Ones to watch - Fabula Toys

Fabulous Fabula

Toy World spoke to Nazneen Yasin, founder of the start-up traditional toy company Fabula Toys, about why creating screen-free play is at the heart of everything she does, and what sets her toys apart in the marketplace.

Tell us a little about your company. What are its core ranges, and what is the ethos behind your brand?

Fabula Toys, named after the Latin word for fables or stories, produces toys that facilitate play using a universal language every child is fluent in even before they can comprehend actual vocabulary – nursery rhymes.

The company is built on the ethos that if young children are to stop spending time in front of a screen, it’s imperative they’re offered an alternative. Any alternative must explore the same thing they adore on-screen, but in a traditional way. The most viewed digital content among young children continues to be nursery rhymes. That’s why each Fabula toy focuses on a single popular nursery rhyme, exploring the characters, the story and sometimes even the actions involved to help young children visualise and engage with the rhyme in the physical environment. True to it’s meaning, each Fabula toy has storytelling at its core.

Fabula products are also designed around the Early Years Learning Goals set by the UK Department of Education, ensuring that children engage both their hearts and minds every time they interact with Fabula. Learning is a key purpose for the brand, so the educational benefits of each toy are explicitly highlighted across the website as well as the product packaging.

Fabula Toys is quite a young company. How has it been performing so far?

Indeed, we’re only a year into trading and already have over 500 customers across the UK including many retailers currently in their second and third rounds of ordering from us. Although we might be new, we offer proven sell-throughs.

What do your products offer from a retail perspective?

There are quite a few things I can proudly say are unique to Fabula. Firstly, I am one of the many parents of my generation actively looking for ways to minimise (or at least balance) the screen-time our children are regularly exposed to. I honestly feel there isn’t enough innovation in this space. While some other toys in the market might offer active play options, absolutely no one actively asks why very young children love screen time. Fabula Toys doesn’t just ask that very important question, but also replicates the magic formula of nursery rhymes/story/music/unending play within each of its toys, making it an instant hit among children by substituting screen-time with active play.

Secondly, Fabula Toys as a brand focuses solely on bringing nursery rhymes to life. This approach carves out a clear niche for our products. Nursery rhymes transcend cultures, languages and generations, which makes our toys ideal for grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and, of course, children. Fabula toys need no explanation; no complicated manual needs to be read before play can begin. Everyone relates to and loves our toys immediately, making them incredibly easy to sell.

As I mentioned earlier, all our toys are designed around the Early Years Learning Goals. These goals are clearly shown on the packaging, helping retailers display exactly why and how our toys support the development of children. We don’t just claim to be educational - we prove exactly how we’re educational. And given the educational nature of Fabula’s toys, they can be sold to parents and gift-givers as well as institutions such as nurseries and primary schools. The target market is vast.

All our toys are storage-friendly too: they can be compressed and stored in the accompanying bags and boxes, which makes them ideal for use both indoors and outdoors, as well as on trips and overnight stays with grandparents etc. They’re also extremely wellsuited to our post-Covid world, as they can easily be washed or wiped clean after each play.

As a supplier, what makes Fabula Toys a good partner?

I am a hardworking and ambitious founder with big plans for the business, and my enthusiasm and drive are on offer to anyone looking to work with a new brand. I’m not just an email address to send orders to - I give 110% to driving sell-through. Perks of partnering with Fabula Toys include: no minimum orders, campaign support, marketing materials, visual merchandising tools, in-person availability for in-store demos and plenty of great PR for the brand and it retail partners.

What do you hope to achieve at Toy Fair?

Our primary purpose will be to meet retailers and secure new accounts, spreading the word of Fabula Toys as far and wide as we possibly can. I’m thrilled simply to be part of this amazing industry and I am so looking forward to the exhibiting alongside all the inspiring brands registered for London Toy Fair.

Given that I was inspired to start Fabula Toys after reading a research paper on screen-time concerns published at Toy Fair 2018, attending the show in 2021 is like coming full circle. I couldn’t miss it; signing up just had to be done. I owe the inspiration for my startup to the BTHA and Toy Fair.

Finally, what one thing should our readers know about your company?

I can’t pick just one thing, that’s too hard. I’d want them to know that we are young, award-winning, innovative, agile, ambitious and very hard working. Ultimately, people look for personalities that are compatible with theirs, and it’s the same in business - only when we find brands and people as committed and sincere as we are can we build a successful partnership. If you walk past the Fabula Toys stand at Toy Fair 2022, I promise you won’t miss either the toys or me. We’re bringing all our energy and enthusiasm to rope you in.

