berlin. Find out what tasks he has to complete, what the results of his entrepreneur personality test are and why David is now wondering if he's been trying to solve the wrong problem with Vegan Business Tribe for the last four years?!

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

124 - Why you need a mentor (and how to find one)

David Pannell — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 07:30:00 +0100

Finding a mentor for your business. Having someone who is more experienced than you showing you the way is invaluable. You will grow quicker, not just as a business but as a business owner too. However, getting a mentor doesn't always mean paying for a business coach - there are plenty of people out there who have already done the thing you are trying to do, and might be happy to give you the benefit of their experience in return for a coffee.

In this episode, Vegan Business Tribe founder David looks at why you need a mentor in your business and how to find one. Because your perfect mentor might be someone you already know.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

123 - Using your business as activism, with Katrina Fox

David Pannell — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 07:30:00 +0100

Learn how the experts use their business as activism. In this episode, David is joined by our resident vegan business expert Katrina Fox as we discuss our brand-new Vegan Business Tribe series 'Using Your Business As Activism' which is now streaming exclusively in our Vegan Business Tribe Academy.

For this new series, Katrina talked to six of the most exciting and high-profile vegan business activists right now, including: Matthew Glover, founder of Veganuary, VegCapital and VFC; Naijha Wright-Brown, Land of Kush and Black Veg Society; Vikas Garg, founder of Abillion; Adrian Ling, Plamil Foods; Annick Ireland, founder of Immaculate Vegan and Geoff Palmer, founder of Clean Machine.

Katrina and David discuss what they learnt from these six interviews and how you can use your business skills to move the vegan cause forwards.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

122 - The death of veganism? Vegan sector update 2024

David Pannell — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 07:30:00 +0100

Our annual vegan sector update. You will have seen the recent news headlines announcing 'The Death of Veganism' following a number of vegan brands going into administration. But as the demand for plant-based products continues to grow and a record 25 million people gave up animal products during Veganuary this year, why have vegan brands struggled?

In his annual Vegan Sector Update for 2024, David bring you the latest statistics and trends from the sector and highlights the change in consumer behaviour that has driven customers away from brands and towards cheaper own-brand alternatives and ingredients. He also explores what's fuelling those news headlines about veganism being in decline when, seemingly, the opposite is true.

This update was originally prepared as the opening session of the ESSEC Vegan Finance Conference 2024.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

121 - The ripple effect

David Pannell — Mon, 03 Jun 2024 07:30:00 +0100

The long-term impact of small actions. Running a business is hard. It's possibly the hardest way for you to earn money. You're often faced with doubt and there are times when you feel like you're not making any progress. But some of the things that you are doing now are like throwing a stone in a lake - you don't know how far the ripples will go. You might not know the impact you've had on people or the results of some of your actions until long into the future, potentially even years.

In this episode, David looks at what he calls 'the ripple effect' and how you can speed up those ripples to reap the benefits sooner. Because with the right strategy, those ripples can turn into tsunamis!

Prefer to watch? Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

120 - Battle of the Brands: THE FINAL!

David Pannell — Tue, 07 May 2024 07:30:00 +0100

Listen to our LIVE final to find out who gets the 1-2-1 meetings with the retail buyers! The time is here, we've whittled 14 brands down to 4 finalists who are now going to battle it out for the place at veg-net 2024 where they will get a full day of 1-2-1 meetings with retail buyers from the UK and Europe who are looking for new and exciting plant-based brands for their stores.

Meet our vegan food business expert judges:

Andy Shovel, co-founder of THIS who's signature product This is not Bacon is in almost every supermarket in the UK.

Joe Hill, the co-founder of vegan frozen pizza brand One Planet Pizza, which you can find in a number of supermarkets in the UK and Europe.

David Pannell, Vegan Business Tribe founder, vegan business expert and presenter of the Vegan Business Tribe Podcast.

Meet our amazing vegan food company finalists:

Lick Dairy Free - www.lickdairyfree.com

Saving Nemo - www.savingnemo.co.uk

Plantside - www.plantside.co

Wildly Tasty - www.wildlytasty.com

Listen to this live final to hear all our vegan-owned companies get grilled by our three judges before we declare the winner!

Prefer to watch? Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

119 - How to make decisions

David Pannell — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 07:30:00 +0100

How to make decisions in business that move you forward. You could say that doing business is really just making a series of decisions one after another, so if you're the sort of person who over-analyses each decision and agonises about if it's the right one or not, then you're always going to struggle to move your business forward.

But if you are worried about making the wrong decision, let me tell you that not making a decision at all is far worse. That's when decisions become barriers - by deciding not to decide, you stay stuck at the crossroads.

In this episode, David explores why we find making decisions so hard as vegan business owners and the different frameworks you can use to help you decide what option is the best to take.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

118 - How to exit a business

David Pannell — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 07:30:00 +0100

There are more ways to exit a business than you might think. For some, exiting a business might be a negative experience. Maybe you've reached burnout or the market has changed and you don't have the energy to change with it. But for others, getting acquired by a larger competitor or selling your business for a large amount of money might actually be your long-term business goal.

In this episode, David looks at all the different options for exiting your business from selling to succession, or even just winding it up in a positive way. And if your goal IS to sell, then we also look at what you need to do to create a business that has value without you in the middle of it and which can continue to run once you've left.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

BONUS - Want to get into retailers? Announcing Battle of the Brands

David Pannell — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 07:30:00 +0100

Special bonus episode of The Vegan Business Tribe Podcast.

Are you a vegan-owned food-brand ready to get into retailers? Would you like to pitch your brand to key retail buyers in the UK & Europe? Get ready to battle for your place in our new competition!

In this special bonus episode, David announces our brand new competition to give one vegan-owned brand a full day of pitch meetings with retail buyers and talks with veg-net founder Mike Hill about the event.

Getting into your first retailers is a major milestone for your business, but one that many vegan food brands struggle to reach. Our Battle of the Vegan Brands competition will give one vegan-owned food brand a free place (worth £2,450 plus VAT) at veg-net, a day-long event where plant-based brands get 10 pre-arranged meetings with key retail buyers and experts to pitch your product.

Although veg-net is open to all plant-based brands, Vegan Business Tribe have one free place to award specifically to a food brand founded by vegans and run on vegan ethics as part of our partnership with the event. Your entry will be judged by a panel of industry experts, including Andy Shovel, founder of THIS; Jo Hill, founder of One Planet Pizza; and David Pannell, founder of Vegan Business Tribe.

* Do you qualify?

- You sell a food product suitable for general retail

- The people behind the product are vegan and the company is run on vegan ethics

- Your product is ready (or almost ready) to supply into retailers - you might even already supply some

- You are available to travel to Stansted UK on the June 5th 2024 for the veg-net event

- Special consideration is given to brands focused on a healthier alternative

*How do you apply?

Application is made by filling out the form below to secure entry and then submitting a maximum 60-second video by the 21st April 2024 telling us about your product and why you deserve the free place at veg-net to pitch to the buyers.

We will then select three brands to go through to our live ‘Battle of the Brands’ final on Zoom, where you will get to pitch to our panel of expert judges who will award the free place to the most deserving brand.

We will share both your application video and the recording of the final amongst our Vegan Business Tribe network and on social media to give you even more exposure.

NOTE: You don’t need to be a current Vegan Business Tribe member to enter your brand and your video doesn’t need to be professionally produced!

* If I don't win, can I still attend veg-net?

Yes, you can register as a paid attendee and the first five brands to quote ‘Vegan Business Tribe’ can get a place for the specially discounted price of £1,500 plus VAT.

Places are limited, so if you want to secure your seat at veg-net, you can buy a ticket but still enter our competition and your ticket price will be refunded in full if you win.

* I make a plant-based product but I'm not vegan. Can I still enter?

This competition is just for companies founded by vegans and run on vegan ethics as part of our partnership with veg-net. However, veg-net is for any company who makes a plant-based product, whether the people behind the product is vegan or not – so you can still register as an attendee at veg-net.org

117 - What Andy Shovel did next... Interview with the co-founder of This.

David Pannell — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 07:30:00 +0100

Andy Shovel is the co-founder of 'This', who were the fastest-growing food company in the UK last year. And note that didn't read the fastest-growing 'vegan food company', they were the fastest-growing food company full stop.

Their signature meat-replacement product 'This is not Bacon' is available in supermarkets across the UK as well as being served in restaurants, hotels and pre-packed sandwiches. And although Andy is something of a hero to many vegan business owners, not everyone in the vegan community agree with his approach of focussing his products on meat-eaters over vegans and vegetarians.

In this episode, David talks to Andy about his approach to business and the rise of This. The interview was recorded shortly before Andy made public that he and his co-founder Pete Sharman were stepping down as the CEOs of This to hand the company over to a new management team, as the business looks to grow the company from their current £24m turnover to their goal of £100m. But in this session, Andy shares his plans to take everything he learnt from being the CEO of the UK's fastest growing food company to become one of the UK's leading animal rights advocates, with the launch of his new animal rights charity 'A Bit Weird'.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

116 - 3 ways to INSTANTLY improve your business

David Pannell — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 07:30:00 +0100

Business quick wins. These are the three things that you can implement straight away that will have a huge positive impact on your business. I call them 'universal quick wins' and they are often the first things I look at when I'm coaching a business owner.

And they are so incredibly simple that you will be able to implement each one of them instantly and then wonder why you hadn't done them before!

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

115 - If you’re going to fall, fall forwards. With Joe Hill, One Planet Pizza

David Pannell — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 07:30:00 +0100

Facing failure in business. Vegan frozen pizza brand One Planet Pizza has faced failure several times. But co-founder Joe Hill has a mantra: "If you're going to fall, then make sure you fall forwards". In this special-length episode of the podcast, David is joined by Joe to talk about failure in business, a topic few people want to discuss. But for One Planet Pizza, each time they faced failure it turned out to be a pivotal point in their journey, a catalyst that propelled the business forward. Even if it didn't seem like it at the time.

Now, you can buy One Planet Pizza in supermarkets across the UK and they have just started exporting into Europe. But, back when their future success wasn't assured, how did Joe face the real prospect of the business failing and manage to stay positive throughout?

Want to watch the video version? Subscribe to our YouTube channel: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

114 - Should you call your business 'vegan'?

David Pannell — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 07:00:00 +0100

Although studies show that non-vegans are more likely to engage with a vegan product or company when you drop the ‘v word’, if a customer loves your product without actually realising it’s vegan are you inadvertently just promoting meat and dairy?

In this episode, David returns to the 'to V or not to V?' question, looking at it from an ethical and not just business viewpoint. If you’re not going to be able to compete with the big plant-based brands on price or quality, does it make sense for you to hide the one thing you can beat them on: your vegan ethics?

Want to watch the video version? Subscribe to our YouTube channel: @veganbusinesstribe

Prefer to listen? Catch the audio-only version on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods!

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

113 - Using your business as your activism

David Pannell — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 07:00:00 +0100

How many times have you wished you could bring together your ethics with how you make a living? In this panel discussion recorded live at Vegan Business Tribe Live 2023 at the London Olympia, we bring together four Vegan Business Tribe members who all use their businesses as their platform to move the vegan cause forwards.

But won't that put your customers off? How can you promote veganism if you don't sell to vegans? And what if you don't consider your business to be a 'vegan' business, even though you are vegan yourself? All these are the things that you might consider barriers to bringing your vegan ethics to the core of your business, but as you will learn from this panel: they are not!

Hosted by Shabari Das of World Vegan Market & London Vegan Business Network, panelists are:

Kelly Vowels, Pixal Rose

Chloe Bullock, Materialise Interiors

Kayleigh Nicolaou, Kakadu Creative

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: for more: @veganbusinesstribe

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

112 - Why aren't more men vegan? Smashing the vegan masculinity myth

David Pannell — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 07:30:00 +0100

Mel & Steve from Vegan Muscle co-host to talk about the barriers stopping more men from turning vegan. A new research paper released by The Vegan Society into masculinity and veganism shows that women are far more likely to go vegan than men. Some studies have even suggested that as high as 80% of all the vegans in the USA were female.

