In 2010, The Collective brand was founded by two entrepreneurial chefs, Angus Allan and Ofer Shenhav, in New Zealand. Within a year, it was the country’s bestselling gourmet yoghurt. It has since expanded to the UK, where it is just as popular. Supply Chain and Procurement Director Gary Lake explained to Hannah Barnett how The Collective owes much of its success to a willingness to be different.
ITis not surprising that The Collective, a business founded by two chefs, prioritises exceptional taste.
“That is not true of our competitors, who were largely founded by big dairy cooperatives looking to add value to their milk pool,” said Gary Lake, Supply Chain and Procurement Director. “We’re coming at it from a completely different angle. We’ve got enough evidence to say we’ve got the best tasting yoghurt in the market. Other companies have tried to launch similar products, but they never work because they just don’t taste as good.
“We’re a premium challenger brand, so we also do crazy things that other companies won’t or can’t do. We recently launched a limited edition strawberry matcha flavour, one layer is green matcha and the other layer is strawberry, it’s very visually impactful and very trend forward using inspiration from TikTok.”
Doing it differently
The company has over 100 people working in its New Zealand HQ and around 35 in London. One of the first products the company launched in the UK was the raspberry gourmet yoghurt it is famous for. This stood out immediately, thanks to the thick, creamy base and multiple layers of fruit.
“Even the packaging was different,” said Mr Lake. “While everyone was using a plain white pot, we had a distinctly short and round clear one, showing the quality of the ingredients. Since then, it’s been copied numerous times. But we still have many loyal followers for that product and do good business with it. Our key role in our category is to be different.”
The Collective was the first in its sector to launch yoghurt pouches for children in
2015 by establishing its ‘Suckies’ range, and last year added £4 million in retail sales value to the category. The company won two awards at The Grocer Product & Packaging Awards 2023 for this range: Best Product Launch for its new Brekkie pouches and the Best New Product for its Dairy Free Suckies pouches.
“Kids are very good at feedback,” said Mr Lake. “They’re honest. It doesn’t matter how reasonably priced or sustainable a product is, if it doesn’t taste good or is fun to eat, then kids don’t want it.”
The company also won The Sunday Times Best Place to Work for Small Businesses for the second year in a row. Why?
“Number one is engagement,” explained Mr Lake. “We do a quarterly survey, and the last one showed over 90 per cent engagement. We ask about a feeling of belonging at work and about having confidence in where the business is going. The results are really positive. We’ve got a highly engaged team who believe in what we’re doing.”
The Collective has invested £1 million into a marketing campaign that increased
brand awareness by 175% over the last two years. This allowed the company to develop its distinctive presence further. This year, the brand’s creative, insight-led approach made it a finalist in The Drum Awards for Marketing EMEA.
“We’re only as good as our brand recognition,” said Mr Lake. “It can be difficult to get any cut through as a small player in a market dominated by multinationals. We are bolder and more distinctive, so the advertising campaigns are humorous and irreverent. We get away with things that big corporates might not get past their legal teams. Not that we’re saying anything wrong, but we just have a bit more personality.”
A sustainable strategy
Alongside the preservation of taste, The Collective has another simple goal: to be the most sustainable dairy company in the world. This means creating delicious products in a way that has the least possible impact on the planet.
The company is making good progress in the UK as the first dairy to receive B Corp
certification. In 2023, it raised its score to 104.5 – the highest for any yoghurt brand.
“B Corp gives a framework to improve in every area of business,” Mr Lake explained.
“The publicly facing stuff is about ESG, but it also helps to run the business better. Some companies working with B Corp have a separate team working on it, never embedding the practices into the organisation. We avoided that, which was initially more challenging, but the outcome is much better.”
Assisting The Collective on this journey to sustainability is ClimatePartner, who helps customers to calculate and reduce carbon emissions, as well as financing climate projects. The Collective is also working alongside other companies to increase regenerative farming in the UK, with the potential benefits of reducing carbon emissions, increasing biodiversity and providing stability to the supply chain.
“First Milk is doing regenerative farming really well at the moment, so we’re supporting that,” said Mr Lake. “The milk market is hugely complex, but the best way to support the dairy industry is to seek out the best suppliers.”
The company is also improving its packaging. Much of its packaging is already made of post-consumer recycled (PCR) material, and therefore part of the circular economy. More than 85% of the company’s packaging uses PCR material and over 90% will be recyclable by the end of 2024.
Pride in partnership
The Collective does not have its own factories in the UK, so the company relies heavily on its manufacturing partners.
As a result, close relationships are vitally important, and the company has been working alongside one factory since 2011.
“We’ve got a very long-standing partnership that is guaranteed now and for the future,” said Mr Lake. “I think in a world where things can be quite transient, that goes a long way.”
The company works closely with suppliers across all levels of the business – including sourcing ingredients and packaging, processing the milk, and creating the yoghurt. It has even helped to train some suppliers, meaning The Collective is fully embedded at every stage of the process.
“And they’re all based in the UK,” Mr Lake added. “These are local relationships, using local ingredients. That has really helped us to gain traction in the market. It means that on the rare occasion that things go wrong, we’re closer to both supplier and consumer, so it’s a lot easier to resolve.”
For Mr Lake, it is the opportunity to make a genuine difference that attracts him to the industry.
“I love working in food and drink, because everyone needs to eat,” he concluded. “It means what I do every day will have an impact on millions of people that I’ll never meet. It’s the same with packaging and the B Corp movement. We are not doing that because anyone’s particularly going to recognise it. But making the business a B Corp, taking responsibility for our impact on the world and trying to do the right thing, is something which motivates me.” n