Fabula Toys will be on stand GH9 at Toy Fair. For more information, call 020 3633 9684, visit

Ones to watch

Kay Glennie - Managing director, Scrunch

The idea for Scrunch developed 18 years ago whilst on holiday with my two young sons. Carting clunky sandy plastic buckets home after beach trips or leaving them behind in overseas resorts felt wasteful. The concept of a bucket (and other beach toys) that could scrunch up and fit into a beach bag or suitcase with ease was born and became an obsession. I was intrigued by the silicone bakeware that had started to arrive in the UK; new synthetic rubber which was made of plain silicon (found in abundance in rock and sand) and oxygen. After many prototypes, the original Scrunch bucket made of 100% recyclable and reusable eco-friendly silicone was born and “Roll it, fold it, scrunch it!” became my strapline. The same bucket is at the core of the range which has expanded over the intervening years. Last year the Scrunch watering cans and seedling pots became very popular during lockdown as children pootled about in gardens and allotments. With a lot of hard graft, the Scrunch marketplace has expanded and is now distributed worldwide. We are represented in 40 countries, and still growing. At the start of 2021, we brought the UK distribution back in-house, to Scrunch HQ in West Sussex. We now deal directly with our growing number of UK retailers which is a joy and delight; being able to listen to their feedback, particularly regarding shape and colour requests.

2021 was a fantastic year for Scrunch, despite the pandemic, and we devoted a lot of time and energy to product research and development for 2022. The worldwide success of the original Scrunch-bucket provided us with the perfect platform to come up with exciting and innovative new shapes and products which all complement each other within the range. All our products remain made of 100% silicone, an important feature as the world at last rejects single use plastic. Each new product has been well designed, extensively prototyped and developed, with fun, creativity, functionality and a hint of educational purpose at its core.

Colours for the UK have been inspired by talking closely to our stockists, and we will be presenting a rainbow of colours from pastels to funky brights at the upcoming Toy Fair. Scrunch remains the original, and the attention to detail that we are obsessed with makes us stand out.

We can’t wait to meet both our existing and new customers at the Toy Fair in January 2022.

Andy Griffin - Marketing Director, Reydon Sports

This will be Reydon’s first time exhibiting at Toy Fair, so we are very much looking forward to networking with suppliers within the industry along with showcasing our products and ethos to an array of retailers across many sectors.

We aren’t a brand showcasing a new range every other quarter, we are a 7000+ SKU wholesale company offering industry leading products, brands and service to an array of sectors on a B2B level all year round.

Established in the 1970s and based in Nottingham, we are a leading supplier for sports, toys, leisure and outdoor, offering a complete range via our own van delivery service from both our Nottingham and Scottish branches. From educational supplies and sports equipment to garden games and toys, we have everything covered. Some of our top brands include Nerf, Sportcraft, Waboba, Franklin, Precision Training, Urban Fitness, Nike, Adidas and many more.

Purely a B2B wholesale company, we service retailers across the world, providing industry leading products at the click of a button at discounted trade pricing. Our team of over 60 includes a full assortment of buying, sales, marketing, accounting and logistics specialists, servicing our huge B2B customer base all year round.

Keith Finch - Studio and Innovation Director, Build Your Own (Paper Engine Ltd)

Paper Engine Ltd are the creators of Build Your Own, an award-winning range of eco-friendly children’s toys you can build yourself. Made from sustainable cardboard, our growing range of kits – both original kits and our new smaller-sized Mini Builds - is suitable for children 8 years+ but best enjoyed as a family experience. We love to inspire curious young minds and encourage learning through play.

Our planet-friendly, STEM-inspired kits offer retailers an exciting range of innovative toys that both children and grownups love. As a young brand, we are proud to be accessible to our customers and are striving to build our community of Build Your Own ‘STEM-gineers’ so that we can develop the best possible kits. We are highly creative, agile, and able to stay connected with our audience from concept stage, through to manufacturing and on-sale. We manage all of this from our HQ in Eastleigh, Hampshire.

Our kits are designed in the UK by a team of brilliant paper engineers with decades of experience designing and producing innovative products, pop-up books, direct mail pieces, packaging and more. We love working with paper and board.

Our award-winning kits are high-quality and eco-friendly; we are always striving to be more planet-friendly with our designs. Our technical understanding of paper and cardboard (and the parameters of what can be created from these materials) has come from 25+ years’ experience as paper engineers. We will continue to push the boundaries as we develop our range of sustainable products and bring exciting paper mechanics (along with an educational/STEM element) to the market. We thrive on creative challenges.

We will be launching multiple new kits in 2022, each supported with solid marketing campaigns. These kits will expand the STEM element of our designs as we continue to bring fresh, exciting innovation to the toy industry.

At Toy Fair, we are looking to strengthen and build B2B relationships and to grow our retail and wholesale distribution. We are keen to meet with people interested in collaborating with us on a creative basis (e.g., to discuss licensing opportunities), retailers, potential customers and stockists.

As Build Your Own is new to the toy industry, we are keen to share and learn as much as possible at Toy Fair; we are also looking to network, make new connections, and to catch up with people we met in 2020 at our first fair.