This means that if you are selling to a vegan audience then you need to be aware that your audience will be largely female. But why has veganism been an overwhelmingly a female movement and why are there so many social barriers and stigmas stopping more men going vegan? And what role do we have as vegan businesses in changing this? David is joined by vegan fitness activists and YouTubers Mel and Steve from Vegan Muscle to find out.

Learn more about Mel & Steve here: https://veganmusclegymwear.com/

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more: @veganbusinesstribe

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

111 - Green Finance: Put your money where your heart is

David Pannell — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 07:30:00 +0100

Can your investments and finance help the green cause? Did you know that your pension could be funding fossil fuels? Did you know your savings could be supporting animal agriculture? In this session, David talks to Vegan Business Tribe member and vegan independent financial advisor, Jai Street, about the whole world of green finance and investing.

Financial advice isn't an industry that people might immediately see as something that you would look to veganise, so we also talk about how you can use your skill set as your activism, no matter what your business does.

Jai is also a speaker at Vegan Business Tribe Live at the London Olympia as part of VegfestUK on the 18th & 19th November 2023.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: for more: @veganbusinesstribe

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

---

Vegan Business Tribe Live also thanks our micro-sponsors for the event:

- Mindful Wealth (https://mindfulwealth.uk/)

- Materialise Interior Design (https://www.materialiseinteriors.com/)

- MotherTree (https://www.mymothertree.com/)

- The Green Hosting Company (https://greenhostingco.com/)

- Certified Vegan Business Trademark Scheme (https://certifiedvegan.biz/)

110 - So you want to run an animal sanctuary?

David Pannell — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 09:15:00 +0100

We talk to three vegan animal sanctuary owners. Many vegans have the dream of one day buying some land and opening an animal sanctuary. But they don't think about the 5am starts, having to work every single day and the huge veterinary and food bills that come with caring for animals.

Recorded Live at Vegan Business Tribe Live 2022, in this panel session we bring together three animal sanctuary owners to talk about the realities of running your own animal rescue: Susan Joyce, Founder of Little Green Pigeon wildlife sanctuary in Wales; Wenda Shehata, Founder of Hugletts Wood Farm Animal Sanctuary; and Lisa Sherwani, who runs Footprints Animal Sanctuary in Cheshire.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: for more: @veganbusinesstribe

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

109 - How Chloe Bullock brought vegan interior design into the spotlight

David Pannell — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 07:30:00 +0100

Interview with Chloe Bullock, Materialise Interiors. Chloe Bullock was awarded PETA's Compassionate Designer of the Year in their 2023 Vegan Homeware Awards. In this session, we're joined by Chloe to talk about how she has worked tirelessly to bring vegan interior design into the spotlight throughout her career, and is now one of the most highly regarded vegan design experts in the world having recently authored the Royal Institute of British Architects guidebook on sustainable interior design.

As if this wasn't enough, Chloe also took her agency Materialise Interiors through B Corp certification earlier in the year, to show that the company holds itself to a higher standard of ethics and transparency in how it does business. David quizzes Chloe about the process and her tips for other businesses looking to do the same.

Chloe is also a speaker at this year's Vegan Business Tribe Live at the London Olympia on the 18th & 19th November 2023.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: for more: @veganbusinesstribe

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

108 - Why is it getting harder to get customers?

David Pannell — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 07:30:00 +0100

Why have people stopped buying from you? You're doing everything you did before but people just aren't buying anymore. What's changed? This is a question that our Vegan Business Tribe member Callum brought to one of our business clinics. Why has getting new customers become harder?

If you follow the news, then it would be easy to think at the moment that the economy is completely falling apart. Many regions have seen an economic slowdown following the covid lockdowns, the invasion of Ukraine and some very short-sighted political decisions by our governments.

But the reality is, no matter how bad the economy seems, you will still see plenty of people making money. And no matter how well the economy is doing, many businesses lose money and go out of business. So just because the news is all doom and gloom don't use that as an excuse to simply accept fewer customers for your business. In this episode, David explains that people still need what you sell (and likely still have the money!)but they are just being far more cautious about buying it - meaning you need to change how you market yourself to give customers a lot more confidence in spending with you.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: for more: @veganbusinesstribe

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

107 - How 'Better Nature Tempeh' conquered the major retailers

David Pannell — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 07:30:00 +0100

We interview Better Nature Tempeh CEO, Chris Kong, about how they broke into the major retailers. Better Nature Tempeh have established themselves as the leading tempeh brand in the UK, but it wasn't easy. First marketing themselves along the hundreds of other 'meat replacement' products, Better Nature struggled to get the attention of major retailers who were already oversaturated in this category.

Then they learned to embrace what they were and set about to establish a new product category all of their own. Now you can find Better Nature Tempeh across the country in Tesco Supermarket and other major retailers, as well as now just launched into Germany too.

Although Better Nature is a food company, Chris shares with us the mind-shift change that had to happen in the business to allow it to find growth, and his tips for other companies looking to scale up regardless of what sector they are in.

Chris is also one of our speakers and panellists at Vegan Business Tribe Live at the London Olympia on the 18th and 19th of November 2023. Get your tickets from: veganbusinesstribe.com/tribe-live-2023

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: for more: @veganbusinesstribe

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

106 - How to fund your vegan business

David Pannell — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 07:30:00 +0100

The 5 ways to fund or finance a vegan business. You might think if you just come up with a great idea then an investor will throw money at your business! Well, I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. Investors are out there, even vegan ones who share your ethics, but usually a company will have to either self-fund or borrow money to grow before they get to the level of success needed to attract investment.

But don't worry, help is at hand! In this episode, David looks at the five different ways that your business can raise funding, from self-funding and borrowing, to investment and crowdfunding. He also explores some more creative ways you might be able to generate cash to grow - remember that if you need to borrow money then there are other routes than banks!

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: for more: @veganbusinesstribe

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

105 - Using A.I. to boost your vegan business

David Pannell — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 07:30:00 +0100

The AI tools you can use right now in your business. Imagine having a tool that can automatically counter anti-vegan comments on your company's posts, predict your next best-selling product from reading your customer reviews, and generate engaging social media content for your niche audience.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has become more than a buzzword. It's a transformative force that might reshape your business. From ChatGPT's creative writing powers to stunningly lifelike image generators, AI is revolutionising the way we work and connect with our audience. But, what role can AI play in your vegan business? Is it a mere novelty or a game-changer that can enhance productivity and free up valuable time?

In this episode, David looks at how you can use AI in your business right now - because if your business is your activism then you want to do everything you can to make that business successful and stay ahead of the curve. Then we have an our exclusive interview with Sam Tucker, the visionary founder of VegCatalyst who recently launched VEG3, the world's first vegan AI marketing assistant.

So sit back and get ready to unlock the immense possibilities that AI offers to propel your vegan business forward!

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: for more: @veganbusinesstribe

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

104 - How to stay focused with your vegan business.

David Pannell — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 07:30:00 +0100

How to stay productive in a distracted world. In a hyperconnected world filled with a constant stream of distractions, making the time and focus to tackle the important tasks that will move your vegan business forward can feel like an uphill battle. Especially when customers and suppliers are constantly trying to hijack your inbox with their own agendas.

In this episode, David shares practical, hands-on strategies that will help you conquer those crucial business to-do lists. From taking charge of your devices and notifications, to banishing procrastination and perfectionism.

And the ultimate 'secret' you need to get focused? Tapping into the passion that fueled your decision to embark on this vegan business journey in the first place.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: for more: www.youtube.com/@veganbusinesstribe

---

🌱✊Is your vegan business your activism?

Join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business: www.veganbusinesstribe.com

🙏With thanks to our sponsors:

🧮 Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

📖 The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

📢 MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

🌳Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

103 - Self defence for vegan business owners

David Pannell — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 11:00:00 +0100

How to defend veganism as a business owner. While conflict may not be your cup of tea, there will come moments as a vegan business when you're called upon to defend veganism and its ethical principles. From encountering anti-vegan comments on social media to facing loaded questions during presentations, or even finding yourself in a TV interview alongside someone with opposing views, it's essential to be well-versed in debunking common myths.

Join David as he shares practical strategies for transforming potential conflicts into positive interactions and tells you where to find all the answers to those questions you are dreading.

Please also subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch the video version of this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@veganbusinesstribe

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Is your vegan business your activism? Then join our amazing community of vegan business owners and entrepreneurs at www.veganbusinesstribe.com for more amazing content and support to grow your vegan business.

With thanks to our sponsors:

Vegan Accountants: Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

The Vegan Publisher: Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

MAD Promotions: The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

Mindful Wealth: Mindful Wealth is different, and by working with us you’ll make a difference with your money. Website www.mindfulwealth.uk

BONUS - The Vegan Business Tribe Podcast is relaunching!

David Pannell — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 09:00:00 +0100

After more than 100 episodes we are relaunching as a video podcast! You might have noticed that we've been off the airwaves for a few weeks. This is because, after 100 episodes, we're getting ready to relaunch The Vegan Business Tribe Podcast as a video podcast! You will still be able to listen to the audio-only version, but at the same time you'll be able to find the video version on YouTube from next month.

In this bonus episode (that you can also watch on our YouTube channel!) David explains this exciting change.

Upgrading to video brings with it a step-up in production and costs, and we could not do this without the support of our sponsors:

Vegan Accountants

Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. The team at Vegan Accountants help ethical businesses with their accountancy and tax compliance. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

The Vegan Publisher

A 100% vegan publisher who transforms vegan, ethical, sustainable and responsible business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

MAD Promotions

Dedicated to helping companies of all sizes to get noticed. Working with SME’s, charities, influencers, writers and more who are Making A Difference. www.mad-promotions.com

Subscribe to our new YouTube channel here: www.youtube.com/@veganbusinesstribe

102 - How to go from social to sales

David Pannell — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 07:30:00 +0100

How to get people off social media and onto your customer list. Social media is a fantastic tool for your business, but there's no point in putting all that work into building up a social media following if none of it results in new customers.

In this episode, David shares the strategies you need to use to get your social followers to step out of the virtual world and embark on their customer journey with you!

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With thanks to our amazing vegan sponsors:

Vegan Accountants - Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

The Vegan Publisher - Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

MAD Promotions - The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

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About Vegan Business Tribe

Hosted by Vegan Business Tribe co-founder, David Pannell. Lisa & David have worked with some of the largest high-street brands and food manufacturers to help them understand and connect with the vegan marketplace. David is also the official UK agent for The Vegan Society's Vegan Trademark and Lisa writes the monthly business column in Vegan Food & Living - the biggest vegan print publication in the UK.

Vegan Business Tribe is where they give back with weekly content, seminars, business clinics, networking events, mentoring and online courses to help you create a successful vegan business. If you want to go beyond the podcast and connect with our community of like-minded vegan entrepreneurs or get support from Lisa & David, then head over to www.veganbusinesstribe.com where you will be welcomed with open arms!

101 - Live from Vegfest Brighton: strategies for increasing your visibility

David Pannell — Wed, 10 May 2023 07:30:00 +0100

David talks to our members at Vegfest Brighton about how they are increasing their visibility at the show. David takes his roving microphone to search out our Vegan Business Tribe members who were exhibiting at Vegfest Brighton in the UK, to find out what strategies they were using to increase their visibility at the show.

From vegan companies who were selling products direct to consumers from their stand, to personal services and B2B companies who were using different strategies such as sponsorship and speaking slots.

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With thanks to our amazing vegan sponsors:

Vegan Accountants - Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

The Vegan Publisher - Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

MAD Promotions - The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

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About Vegan Business Tribe

100 - What it means to have a vegan business

David Pannell — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 07:30:00 +0100

We celebrate 100 episodes by bringing you a special interview with one of our Vegan Business Tribe members. In this special celebration episode, David is joined by award-winning vegan filmmaker Damian Sciberras who has worked for some of the biggest vegan activists in the world. But jump back just three years ago and Damian was mainly making corporate videos for non-vegan companies, until a health diagnosis turned his world upside down and made him massively reconsider the direction of his life and career.

We explore how Damian managed to 'veganise' his business and use his skill set to move the vegan cause forwards, whilst at the same time working out how to make a living in a way that aligned with his ethics.

We also share the recordings that have been sent in by our members to celebrate 100 episodes, and David invites you to join us on a special free online event on the 10th of May 2023!

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With thanks to our amazing vegan sponsors:

Vegan Accountants - Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

The Vegan Publisher - Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

MAD Promotions - The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

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About Vegan Business Tribe

099 - Running a vegan business with a hidden disability

David Pannell — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 07:30:00 +0100

We talk to Daniel Morgan Jones, founder of The Aspie World. A number of our Vegan Business Tribe members successfully run a business with a hidden disability or some form of neurodiversity – including our co-founder Lisa who didn’t receive an autism diagnosis until she was nearly 40. But only 16% of autistic adults are in full-time paid employment in the UK.

In this special masterclass, Lisa talks to Daniel Morgan Jones, YouTuber, hugely successful autism / ADHD influencer, vegan entrepreneur and founder of The Aspie World, about both the challenges and positives of running your own business with a hidden disability.

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With thanks to our amazing vegan sponsors:

Vegan Accountants - Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. www.veganaccountants.co.uk

The Vegan Publisher - Transforming business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors. www.theveganpublisher.com

MAD Promotions - The vegan PR agency. Dedicated to getting your vegan business in the news. www.mad-promotions.com

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About Vegan Business Tribe

098 - You need a better profile photo

David Pannell — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 07:00:00 +0100

How to create a better profile picture. Let's admit it - most of us use quite a boring photo of ourselves for our online profile pic. You are never going to convince people that you are an expert in your field if your profile picture is some selfie or out-of-date image that looks like your school yearbook photo.

In this episode, David looks at how to get a profile photo that stands out and whether or not you need to use a professional photographer to create one. He also explains why magazines and websites will be more likely to publish your story if you can provide a great image of yourself to accompany it.

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With huge thanks to our sponsors:

Vegan Accountants

Use an accountant that understands your ethics and mission as a vegan business. The team at Vegan Accountants help ethical businesses with their accountancy and tax compliance.

https://veganaccountants.co.uk/

The Vegan Publisher

A 100% vegan publisher who transforms vegan, ethical, sustainable and responsible business owners or entrepreneurs into bestselling authors.

https://theveganpublisher.com/

-------------------------

About Vegan Business Tribe

097 - Sell more to your current customers

David Pannell — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 07:30:00 +0100

Retaining customers & creating champions. To celebrate the launch of our brand new course 'How to get customers', David explains why someone becoming your customer is not the end of their customer journey. If you can sell to someone once, you can sell to them twice. And even better, if they believe in your mission then your current customers will go out and find more customers for you on your behalf!

You can find the full four and a half hour video course on how to get customers in our Vegan Business Tribe Academy which is included for all Vegan Business Tribe members.

About Vegan Business Tribe

096 - What to do when someone doesn't pay

David Pannell — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 07:30:00 +0100

How to make sure you get paid and what to do if you don't. Usually the customer/supplier relationship goes pretty smoothly. You do the work or deliver your product and the customer pays you for your hard work. But sometimes, you send off your invoice and then... nothing!

In this episode, David looks at what to do if someone doesn't pay your invoice, and how to make sure you have the business basics in place to avoid getting into that situation in the first place.

About Vegan Business Tribe

095 - How to make the most of Veganuary 2023

David Pannell — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 07:30:00 +0100

How your vegan business can partner with the Veganuary campaign. Veganuary is the biggest event in the vegan calendar, where millions of people around the world take on the challenge to eat vegan for the month of January. Supporting and partnering with the campaign is easy, and something every vegan business should do to make the most of this increased interest in veganism.

In this episode, David looks at the statistics from the 2022 Veganuary campaign and explains how to use the official veganuary branding in your marketing. We then go through all the different ways that your company can get involved with the campaign, from coming up with special offers for Veganuary to include on the official website through to getting your workplace to take up the Veganuary challenge.

Learn more about Veganuaury and sign-up to the challenge here: www.veganuary.com

About Vegan Business Tribe

094 - She said yes!!

David Pannell — Fri, 25 Nov 2022 07:30:00 +0100

Following the hugely successful Vegan Business Tribe Live event, David catches up on what's been going on in the Tribe.

Join Lisa and David in celebrating some amazing personal news, and then David takes a look back at the Vegan Business Tribe Live event at London Olympia last week (as well as a look forward to repeating the event in 2023). And did David seriously record this on the eve of his and Lisa's wedding? You bet!

About Vegan Business Tribe

093 - Writing a book as a marketing tool for your vegan business

David Pannell — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 07:30:00 +0100

Why becoming a published author will create huge visibility for your business. As our final Road to Vegan Business Tribe Live episode, we talk to Mitali Deypurkaystha ahead of her appearance on our Vegan Business Tribe stage.

Mitali’s mission is to create an army of vegan thought leaders through her publishing company, The Vegan Publisher. With her support, vegan business owners and professionals can create what might end up being the best marketing tool for their business ever.

See Mitali on our panel on how to become a vegan author at Vegan Business Tribe Live at the London Olympia on the 12th and 13th of November 2022.

About Vegan Business Tribe

092 - How to get the most out of trade shows

David Pannell — Sat, 22 Oct 2022 09:30:00 +0100

As part of our road to Vegan Business Tribe Live at the London Olympia, we look at how to maximise taking part in a trade show. Tradeshows and larger consumer shows like VegfestUK, are places where you will meet not just new customers, but also great new contacts that might help your business move forwards. But you need to have a strategy to capture the details of people who show an interest in your stand so that you can continue to market to them after the event.

In this episode, David shares his years of experience of doing tradeshows to teach you what you need to be doing before, during and after the event to maximise what you get out of it.

About Vegan Business Tribe

091 - How Clive's Pies became Clive's Purely Plants

David Pannell — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 07:30:00 +0100

Part of our 'Road to Vegan Business Tribe Live' at the London Olympia! How Clive's scaled-up, went vegan and found investment. Esther Pearson led Clive's Purely Plants through the transformation of becoming a vegan-only food manufacturer. This resulted in them finding investment to scale up their production and Clive's are now listed in supermarkets and independents across the country. In this prelude to her appearance at Vegan Business Tribe Live at the London Olympia in November, Esther shares with us what she learnt from that journey and her biggest advice for others wanting to follow in Clive's footsteps.

Join us for vegan Business Tribe Live on the 12th and 13th of November 2022 at the London Olympia as part of VegFestUK. Find out more and get your ticket here: https://veganbusinesstribe.com/tribe-live/

About Vegan Business Tribe

090 - 5 amazing vegan marketing campaigns with Sandra Nomoto

David Pannell — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 07:30:00 +0100

Innovative vegan marketing case studies from around the world. To celebrate the release of her new book 'Vegan Marketing Success Stories', I invite Sandra Nomoto to co-host this episode as we discuss five of our favourite vegan marketing case studies from the book.

From Canadian chocolate company Mid Day Squares turning their founders into their own reality TV show, to Doctors Against Animal Experiments partnering with a German haulage company to display their animal-rights adverts on the side of trucks across Europe.

Get a copy of the book yourself here: https://www.sandranomoto.com/products/

Also remember that we're now on our 'Road to Vegan Business Tribe Live' at the London Olympia in November, so grab your tickets here: https://veganbusinesstribe.com/tribe-live/

About Vegan Business Tribe

089 - How LoveSeitan scaled-up and found investment

David Pannell — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 07:30:00 +0100

Part of our 'Road to Vegan Business Tribe Live' at the London Olympia! Steve Swindon founded vegan meat replacement company LoveSeitan in his co-founder's kitchen, but they quickly attracted vegan entrepreneur Heather Mills as an investor and partner. In this episode, David talks to Steve about how they scaled up so quickly using vegan events as a test bed, and how they moved from a home kitchen producer to now supplying supermarkets, manufacturers and wholesalers across the UK.

This episode is a masterclass recording from our Vegan Business Academy, which is usually reserved for our Vegan Business Tribe members only. You can hear Steve speak live at Vegan Business Tribe Live on the 12th and 13th of November 2022 at the London Olympia as part of VegFestUK. Find out more here: https://veganbusinesstribe.com/tribe-live/

About Vegan Business Tribe

088 - Hiring employees

David Pannell — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 07:30:00 +0100

For many, looking to grow a business means taking on more staff. But employing people can also be a nightmare. If you get it wrong, instead of releasing your time and helping your company grow, you can find yourself micro-managing a team of people and still having your own work to do!

In this episode, David brings you his 8 tips for hiring people from his experience of having hired close to 50 people over two decades in business. Including: how to know when is the right time to hire; how to make sure you can get someone who can actually do the job; and can you advertise only for people who are vegan themselves?!

About Vegan Business Tribe

087 - How to get better at speaking

David Pannell — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 07:30:00 +0100

How (and why!) to get better at speaking and presenting. If you view your vegan business as your activism, then you owe it to the vegan cause to become better at speaking and communicating so that you can reach a bigger audience. But for most of us, the idea of standing on a stage in front of people, or even just 'going live' on social media, can be terrifying.

In this episode, David shares his secrets for becoming a better speaker after having spoken at hundreds of events and online seminars himself. But he wasn't always as practised and confident as he comes across now, so we look at the techniques you can use to improve, how you can find bigger and better speaking opportunities as you gain confidence and what happened when Jay Charlton from Viva La Vegan got over her fears and agreed to join David onstage at Chris Evans' Carfest.

About Vegan Business Tribe

086 - SPECIAL: Live from Vegan Camp Out 2022

David Pannell — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 07:30:00 +0100

Lisa & David take their roving microphone around Vegan Camp Out. We hear from vegan entrepreneur and investor Heather Mills, activist Joey Carbstrong, podcasting legend Jim Moore, YouTuber David Ramms and Dave & Steve from The Happy Pear.

In this special double-length episode, we also catch up with vegan companies Vausages, Motion Hatch, One Planet Pizza, The Vegan Haberdasher, Vegan Founded, Lilk, Clemmie's Vegan Cakes and feature the music of BFriendly - all while David has a Vegan Business Tribe banner stand strapped to his back!

About Vegan Business Tribe

085 - The importance of quick wins

David Pannell — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 07:30:00 +0100

How to keep the momentum going in your business. We often think about our strategy for the next six months, but what can you do that will move your business forward in the next 24 hours?

Quick wins aren't just a good way to keep you motivated, they are a good way to jump-start your company if you've hit a slump. We take a look at how you can make something happen that will have a real impact on your vegan business, maybe even before you even go to bed this evening!

About Vegan Business Tribe

084 - How to build your network and expand your contacts.

David Pannell — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 07:30:00 +0100

How to connect with more people who can help your business. Listen to any successful entrepreneur's story and often you will hear about a chance meeting with someone who went on to play a big part in their business journey. But these kind of connections don't just happen by accident. You need to have a strategy in place to increase the number of connections you are making.

In the vegan sector, collaboration is natural because we are all on the same mission. So how do you find and connect with the kinds of people who are going to help your business move forwards?

About Vegan Business Tribe

083 - How to handle complaints

David Pannell — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 07:30:00 +0100

What to do when someone complains and how to turn it into a positive. As a vegan you probably hate conflict - but just because your company is on a mission to create a better world, don't think that you are going to be immune to customer complaints!

When you receive a complaint, you need to first find out exactly what the customer needs (which in many cases is nothing more than an apology and knowing they have been heard) and then make a change in your procedures to stop the same thing from happening again in the future. And if you get it right, you can actually turn a complaining customer into a champion for your business!

About Vegan Business Tribe

082 - LIVE from Vegan Life Live in London

David Pannell — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 07:30:00 +0100

We bring you the best of Vegan Life Live from the Alexandra Palace. In this special live episode, Lisa and David take their roving microphone around the two-day Vegan Life Live event in London. Join us as we talk to some of the trail-blazers in the vegan sector about their tips for vegan businesses and bump into a lot of Vegan Business Tribe members and podcast listeners along the way!

This episode was recorded at Vegan Life Live London 2022, UK.

Some of the people featured on this podcast are:

Dana Burton - Vegan Kids: https://vegan-kids.org/
Joe Hill - One Planet Pizza: https://www.oneplanetpizza.com/
Klaus Mitchel - Plant Based News: https://plantbasednews.org/
Laura Chepner - The Vegan Society: https://www.vegansociety.com/
Keith Lesser - Vegan Accountants: http://veganaccountants.co.uk/
Paul Kerton and Gemma Nichols - Hench Herbivoire: https://henchherbivore.com/
Pia Werzinger - Viva! https://viva.org.uk/
Jay Bharj - Root Minerals: https://www.rootminerals.com/
Tim Barford - VegfestUK: https://www.vegfest.co.uk/
Ray Star - Vegan Autho:r https://www.raystarbooks.com/
Shabari Das - World Vegan Market: https://www.facebook.com/groups/worldveganmarket/

About Vegan Business Tribe

081 - Is it time to quit?

David Pannell — Wed, 08 Jun 2022 07:30:00 +0100

How do you know if it's time to give up on your business and move on to something new? Failing is an important part of succeeding. Listen to any successful entrepreneur's story and it will be a list of the missteps, failures and lessons that eventually led to that success.

But at some point, you need to decide whether the thing you're doing now is going to ever be successful or if it's time to give up and go do something else instead. In this episode, David shares how to judge if your business is actually progressing and how to decide if it's time to wrap it up and move on.

About Vegan Business Tribe

080 - 6 big takeaways from the Podcast Show 2022

David Pannell — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 07:30:00 +0100

Podcasting trends and tips from the UK's biggest podcasting expo. Many vegan businesses will have considered launching a podcast, or you may be thinking about using other people's podcasts to promote your product or service.

David shares his notes from the two-day Podcast Show London 2022 to bring you 6 big takeaways about where the industry is heading and what trends you need to be aware of: from the rise in video podcasts to how podcasters really make money.

About Vegan Business Tribe

079 - How to survive a recession

David Pannell — Tue, 24 May 2022 07:30:00 +0100

How your vegan business can not just survive, but also thrive in a financial downturn. The idea of a recession can be scary, but no matter how good the economic outlook is you will still see companies fail - and no matter how bad the economy is, some people will be making more money than they ever have before.

In this episode, David looks at the practical steps you can take to get your business ready for an economic downturn but also explains why a change in consumer behaviour may also present a lot of opportunities for your business to grow.

About Vegan Business Tribe

078 - Will your company going vegan put customers off?

David Pannell — Wed, 18 May 2022 07:30:00 +0100

What really happens when you make your company vegan? Many people want to align their personal ethics with how they make a living but the fear of what their customers might think stops them from making their company publicly vegan. The truth is, however, that most of your non-vegan customers probably won't care. And those that do - well, they are probably not the type of people you want as customers!

In this episode, David takes a look at several companies that transitioned their existing businesses into vegan ones and shares what happened. He also explains the different paths you can follow to do the same.

About Vegan Business Tribe

077 - Why VFC are giving their products away for free

David Pannell — Tue, 10 May 2022 07:30:00 +0100

Why Vegan Fried Chicken brand VFC decided to just give their products away. VFC made the headlines when they announced that they were giving their products away for free. Simply head to the supermarket, buy one of their products, upload a photo of your receipt and get your money refunded in full.

From the outside, this campaign seems like a fast track route to going bust with the consumer getting all the benefit and the company getting none. But dig a little deeper and you will find a clever strategy that overcomes a significant barrier for new customers, demonstrates to your retailer that the product is in demand, and might not be as expensive to run as you think!

About Vegan Business Tribe

076 - How to convert customers

David Pannell — Wed, 04 May 2022 07:30:00 +0100

How to get people to take that final step and become a customer. Every company has a marketing funnel, and in this episode David goes right to the bottom of it: the place where people already know about your business, are on your mailing list, seem interested, but still haven't bought your product. So where's the blockage?

The truth is, the people who are right at the end of your funnel are probably a lot closer to becoming customers than you think. If you can identify who they are and what final steps they need to take, then reaching out with the right offer at the right time may be all that is needed to nudge them over the line.

About Vegan Business Tribe

075 - How to do a press release for your vegan business

David Pannell — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 07:30:00 +0100

How do you get your business in the news? If you see a vegan business or product in the news, then it's most likely there because the company sent the story out as a press release. Newspapers, magazines and news websites all need a constant stream of interesting things to share with their readers but don't expect them to just give you a free advert for your business.

In this episode, David walks through how to prepare a press release and explains why you need to come up with a news story that someone will actually want to publish. Sometimes it is your own personal journey, rather than your business, that's the real story readers are interested in.

About Vegan Business Tribe

074 - How to claim back for your R&D

David Pannell — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 07:30:00 +0100

Can your vegan company claim for the research or product development your company may have done? And before you say your company doesn’t do R&D, don’t be too quick to jump to that conclusion! Veganising a recipe for your food product, developing a new app or computer system, researching a new material or creating more environmentally-conscious packaging for your product - all these are all examples of R&D and there’s a good chance that you can claim back on those costs.

Lots of countries have R&D Tax Credit schemes including the UK, America, Australia and many European countries also run similar programmes. So to talk about this topic in a lot more detail, David is joined by Vegan Business Tribe member Michael Newnham, who is the Technical Expert from Quantum R&D Tax Credits Ltd to find out what you can and can’t claim for.

About Vegan Business Tribe

073 - The 5 top things we've learnt from 2 years of Vegan Business Tribe

David Pannell — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 07:30:00 +0100

The five main lessons that we've learnt from running Vegan Business Tribe. As Vegan Business Tribe celebrates its second birthday, David shares the top five things we've learnt about running a vegan business over that time - from why you need to remain flexible about what business you are building through to why the biggest thing holding your business back might just be yourself.

And just a warning that someone has given David a bell in this episode - and it doesn't get annoying at all...

About Vegan Business Tribe

072 - Why the vegan children's market is set to explode.

David Pannell — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 07:30:00 +0100

Why products for vegan children will be the next big growth sector. Last year, Quorn launched their vegan Roarsomes Dinosaur Nuggets, making them one of the first high-profile food companies to bring out a vegan product aimed specifically at children. But new research from The Vegan Society suggests that children are 50% more likely to be vegan than adults, so with demand so high why is this new sector currently so under-served?

David takes a detailed look at the Vegan Society's new report into Vegan Food for Children and identifies the opportunities for businesses in the vegan children sector - not just in food, but in events, entertainment, education and campaigning. He also looks at some of the barriers companies are going to face in serving this market, from education about nutrition to lobbying that will aim to stoke fears about raising a child on a vegan diet.

About Vegan Business Tribe

071 - How to start a podcast with Jim Moore, Bloody Vegans Productions

David Pannell — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 07:30:00 +0100

We are joined by the host of The Bloody Vegans Podcast to talk about how to start your own podcast. There seems to be a lot of obstacles to starting your own podcast. Which microphone should you get? How can I create a good-sounding recording space without spending a fortune? How do I get my podcast listed on Apple and Spotify? And once I've actually uploaded my podcast how do I get people to listen to it?

David and Jim come together to answer all these questions and to make sure that any lack of technical knowledge or experience doesn't get in the way of you launching what might be the next big vegan podcast. David also announces the launch of our new masterclasses section on the Vegan Business Tribe website where you can watch back more sessions like this one with lots of vegan experts to help take your business to the next level.

About Vegan Business Tribe

070 - Stopping fear from holding you back

David Pannell — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 07:30:00 +0100

How to overcome the fear that is stopping your vegan business from moving forward. If you see a child jump onto a high wall, it's often accompanied by a panicked parent shouting at that child to get down. We're conditioned from a young age not to take risks, climb high or to rock the boat. But the feeling that we've come to associate as fear is actually a neutral sensation, it's as much our bodies pumping us up to tackle a problem head-on as it is getting us ready to run away.

In this episode, David explains where these feelings of fear come from and how to control and overcome them so that they don't hold you back. And why in many cases, the fear you feel is a signpost to where success can be found in your business.

About Vegan Business Tribe

069 - Fail fast, fail cheap

David Pannell — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 07:30:00 +0100

In business you're unlikely to get everything right on your first attempt, so learn to embrace a testing culture. Talk to any successful entrepreneur and they will tell you about all the mistakes, failures and missteps that they had to go through before their business found success. This is because before you launch a business, every decision you make is just your best guess based on your life experience to date. So your job as a business founder is to prove - or disprove - an idea as quickly as possible meaning that you can save your time, money and energy for the things that work and move on quickly to the next thing if they don't.

Every time something fails, you learn crucial information; each failure gets you one step closer to the thing that is going to make your business a success. So keep an open mind about what your business might become and learn to fail fast!

About Vegan Business Tribe

068 - How Andrew Alexander raised $10k to fund his vegan documentary

David Pannell — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 07:30:00 +0100

Using crowdfunding to bring massive visibility to your company or project. Andrew Alexander is the director of Creating a Vegan World, a documentary taking a look at what it would actually take to turn the world vegan. But seven days from the end of his crowdfunding campaign to buy the recording kit he needed to get his film on Netflix, Andrew found himself with almost no backing and no real idea of how he was going to hit his target.

In this interview, David finds out how Andrew reached his crowdfunding target with just hours to spare. And also what effect that focused blitz on visibility had well beyond the end of his Kickstarter campaign. Learn more about Andrew's film at www.veganworldfilm.com

About Vegan Business Tribe

067 - Cash is king: how to not run out of money

David Pannell — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 07:30:00 +0100

How to forecast your company's cashflow. Cash is probably the most important thing in your business. Suppliers need to be paid, staff need to take their wages and regardless of what you do, if the money stops then your business stops too.

Even the most successful businesses can find themselves with cashflow problems. But maintaining an up-to-date cashflow forecast lets you see these financial icebergs so that you can change course before you hit them. In this episode, David looks at how to put together a cashflow forecast for your vegan business and then how having an intimate knowledge of your company's finances gives you the information and security you need to make the big decisions about the direction of your business.

About Vegan Business Tribe

066 - How to write and publish a vegan book

David Pannell — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 07:30:00 +0100

How to become a best-selling vegan author. Writing a book is a brilliant way to prove your authority and raise the visibility of both you and your brand - but where do you start? Does it still have the same credibility if you self-publish a book yourself and if so, how do you even decide what you're going to write?

In this special extended episode, we are joined by three best-selling vegan authors Mitali Deypurkaystha, Todd Sinclair and Katrina Fox to share their experience and advice for anyone planning to write a vegan book: How do you know if your idea is the right one? Should you use an editor? Should you do a book launch and do you need to get printed copies or is an e-book good enough? Join us to find out the answers to all these questions and many more!

About Vegan Business Tribe

065 - Announcing Vegan Business Tribe Live 2022

David Pannell — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 07:30:00 +0100

Your chance to come and see us live in London! We take a break from our normal podcast format to announce what is the most ambitious thing we've done yet: two days at the London Olympia for Vegan Business Tribe Live 2022!

The event will be part of the newly returned VegfestUK which is the UK's biggest and best vegan consumer expo. In this special announcement episode, David tells you about what you can expect to see on the VBT stage over the weekend and how your vegan business can get a specially subsidised stand in our 'Vegan Business Village'!

About Vegan Business Tribe

064 - How to get customers to pay more for ethical products

David Pannell — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 07:30:00 +0100

Convincing customers to value ethical, vegan products. Ethical and sustainable ingredients, suppliers and packaging all cost more. This means you're always going to be at a disadvantage if you are trying to compete on price with your ethical product.

But how can you get customers to see the extra value of buying from a company that has a mission? And how can you convince them to pay that little bit extra for products that are trying to do good? David turns to toilet roll (wait, what?!) to explain how to get customers to Give A Crap.

About Vegan Business Tribe

063 - Is it time to quit the day job?

David Pannell — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 07:30:00 +0100

When do you know that it's time to go all-in on your business? Many vegan businesses start as evening and weekend ventures whilst the founder uses the money from their day job to pay the bills. It's an important part of many people's entrepreneurial journey - but when is it the right time to quit the day job and go all-in on your vegan business?

Not only is it important not to give up your regular income too early, but waiting too long can be equally as damaging to your growing business. In this episode, David looks at how to know when the time is right to make the leap and explains that sometimes there is a third option to make that transition go more smoothly.

About Vegan Business Tribe

062 - How to win a pricing war

David Pannell — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 07:30:00 +0100

What to do when a competitor undercuts you on price. If you've been in the vegan sector for a long time then you might have enjoyed not having much competition. Now that veganism has entered the mass market though, you might find yourself in the position when a new competitor comes into your space and tries to undercut you on price.

It's easy to panic when this happens (especially if you don't have a lot of profit in your business in the first place!). But competing on price is one of the oldest tricks there is in business, meaning there are lots of proven strategies that you can follow instead of getting sucked into a race to the bottom.

About Vegan Business Tribe

061 - Why your business shouldn't sell to vegans

David Pannell — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 07:30:00 +0100

Why vegans may not actually be your target market. We know that the biggest consumers of vegan products are not vegan, so if you are just looking to sell to vegans then you might be missing out on potentially your biggest marketplace.

But when you have a vegan business it's not just about what you sell. If you started your business as a way to move the vegan cause forward then where will your company have the biggest impact? Amongst vegans who have already converted or by influencing those who have yet to start their vegan journey?

About Vegan Business Tribe

060 - Time to reflect on your business

David Pannell — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 07:30:00 +0100

The importance of taking time to reflect on your business. The break for the holidays has given many of us time and space to reflect on our vegan businesses. But the reason most of us don't reflect on what we're doing more often is because with that reflection comes the big questions that we'd rather not ask ourselves: Can you call it a business if it doesn't pay you a wage yet or is it just an expensive hobby? Do you need to make some big changes to move the business forwards but making those changes scares you? Are you not following opportunities for growth because you are being too strict with what your business is and isn't?

In this episode, David explains the importance of regularly taking a step back and reviewing where your business is - but also once you've identified what needs to change, why you don't need to reinvent the wheel to do it.

About Vegan Business Tribe

059 - How Kevin Newell veganised the pest-control sector

David Pannell — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 07:30:00 +0100

We speak to Kevin Newell, founder of Europe's only vegan pest-control company. Humane Wildlife Solutions are the perfect case study in what it means to be a vegan business. In fact, Kevin says that he considers the animals to be his customers more than the humans who call for his help when they find creatures to be a nuisance. But the remarkable thing about Humane Wildlife Solutions is that they do next to no marketing but find their inbox full of enquiries every day, to the point where they have been so successful they are able to help fund other animal charities through the work they do.

Kevin explains how he aligned his business with his vegan ethics to disrupt a sector usually reliant on killing and short-term solutions, and why it's important to build a business around your passion if you want to be successful.

About Vegan Business Tribe

058 - What's going to be the next big thing in vegan?

David Pannell — Wed, 15 Dec 2021 07:30:00 +0100

Our 10 predictions for the next vegan growth areas. You might think that the vegan market is becoming over-saturated, with shelves full of vegan burgers, oat milk and dairy-free chocolate. So David looks ahead to bring you his top 10 predictions for the next trends that were going to see in the vegan sector.

From more innovation in food and sustainable ingredients (hello potato milk and pea protein!) to catering for vegans in care, join us as we look at what's going to be the next big thing in vegan.

About Vegan Business Tribe

057 - How to get on podcasts to promote your vegan business.

David Pannell — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 07:30:00 +0100

How to get onto podcasts as a guest. Podcasts as a format have quadrupled in size in just three years and it's estimated that there are now over 2 million separate podcast shows. This means that whatever your unique business niche, there is likely now a podcast talking about it.

But to get invited onto a podcast as a guest you need to understand what podcast hosts are looking for. You just having a vegan business is no longer unique, and if you haven't got a really amazing story or a crucial bit of expertise to share with their listeners, then you're really just asking the host of that podcast to give you a free advert. So how can you find podcasts that might want you as a guest? How can you create a great story if you don't already have one? And how do you approach a podcast host to ask to be interviewed?

About Vegan Business Tribe

056 - 4 big announcements from Vegan Business Tribe!

David Pannell — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 07:30:00 +0100

Behind the scenes with the latest from Vegan Business Tribe. As we look towards the end of the year, David shares four big announcements from Vegan Business Tribe, starting with the news of our new book Vegan Business Revolution: How to succeed with your vegan business.

David also brings you some behind the scenes updates from the tribe and answers the question: "how do you and Lisa fit it all in when there's only two of you?!" And finally, David is challenged by one of our members to tell his cheesiest Christmas joke... content warning: bad jokes. Really bad jokes.

About Vegan Business Tribe

055 - How to have a better website

David Pannell — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 07:30:00 +0100

We talk all things web with Kayleigh from Kakadu Creative. The first thing someone does when they find out about your business is go and check out your website. What they find there dictates what happens next because research shows that someone makes up their mind about your company (and whether they want to work with or buy from you or not) within the first few seconds of loading up your website.

In this episode, we are joined by Vegan Business Tribe member Kayleigh Nicolaou from Kakadu Creative to talk about how to create a website that actually delivers you more customers - and why it's especially important to get it right as a vegan business. Kakadu have also been through their own journey, recently rebranding themselves as a 'vegan' creative agency. So David asks what a difference bringing their vegan ethics to the front has made to their business.

About Vegan Business Tribe

054 - What are investors looking for in a vegan business?

David Pannell — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 07:30:00 +0100

What investors are looking for. There's a lot of money floating around in the vegan sector right now. People are looking to invest in the next Beyond Meat or Oatly but if that's the case, then why can it be so hard to find an investor for your vegan business idea? Few investors will put money into an unproven concept and most won't give you money to see if an idea works just because it's vegan. So David takes a look at what investors are actually looking for in a business and what factors they take into account - and it's not just about your figures.

But that's only half the story. Once you are ready for investment, you need to be able to put all that information into a concise pitch deck or presentation that gives an investor all the information they need at a glance. So what needs to be in that document? How many pages should it be? And how can you use leverage your vegan connection to get an investor to back your mission?

About Vegan Business Tribe

053 - How to make more time

David Pannell — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 07:30:00 +0100

How to create more time to work on the things that will move your business forward. Is not having enough time holding you back? Are you drowning in your inbox? Would you be more successful if only you could find that extra hour in the day or that extra day in the week?

If you are struggling to find time then there's no point in trying to find more just to clear everyday tasks. Instead, you need to create space so that you can work out how to make those tasks take up less of your time or how to get rid of them entirely.

In this episode, David takes a look at the real reasons that we all struggle with time and how you can create systems and change your mindset so that you spend more of your time working on the things that will move your vegan business forward.

About Vegan Business Tribe

052 - How vegan start-up Better Nature scaled up super fast!

David Pannell — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 07:30:00 +0100

We share this interview from our Scale Up video series. Within 6 months of launching, Better Nature had placed their tempeh products into 50 retailers. Within a year they were in 100. Now, just two years after launch, the company is valued at £5.5m and they have recently raised £1.5m through crowdfunding to fund the next stage of their route map.

But how did Better Nature scale up so quickly? This interview with co-founder Chris Kong is part of our Vegan Scale Up series of interviews available to members on the Vegan Business Tribe website. And it doesn't matter if you have a food business like Chris, sell a service or even run a charity, you can adopt the same 'growth mindset' he used to scale up your vegan business.

About Vegan Business Tribe

051 - What we learnt at the Plant Based World Conference

David Pannell — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 07:30:00 +0100

David brings you his notes and thoughts from the Plant Based World Conference & Expo. What kind of products are buyers currently looking for? What happened when Tesco supermarket put their plant-based burgers in the meat aisle? Why did Applewood Vegan Cheese REALLY sell-out across the UK at launch?

Now that the world is opening up again we were excited to attend Plant Based World's first European conference and expo in London. Visited by thousands of plant-based brands, professionals and retail buyers, this was the chance to catch up with those who are making the biggest impact in plant-based right now. From Matthew Glover's Vegan Fried Chicken brand VFC making a big impact on the expo floor, to Heather Mills's advice for those starting a vegan business, David shares his thoughts and observations on where the plant-based sector is at the moment and, more importantly, where it's heading.

About Vegan Business Tribe

050 - How to have a successful vegan podcast (with special guests Katrina Fox, Jim Moore & Hayley Akins)

David Pannell — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 07:30:00 +0100

How to start and run your own vegan podcast. Join us for this special celebratory show as we reach episode 50! To celebrate, we are joined by three vegan podcasting legends to get their advice, stories and tips on how to run your own successful podcast.

Each of our guests have over 100 podcast episodes under their belt and you will learn: Why you or your business should have your own podcast; How to start, and if you need expensive equipment and software; How to find high-quality people to interview; How to use your website to pre-qualify your guests; How to keep your motivation going and your quality of content high; Using your podcast to find more customers and develop a relationship with potential clients; Where to promote your podcast to pick up more listeners and how to use your podcasting to further the vegan agenda, even if you're not leading with a vegan message on your show.

Our three guests are:

Katrina Fox - Journalist, author, animal activist and host of the Vegan Business Talk Podcast and the VIVAS - Conversations with Vegan Women Leaders Podcast.

Jim Moore - Host of the Bloody Vegans Podcast and podcast mentor and editor.

Hayley Akins - Vegan motion designer, mentor and host of the Motion Hatch Podcast.

And as always, hosted by our own David Pannell - Co-Founder of Vegan Business Tribe, host of The Vegan Business Tribe Podcast and vegan business advocate.

About Vegan Business Tribe

049 - Meat made from labradors? Meet Elwood’s Organic Dog Meat

David Pannell — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 07:30:00 +0100

What happens when you parody animal farmers. Molly Elwood started Elwood’s Organic Dog Meat after trying to come up with an idea for a vegan bumper sticker. We’re all familiar with the slogan ‘why love one type of animal but eat another?’, Molly decided to take that one step further and launch a website that mimicked family-owned meat farms, but replacing cows and pigs with labradors and spaniels, to highlight their hypocracy.

Within two months, Elwood's had nearly 30,000 followers on social media. David talks to Molly to find out how she did it and what the reactions have been from people who get taken in.

About Vegan Business Tribe

048 - Get your business ready for Veganuary

David Pannell — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 07:30:00 +0100

How your business can make the most of the Veganuary campaign. Veganuary challenges people to eat vegan for the 31 days of January, and this year well over half a million people from over 200 countries signed up to the challenge. That's only the people who officially registered for the challenge through the website though. Research shows that ten times more people actually participated without officially registering.

As vegan businesses, we should always get behind any campaign that is designed to bring more people over to the plant side, but Veganuary also creates a unique buying environment for your business: people who would at other times of the year have no interest in vegan products and services are now on the lookout for all things vegan. David takes a look at how your company can get involved with the Veganuary (both officially and unofficially) to not just back the campaign but also increase the sales and visibility of your vegan business during that time.

About Vegan Business Tribe

047 - How to start a vegan business (Live from Global Vegfest)

David Pannell — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 07:30:00 +0100

How do you start a vegan business? So you’ve got the idea, you’ve done your research and know there’s a market, but how do you actually START a vegan business? In this panel discussion live-streamed as part of Global Vegfest, David is joined by four vegan entrepreneurs who have all launched their own businesses to get their advice.

We ask: what’s stopping more vegans from starting their own businesses? Do you need to have money to start your own company? What should you do in the run-up to launching a business? And what do our panellists wish they had done differently?

Featuring:

Keith Lesser from Vegan Accountants

Steve Hutchins from DoGood Vegan Dog Food

Mitali Deypurkaystha from Let’s Tell Your Story Publishing

Trevor Banerjee from The Freedom Switch

About Vegan Business Tribe

046 - 5 things you need to make your vegan business a success (Live from Global Vegfest)

David Pannell — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 07:45:00 +0100

The 5 key things you need to have a successful vegan business. There has never been a better time to have a vegan business. Interest in vegan and plant-based is at an all-time high but with so many huge brands now entering the market, how can you have a vegan business that is ethical but also financially viable?

In this seminar live-streamed as part of Global Vegfest, David takes you through the 5 key things that you need to make your vegan business a success. They are:

Don’t start a business, launch a mission.
Don’t just sell to vegans.
Build your business with your customers (or audience).
Go find the people who have already done what you are trying to do and learn how they did it.
Don’t just build a better business, build a better you.

About Vegan Business Tribe

045 - Vegan in vogue: the boom in vegan fashion

David Pannell — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 07:00:00 +0100

The rise of vegan fashion. Vegan fashion is big right now but it's going to get bigger. With celebrities bringing out their own vegan ranges and many major fashion brands now embracing exotic materials like cactus leather, the global vegan fashion marketplace is projected to be worth 1 trillion US dollars by 2027.

But this growth may not be coming from where you think it is. Consumers who don't identify as vegan are choosing vegan clothes and accessories. Countries where veganism hasn't yet taken off are becoming hot marketplaces for innovative new plant-based materials. So what's behind this current boom in vegan fashion? Join us in this episode as we do a deep dive into the stats and explore the impact that veganism is having on the fashion industry.

About Vegan Business Tribe

044 - Is it time to ditch 'plant-based'?

David Pannell — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 08:00:00 +0100

Should we stop using the term 'plant-based' when talking about our businesses and products? Many vegan companies avoid using 'the V word' to describe themselves in fear it might put off non-vegan customers. But recently, Matthew Glover of Vegan Fried Chicken said VFC were banning the phrase 'plant-based' in their marketing because they are "vegan activists first and food producers second".

Many consumers are now actively looking for 'vegan' products even though they may not fully understand the term. In this episode, David looks at how the Covid pandemic and the very visible impact of climate change has turned more people towards choosing vegan alternatives even if they are not vegan themselves. So is the time now right for our businesses to ditch 'plant-based' and all the other euphemisms and finally embrace the term 'vegan'?

About Vegan Business Tribe

043 - Meet our members: join us for a live vegan business networking session

David Pannell — Tue, 31 Aug 2021 08:00:00 +0100

Sit in on a recording from one of our vegan businesses networking meetups! A huge part of building a successful vegan business is connecting with other business people who share the same ethics and who are on the same mission as you are.

In this episode, we bring you a live recording of a recent VBT networking meet-up where 30 of our members will introduce themselves and their vegan businesses to you. We hold these networking meet-ups twice a month, and if you would like to find out how to be at our next one just email David on hello@veganbusinesstribe.com to find out more.

In this session, we are joined by (in order of speaking):

Steve Hutchins - Do Good Dog Food (www.wearedogood.co.uk)
Michaela Lincoln Meltzer - Arbonne (www.michaelameltzer.arbonne.com)
Dana Burton - Vegan Kids (www.vegan-kids.org)
Sabrina Lee - The Impact Agency & LinkedIn Training (www.theimpactagency.org)
Gabriella Rubin - VegMi Vegan Vending Machines (www.vegmi.store)
Aurellia Cammock - VegMi Vegan Vending Machines (www.vegmi.store)
Donna Zeigfinger - Green Earth Travel (www.greenearthtravel.com)
Dr Elisa Beth Haransky-Beck - Enlivening Consciousness (www.enliveningconsciousness.com)
Jay Bharj - Root Minerals Natural Make-up Range (www.rootminerals.com)
Kevin Newall - Humane Wildlife Solutions (www.humanewildlifesolutions.co.uk)
Nina Fogden - Nina Creates Online (www.instagram.com/ninacreatesonline)
Karen Lee - The Sensitive Foodie (www.thesensitivefoodiekitchen.com)
Kayleigh Nicolaou - Kakadu Creative (www.kakaducreative.com)
Sadie Millermaggs - Vegan Interior Designer (slmillermaggs.wixsite.com/website)
Delia Bonfilio - Bonfilio Design (www.bonfiliodesign.com)
Paul Turcotte - Passion Placement (www.passionplacement.com) / New Earth Partners (www.newearthpartners.com)
Tess Seward - Sweeter Life (www.sweeterlife.co.uk)
Ania Wojtkowska - Living Veggie by Ania (www.livingveggiebyania.com)
Lisa Fox - Vegan Business Tribe (www.veganbusinesstribe.com)
John Beske - Vegan Street Media (www.veganstreetmedia.com)
Coral Sirett - Zest Health (www.zest-health.com)
Mitali Deypurkaystha - Let's Tell Your Story Publishing (www.letstellyourstory.com)
Annette and Graham Henry - Henry & Henry (www.henryandhenryeu.com)
Ellie Busby - Vojo Health (www.vojo.health)
Laxmi Owczarek - Visual Synapsis (www.visualsynapses.co.uk)
Matt O'Hara - Mattioli Woods (www.mattioliwoods.com)
Ali Buck - Fitpack (www.fitpack.io)
Victoria Carpenter - Happy Carrot Skincare (www.happycarrotskincare.com)

About Vegan Business Tribe

042 - SPECIAL: Live from Vegan Camp Out!

David Pannell — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 08:00:00 +0100

Grab your tent for this special episode of The Vegan Business Tribe Podcast recorded live at Vegan Camp Out. This weekend-long event is attended by over 10,000 people and celebrates everything it means to be vegan, from activism seminars to rock-star guest headliners - combined with all the fun of camping and late-night partying!

Join Lisa and David live as they share their weekend with you and introduce you to some of the amazing names in vegan business they met at the event; including Eric Brent, founder of the Happy Cow app, Mike Hill founder of One Planet Pizza and many Vegan Business Tribe members. Also find out what Lisa and David learned from the weekend's headline guests: Joey Carbstrong, Chris Packham and Russell Brand.

About Vegan Business Tribe

041 - Does email marketing work? Yes, but not like you think.

David Pannell — Wed, 18 Aug 2021 08:00:00 +0100

Understanding how email marketing actually works. Emailing marketing can produce a reliable stream of new customers, but not if you go about it in the wrong way. You can't just email a bunch of people and expect them to buy your product, even if you are a vegan company selling to other vegans - it just doesn't work like that. Instead, email marketing allows you to take people who have an interest in your product (else they wouldn't be on your mailing list in the first place!) and build trust and familiarity to nurture these people towards becoming customers. So in this episode, David deep-dives into the five reasons that customers do not buy and how you can use your email marketing to help overturn those reasons. He also looks at how you can use professional email marketing software to identify who in your mailing list looks most ready to become a customer, meaning you can reach out to them and gently nudge them over the line.

About Vegan Business Tribe

040 - How to get your business out there (by actually getting yourself out there!)

David Pannell — Tue, 10 Aug 2021 08:00:00 +0100

Increasing your visibility by getting out from behind your computer. One morning, the owner of vegan greetings card company Avocardo got up, made a sandwich board from some old cardboard boxes advertising the company, put it on and headed out to talk to complete strangers about his business. It was so successful at getting him new customers that he ended up on the local news.

We get asked a lot about how a vegan business can generate more visibility. How do you actually get your company out there? Well, sometimes the best way to get yourself out there is to do literally that! In this episode we look at the different ways you can get your company noticed by moving away from both your computer keyboard and your comfort zone. We are also joined by Louis Sandford, founder of Avocardo, to find out what impact the sandwich board stunt had on his business.

About Vegan Business Tribe

039 - Why is Cadbury Bournville now not vegan? The dangers of 'accidentally vegan' products

David Pannell — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 08:00:00 +0100

What's going on at Cadbury? Chocolate giant Cadbury recently caused an uproar amongst vegans when they updated the ingredients list on their 'Bournville Giant Chocolate Buttons' to include milk. We've seen a number of companies change their recipes and make an 'accidentally vegan' product no longer vegan, but the mystery here is that Cadbury says they haven't changed the actual recipe of the product - the milk has always been there due to heavy cross-contamination from the other products they make.

So what's actually going on at Cadbury? What made them now decide to disclose the milk in their Bournville range and what does this mean for other 'accidentally vegan' products? David takes a look at what we can learn from this and why food transparency, and creating 'inclusive' products that everyone can have (no matter what their dietary preferences and allergies) is good for vegan businesses.

About Vegan Business Tribe

038 - How to prevent burnout (and what to do if you're already there)

David Pannell — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 08:00:00 +0100

Tackling burnout when you run a vegan business. If you drive a car, do you just keep driving until you completely run out of fuel leaving you stranded at the side of the road, unable to continue your journey? Of course not, so why do we treat ourselves this way?

It's easy to get stuck in the trap of working longer and longer hours until you get to the point where you feel that you can't carry on, but you can't afford to take time out to recharge either. The more burnt-out you become, the less productive you are making the problem even worse, so what changes can you make in your business to get out of this? How can you reduce the amount of work you actually have to do without your workload suffering? And how can you create the time and space you need to avoid actually hitting burnout in the first place?

About Vegan Business Tribe

037 - How to scale-up your vegan business

David Pannell — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 07:30:00 +0100

How do you scale up a business? When you talk to the founders of vegan companies who have successfully scaled up their businesses, you start to see a lot in common with how they did it. The testing they did to find the thing that they could scale, how they interacted with their early customers and the mindset of being open to following opportunities and going where the business took them (not to mention making the connections needed to be in the right place when those opportunities came along in the first place).

In today's session, we look at how three vegan businesses successfully scaled up and what we can learn from how they did it, including vegan craft-ale Fungtn, Better Nature Tempeh and Miami Burger - who first started out thinking they were in the restaurant business but soon found the secret to their success laid somewhere else entirely.

Watch the separate video interviews with the vegan founders of each of these companies here: https://veganbusinesstribe.com/scale-up/

About Vegan Business Tribe

036 - Live Vegan Business Clinic with Lisa & David

David Pannell — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 08:00:00 +0100

We take you to a live vegan business clinic with four Vegan Business Tribe members. Today, we're going to do something a bit different and pull back the curtain to let you listen in on one of our live business clinics that are usually reserved for Vegan Business Tribe members only. Four members, one problem or question each and (as a room) we try to answer them. In this session we are joined by Vegan Business Tribe members Mitali from Let’s Tell Your Story Publishing, Laxmi from Visual Synapses web agency, Ellie from Vojo Health and Sara from Truckel Creative. The four questions they bring to the clinic are:

1. How do you use 'scarcity' in a genuine way to get people to sign-up to a self-learning course?

2. How do you find more leads and convert customers in a service-based business?

3. How do you create a bespoke and automated online service when you don't have the budget to spend tens of thousands of pounds on a custom website?

4. How can you plan and create a course for those people in your audience who love what you do but can't yet afford to use your main service?

About Vegan Business Tribe

035 - How to deal with anti-vegan comments on your social media posts

David Pannell — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 08:00:00 +0100

Dealing with negative and anti-vegan comments. If you promote your business on social media, then at some point you will inevitably get someone writing an anti-vegan comment on one of your posts. The first time this happens to you it can be really distressing and your first reaction might be to go full-on vegan Rambo in response! You reply with links to studies, YouTube videos and before you know it there’s an absolute trainwreck happening on your company’s social media page.

So in this session, we're going to count to ten and look at better ways to deal with these kinds of comments. Because, most likely, your company has appeared uninvited in this person's news feed meaning YOU might actually be the intruder here. So should you just delete these comments, or should you try to engage with them to bust some vegan myths and plant some seeds? And if so, how do you do it whilst keeping your inner keyboard warrior at bay?

About Vegan Business Tribe

You can join as a 'fan' for free to get access to our weekly content, or sign-up as a full member for £12.99 to get full access to our community, our online events, our vegan marketing course, and all the support you need to grow a successful vegan business.

034 -Are you using non-vegan language in your business?

David Pannell — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 08:00:00 +0100

Speciesism in business language? Lots of the words, phrases and metaphors we use in business - without even realising it - have some very non-vegan origins. Have you ever talked about 'killing two birds with one stone' when talking with a customer? Or should we be comfortable talking about our 'brand' when the term originates from plunging a red-hot implement into the side of an animal to mark ownership of it?

Our choice of language in business is powerful because it normalises behaviour and attitudes. And because the language we use controls our narrative as a culture, should we aim to avoid and replace animal-negative phrases with more vegan-positive ones in our businesses? If so, how can we do that and what can you actually say instead?

About Vegan Business Tribe

033 - What's going on with Oatly?

David Pannell — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 08:00:00 +0100

Why are Oatly upsetting so many of their fans at the moment? Oatly have been one of the leading lights for vegans, almost single-handly exploding a new plant-milk sector into the mainstream and being tipped as the next 'Beyond Meat' for investors. But following taking investment from a global investment fund with a checkered history, and after being criticised for taking heavy-handed legal action against small family-run competitors, many of the company's fans have become increasingly unhappy.

So what's the truth about what's been going on at Oatly? How did the company that said (on its packaging!) that "the reckless pursuit of profit should be criminal" end up on the wrong end of so much bad press? How does a company that subverted the dairy industry now have the same people who championed their mission calling for a boycott of their product? And can a company scale up and grow whilst still getting all the ethical decisions right?

About Vegan Business Tribe

032 - Becoming your own boss: going from employed to having your own vegan business

David Pannell — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 08:00:00 +0100

How do you go from working for someone else to having your own vegan business? A recent survey showed that nearly half of us want to launch our own business, yet the majority of us are employed by someone else. So what's getting in the way of you launching your own business? Is it a lack of time, is it a lack of money, or do you just not know how to do it?

In this session, originally recorded live as a workshop on The Vegan Business Tribe website, I team up with business mentor Trevor Banerjee to talk about the realities of going from being employed to launching your own vegan business: what you need to consider, how you can break down the process into steps and (most importantly) how to keep motivated through the entire process.

About Vegan Business Tribe

031 - How to create your elevator pitch

David Pannell — Tue, 08 Jun 2021 08:00:00 +0100

How do you answer when someone asks: "So, what do you do?" As a vegan business, we're all really excited about our companies. But how do you get someone else excited about your business when you've only got a really short amount of time to explain what you do? Maybe you've got 60 seconds to introduce your company at a networking event. Or perhaps you've got just the time it takes an elevator to go between two floors to tell your dream contact what it is you do. What do you say?!

David gives you seven fundamental points that every 'elevator pitch' needs to have - starting by explaining what problem you solve for your customer rather than just saying what you do, through to how embracing your vegan mission might be the most powerful way you could ever introduce yourself.

About Vegan Business Tribe

030 - Vegan crowdfunding follow-up with Happy Carrot Skincare and Primary Veducation

David Pannell — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 08:00:00 +0100

How two of our Vegan Business Tribe members hit their crowdfunding target. We recently teamed up with CrowdfunderUK to take a group of our Vegan Business Tribe members through a crowdfunding programme. In this episode, we follow-up with Victoria from Happy Carrot Skincare and Laura from Primary Veducation about how they hit their targets. What is really interesting though is where the money came from. For Victoria, she already knew most of the people who backed her project or they were already customers. For Laura, the majority of the backers were complete strangers.

David speaks to both about how they decided how much money they thought they could raise, how they kept the momentum going through their campaigns and what they would do differently if they were trying to hit bigger targets.

About Vegan Business Tribe

029 - How to find your niche... and no, your niche is not 'vegan'

David Pannell — Tue, 25 May 2021 08:00:00 +0100

How do you find your niche as a vegan business? If you think you are already a niche company just because you are a vegan company then I'm afraid you're at least five years too late. 'Vegan' is just the sector you are in and if you want to find your niche, then you are going to have to dig deeper.

A niche is something that a lot of the population won't care about but a select, smaller percent of people will absolutely LOVE. And if you do it right, you can develop a company that has pretty much no competition. In this episode, David takes a look at how businesses find their niche and why just thinking you have found a gap in the market isn't enough.

About Vegan Business Tribe

028 - The move away from meat: how the pandemic has turbo-charged plant-based.

David Pannell — Tue, 18 May 2021 08:00:00 +0100

How the pandemic has turbo-charged the vegan market place. Before the pandemic, half of all UK adults already said they had adopted some form of vegan buying behaviour - such as having meat-free days or choosing plant milk over dairy. But a recent survey by The Vegan Society also found that 1 in 5 people in the UK cut down on eating meat as a result of the pandemic, supercharging the plant-based sector even further.

We know that Covid-19 is a zoonotic disease, or rather it is a disease transferred from animals, usually as a result of eating them, farming them or wildlife trading. And with three-quarters of the world’s new infectious diseases emerging this way, a lot more people are examining our species' relationships with animals. This is now playing out on the supermarket shelves, in the food and the products that people are buying. What does that mean for the meat industry? What does it mean for consumer buying behaviour? And what does it mean for your vegan business?

About Vegan Business Tribe

027 - How to create a marketing funnel

David Pannell — Tue, 11 May 2021 08:00:00 +0100

What is a marketing funnel, and how do you create one to get more customers? If you understand the journey your customers take before they buy, if you map out the steps that someone has to take to become a customer, then you can develop strategies to move people along those steps instead of just leaving it to chance.

This is what we call a marketing funnel - but don't think that people will move through your funnel on their own. Some will, but the vast majority won't. In this episode, David takes a look at the three stages of a marketing funnel, how you can take customers from the top to the bottom, and (if your funnel isn't working) where people are probably getting stuck.

About Vegan Business Tribe

026 - Why you hate selling, and how to get over it.

David Pannell — Tue, 04 May 2021 08:00:00 +0100

Why do so many of us absolutely HATE selling and how do you get over it? Why do we have such a revulsion to selling ourselves? Being vegan, we're not usually afraid to push a cause - but promoting ourselves or making money from the vegan sector seems to really make us feel uncomfortable.

Your experience of 'sales' is probably someone trying to pressure you to buy something that you were not really sure you needed or even wanted - but that's not sales, at the best that's scamming people. If you genuinely believe that your product or business will improve someone's life or solve a significant problem that they have, then it is your duty to help that person become a customer so you can solve their problem.

In this episode, David takes a look at how you can reframe 'selling' into 'helping', and how to develop your own confidence in your product and your pricing (did we mention that membership to Vegan Business Tribe is equivalent to buying a coffee a week from your local cafe?!). Because if you don't overcome your aversion to selling then you will always be holding back, you will never be giving your business your best shot.

About Vegan Business Tribe

025 - Getting the most out of vegan fairs and markets

David Pannell — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 08:00:00 +0100

How to get the most out of having a stall at a vegan fair or market. If you are trying to get your business 'out there' then sometimes the best way to do that is to literally 'get out there'. For some companies, vegan fairs are one of their main routes of selling their products to the public, others do it to build an audience, but one of the main reasons to do your local fair is to get real one-on-one engagement with customers that you won't get anywhere else.

If you are early-on in your business and struggling to work out why people are not buying your product - then go take a stall at your local vegan fair! It won't surprise you that many huge brands and business multi-millionaires started out on market stalls because this is where you can do all your first-hand research to work out exactly what REAL people want and think about your products.

David takes a look at how to make the most from taking a stall at one of these events and what strategies you can use to find new customers, even if they don't actually buy from you on the day.

About Vegan Business Tribe

024 - Crowdfunding your vegan business

David Pannell — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 08:00:00 +0100

How do you crowdfund a vegan business? How easy is it and what does it take to hit your target? The truth is less than 25% of crowdfunding campaigns are successful. 10% of campaigns don't receive a single pledge.

In March 2021, Vegan Business Tribe teamed up with CrowdfunderUK to help a group of vegan businesses owners go through a collective crowdfunding programme. In this episode, we share everything that the group learnt about rewards-based crowdfunding, including how to work out how much money you are likely to be able to raise, which platform you should use, and what it takes to get your crowdfunding campaign over the line.

About Vegan Business Tribe

023 - How to get motivated

David Pannell — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 08:00:00 +0100

You can't just sit there waiting for motivation to happen. Because it just doesn't, that's not how it works. If you wait to do something until the motivation to do it manifests itself, then you're still going to be sat there waiting this time next year.

To understand how motivation works, you first need to understand how the human brain works. There is no such thing as a naturally motivated person, those with motivation have a strategy in place to first get motivated and then stay that way. In this episode, David looks at how you can trick your brain to motivate itself and then use techniques such as accountability groups to keep you going. And if your business is firmly rooted in the vegan cause, then you also have a whole extra toolbox to keep you motivated.

About Vegan Business Tribe

022 - How we launched Vegan Business Tribe, and what you can learn from it!

David Pannell — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 08:00:00 +0100

We share what worked (and what didn't) from our first year of building Vegan Business Tribe. Few people wake up with an idea for a business and then just go out and build their vision. It doesn't work like that because you don't start out with all the pieces.

Lisa and David never meant to launch Vegan Business Tribe, they actually set out with a completely different idea entirely. And to celebrate our first year anniversary, David tells the story of where Vegan Business Tribe came from, how it grew so quickly, and how testing the concept proved that all our assumptions about what we THOUGHT people wanted were utterly and completely wrong!

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021 - How much do I need to budget for marketing?

David Pannell — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 08:00:00 +0100

Is there a guideline for how much money a vegan business should allocate to marketing? Maybe you're planning a business and you want to know how much you need to budget each month for marketing costs. Or maybe you want to know what a reasonable percentage of your turnover would be to put back into generating sales? Surely there's a recommended percentage that companies allocate to marketing?

The truth is, what each business needs to spend on acquiring new customers is wildly different. Would you launch a business if you had no idea how much it cost to make your product? No, of course not. So why would you launch a business without spending the same time working out how much it was actually going to cost you to get a customer?

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020 - How to build-up your mailing list

David Pannell — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 08:00:00 +0100

How do you build up a mailing list? How do you get people to give up their email address? One of the big problems we see with vegan businesses is that they are just not talking to a big enough audience. In this episode, David looks at how you can take a mailing list from a couple of hundred subscribers to several thousand, and what strategies you can put in place to make sure your list keeps growing.

Do 'lead magnets' work? Do sign-up forms on your website actually get sign-ups? Should you just buy new contacts? And if you have thousands of followers on social media, how do you get those people off your Instagram page and into your email list so that you can actually start having conversations with them?

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019 - Live: Taboos we don't talk about in business

David Pannell — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 08:00:00 +0100

We talk a lot about success, but what about the taboos in business that EVERYONE goes through but few talk about? Business failure, debt, mental health pressures, hidden disabilities... We bring together three successful vegan entrepreneurs to have an honest discussion about these things that we don’t talk about in business.

In this playback from a live panel as part of VegfestUK online, we approach the subject with some much-needed honesty about the journey that business owners and those running a business actually go through. That might be the mental health toll of running a business, dealing with the reality of debt and business failure and how to get through it, or living and working with disabilities that might be invisible to others.

Hosted by David, we are joined by three vegan entrepreneurs who have each successfully overcome their own struggles in business: Mike Hill from One Planet Pizza, Blue O’Connor from Kings Grooming, and our own Lisa Fox.

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018 - How to use your ethics to beat the big brands

David Pannell — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 08:00:00 +0100

If you are a vegan business, how do you compete with the big brands launching products into the vegan marketplace at the moment? The Vegan Galaxy chocolate bar, the Greggs Sausage Roll - they have years of brand recognition, huge marketing budgets and agreements with retailers to get the best shelf-placement?

Trying to beat them using their rules isn’t going to work. You can’t just say you make a better product because they can use their marketing power to convince customers otherwise. But you have three advantages over these brands: your ethics, your knowledge of vegan customers and your mission. You have a burning desire to create a fairer, cruelty-free world, meaning you can connect with your customers in a way they simply cannot: when you have a vegan business, lives are literally at stake.

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017 - How to collaborate with other vegan businesses

David Pannell — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 08:00:00 +0100

The power of collaboration: How linking up with other vegan businesses will make you both more successful. 'Vegan' is not just an industry sector, it's a movement and we know that we can achieve more together. Maybe you sell vegan handbags and you link-up with someone selling vegan shoes. Or you sell LinkedIn training and you collaborate with a vegan photographer who does professional headshots. Or you sell vegan doughnuts so you team-up with your local brewery to make the perfect match-up to their vegan beer. There are lots of ways you can collaborate with other businesses to create a bigger story for both of you - and sometimes, to create a bigger mission.

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016 - How to work with vegan influencers to promote your business

David Pannell — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 08:00:00 +0100

How do you find, approach and work with a vegan influencer to promote your business? And what will they want in return? An influencer is just someone who has brought together an audience of people who are interested in a specific topic, and if you find the right influencer, they may be the conduit to a perfect ready-made audience for your business. Influencers aren't just YouTubers or Instagram stars. They may have email lists, blogs, podcasts or run live events.

So let's take a look at how vegan influencers operate, how you can find them, how to contact them and what they will want in return. And if you DO want to work with influencers to promote your business, it's important to understand not only how they earn a living, but also how they built up their audience in the first place.

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015 - Are you sure your product is 100% vegan?

David Pannell — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 08:00:00 +0100

How do you make sure that your product, and business, is 100% vegan? Ever wondered why apples are so shiny? Ever wondered what alcohol is filtered through? Ever thought about how they get refined sugar so white? Animal-derived products and ingredients have permeated every corner of our world. They are cheap, they are gruesome and often they are hidden - and it's your duty to make sure they don't get into your products.

And if your business doesn't make a product, there are still lots of ways you can embrace your vegan credentials - from the handwash in your washrooms through to the suppliers your business buys from.

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014 - We need to talk about 'imposter syndrome'

David Pannell — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 08:00:00 +0100

Do you feel like a fraud in business? Are you worried someone is going to find you out? Do you have an internal voice like this always questioning if you’re good enough? If so, this is something we really need to talk about. Because it’s not something that is unique to you – it’s called ‘Imposter Syndrome’.

Not only do we need to talk about it - but we need to talk about how to overcome it because it will always hold you back. EVERYONE has it, in fact a 2007 study showed that 70% of us will suffer from impostor syndrome. So how do you get over it? Well, the answer might not be what you are expecting!

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013 - Live: How to fund a vegan business (part 2)

David Pannell — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 08:00:00 +0100

(Part two) Recorded live at VegfestUK, we bring together three experts in funding vegan businesses in this special two-part episode.

In part one we heard from Nick Mayhew of VFin, who compares both the traditional and modern ways of raising money, and Claire Smith, founder of Beyond Animal and Beyond Investing who is herself an impact investor. In part two, David speaks with Mike Hill, co-founder of One Planet Pizza who talks about his first-hand experience of raising money as the company grew. Finally, after the interviews, we then bring all the experts together to answer questions that were submitted by members of Vegan Business Tribe which you really don't want to miss, because there is just as much information in the Q&A session at the end as the individual interviews.

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012 - Live: How to fund a vegan business (part 1)

David Pannell — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 08:00:00 +0100

Recorded live at VegfestUK, we bring together three experts in funding vegan businesses in this special two-part episode. The money IS out there. If you have a really keen idea for a vegan business, or even better if you've already proven a vegan business and now need more funds to scale it up, then there is a lot of interest in backing vegan and plant-based businesses right now.

But it might be if you don't have the contacts, or you've never tried to go out and find money before that you don't know where to start. So in this panel, I interview three experts in vegan funding: Nick Mayhew of VFin, who compares both the traditional and modern ways of raising money; Claire Smith, founder of Beyond Animal and Beyond Investing who is herself an impact investor; and Mike Hill, co-founder of One Planet Pizza who talks about his first-hand experience of raising money as the company grew. Finally, after the interviews, we then bring all the experts together to answer questions that were submitted by members of Vegan Business Tribe which you really don't want to miss, because there is just as much information in the Q&A session at the end as the individual interviews.

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011 - How to use LinkedIn to connect with your dream vegan contacts

David Pannell — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 08:00:00 +0100

Did you know there's a secret code that vegans use on LinkedIn to find each other? In this episode I'm going to convince you why you need to be on LinkedIn as a vegan business owner or vegan professional. You might already have a LinkedIn profile, and it sits there not really doing anything and you don't see the point to it. But since Microsoft bought LinkedIn in 2016, the platform has started to become more appealing and accessible to a wider range of users. Yes, you still have your big boardroom executives using LinkedIn, but now you also have more smaller business owners and mid-level professionals. And this is where the magic of LinkedIn can happen: those decision-makers and people in senior roles who you are unable to contact through other methods, there's a good chance that you can connect with them on LinkedIn.

So today's we take a look at Linkedin, why you should be on it and how you can use it make better quality connections. We also look at the secret code that vegans use to identify and connect with each other which will hugely increase the number of connections you make.

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010 - How big is the marketplace for a vegan business?

David Pannell — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 08:00:00 +0100

You may have been told that vegan is too much of a niche or a fad to launch a new product into, or it's too small a marketplace to grow a successful business. But what's the truth about that, and if that's the case why are so many vegan businesses growing so quickly right now?

David takes a look at the statistics and answers the questions: 1. Just how many vegans are there right now and are there enough to sell to? And 2. If your company sells to other companies, how many vegan businesses are there that will want to buy your services?

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009 - Why some vegan businesses fail and others succeed: it's all about you

David Pannell — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 08:00:00 +0100

The reason why some businesses fail and others succeed often comes down to one simple common element: the attitude and determination of the person running it. To learn why businesses fail, what you ACTUALLY have to learn is why successful businesses succeed and identify what's missing compared to those that don't. In today's episode, we look at why building a successful business is like running an obstacle course, with each obstacle just being another problem you need to overcome. But if you don't have the right mental attitude to learn HOW to overcome each obstacle as you hit it, then you will join the majority of the population who get stuck or just give up. David explains how you can build an unshakable faith in your ability to learn, and why your attitude to overcoming problems dictates your chance of having a successful vegan business.

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008 - Live: Future vegan product trends (Part 2)

David Pannell — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 08:00:00 +0100

What's going to be the next big thing in vegan, and what are the future trends you should be aware of if you have a vegan business?

In part two of this two-part podcast recorded live at VegfestUK Online, I continue my discussion with Louisianna Waring, The Vegan Society's Insight & Commercial Policy Officer, and Dan Strettle owner of Alternative Stores (and vegan himself for over 5 decades) about vegan product trends.

In part one, we talked about what's hot right now and where this demand in plant-based products and services is coming from - and in part two we now go on to talk about what the next BIG THING in vegan is going to be.

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007 - Live: Future vegan product trends (Part 1)

David Pannell — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 08:00:00 +0100

What's going to be the next big thing in vegan, and what are the future trends you should be aware of if you have a vegan business?

In part one of a two-part podcast, we're going to answer a REALLY big question. And that is: what's going to come next? What's going to be the next big thing in vegan? To answer this I am joined by Louisianna Waring, The Vegan Society's Insight & Commercial Policy Officer, and Dan Strettle who is the owner of Alternative Stores (who are based at Heather Mill's Plant-based Valley, just outside of Newcastle in the UK) and who has been vegan himself for over 5 decades.

We recorded this discussion live as part of VegfestUK's Summerfest Online. In the first half, Louisianna, Dan and myself uncover where all this demand for vegan and plant-based products has come from and what's really hot right now. Then in part two (in the next episode), we look at what the growth areas are for vegan businesses, products and services and give our own tips for where the market is heading.

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006 - Every successful vegan business needs to build a tribe

David Pannell — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 08:00:00 +0100

To build a successful business, you need a group of followers who absolutely cannot live without your product or who believe in your vegan mission.

These people will help you spread your message and attract more people who also love what you are doing. They will become your brand ambassadors. They will become your ‘tribe’.

In this episode we look at why when you create a vegan company, you shouldn't just launch a business, you should start a movement. Because having 10 customers who are absolute champions for you business and believe 100% in your company's mission is better than 100 customers who just buy from you once and you never see again. And once you've found and built your tribe, David explains how to keep them and use your tribe to help you grow a more successful business.

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005 - Get your vegan business ready for Veganuary

David Pannell — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 07:00:00 +0100

Veganuary can be an amazing time for your vegan business. Here are the four steps to get ready for it.

In January HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people will be signing up for the Veganuary challenge. Veganuary is a worldwide movement to get people to try being vegan for 31 days every January - and although it started out small (in 2014 they had just over 3,000 people take up the challenge) it has grown every year with a staggering 400,000 people signing up through the Veganuary website in 2020. BUT, the Veganuary organisation estimate that ten times as many take on the challenge without officially signing up.

What does this mean for your company? It means there is a big spike in interest for vegan and plant-based products every January. So if you have a vegan company or you sell a plant-based product or service, it means you too can tap into this rise in consumer interest in vegan every year - and leverage the publicity the campaign brings.

In this episode, David walks you through the 4 steps to put together your own marketing plan for Veganuary, shows you how to get your company involved so you can support the campaign and gives some tips for things you might want to do to make the most of Veganuary.

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004 - How to get your vegan business in the news (with Eden Green PR)

David Pannell — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 18:00:00 +0100

Join us for our vegan PR masterclass with Caroline from Eden Green PR.

Today's episode is a little longer than usual because I'm sharing a masterclass that we recorded for Vegan Business Tribe with Caroline Burgess-Pike from Eden Green PR on 'how to get your vegan business in the news'. Now, one of the biggest questions we get asked at VBT is 'How do I get my business OUT THERE?' Because when you first start a vegan business, you spend a lot of time focusing on your product and your service but you don't always have those skills in place to then get your product in the news. If this is you, then we're going to change all that in this episode.

So first we look at how to work out what's actually newsworthy about your business - and the truth is, your company JUST BEING VEGAN is no longer a news story. Once you've worked out what that newsworthy hook is, we then go on to talk about the practical side of getting your business in the news: how to approach editors of magazines and online news outlets, how to connect with influencers on Instagram and YouTube, all the really hands-on practical stuff. This is really one to listen to with your notebook nearby!

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003 - How to find more customers for your vegan business (a guide to customer research).

David Pannell — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 18:00:00 +0100

How do you REALLY find more customers for your vegan business? Let's go right back to basics and find out.

In this episode we are looking at something which is the LIFEBLOOD of any vegan business, and that is finding customers.

And it doesn't matter if you sell a physical product, or if you offer a vegan service, or even if you are a charity looking for donations - you RELY on people giving you their money. And this is where many vegan businesses falter. Because, and I've said it before, vegans don't seem to be comfortable making money! But we all need customers and, usually, we all need more of them.

So - we're going to get right back to basics. You might be wondering about the best way to find customers, should you be using Instagram, should you be doing PR, or should you try some appointment-making telemarketing or Google Pay Per Click advertising - and the reality is, if this is where you are starting when trying to work out how to get more customers then you need to just STOP. Because do you know what is completely missing from your planning? UNDERSTANDING THE CUSTOMER.

If you don't, then all you're doing is guessing what will work, and you hit nothing by shooting in the dark.

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002 - Should you call your company or product 'Vegan'?

David Pannell — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 18:00:00 +0100

Should you call your company or product vegan, plant-based or something else?

In today's episode we're going to start with one of the main questions we get asked at Vegan Business Tribe, and it's all about how you should refer to your business or product.

If you have a vegan business, should you actually CALL it a vegan business - or if you are selling a product that is vegan, will LABELLING it 'vegan' put people off from buying it?

It's an interesting question because, as you know, us vegans are never shy about letting people know about it! But why do Beyond Meat, Meatless Farm and even Oatly rarely use the term vegan? David looks at when you SHOULD use the term vegan for what you sell, and when you should use plant-based, or even something else entirely.

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001 - Why have a vegan business?

David Pannell — Tue, 10 Nov 2020 18:00:00 +0100

WHY? We start by answering this really fundamental question for anyone who has a vegan business (or is thinking about starting one).

Why are you doing this? Why are we ALL doing this? Why should you have a vegan business? You might already have a great product, service, or idea for a vegan business, but maybe you’ve not got all the business skills or experience that you wish you had – and right now, that doesn’t matter. Because what you DO have, that other business owners don’t, is a burning passion to make the world a better, fairer and cruelty-free place. And no matter what else, that’s an AMAZING place to start.

In this episode, I take a look at the plant-based market as a whole and answer the question to who is really buying all these vegan products if vegans only make up one or two percent of the marketplace? And I also ask: why do vegans have such a reluctance to make money from what they do – because let me tell you right now, you can do a lot more good in the world with a profit than with a loss!

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