While many people dream about another life, this pair of Auckland food retail experts turned their idle thoughts into a breakfast spread, took it to market and now have a fast-growing food brand.

Words Kate Coughlan

Auckland-based friends and foodies Shannon Kelly and Laura Fisher decided, during Covid lockdown, to start a business together creating a premium food product. The pair, experts in the supermarket food category known as fast-moving consumer goods, set to work and as Shannon’s kitchen quickly became a hive of experimental mixing and blending, Laura focused on developing the brand and packaging strategy.

‘It was not just our love of food and our experience in food retailing, but our desire to do something ourselves,’ says Shannon. And Laura agrees; having come from an entrepreneurial family, she always wanted her own business and had been planning it since she was a teenager.

The duo of savvy marketers looked for a ‘white space’ to work in; they wanted a premium product but not to compete in a crowded space. They’d watched the peanut butter category explode in recent times with a proliferation of local brands offering premium alternatives to mainstay and often imported brands.

By comparison, the yeast spread category was clear of clutter, however, it was dominated by the mighty behemoths of Marmite and Vegemite; each part of large offshore-owned companies.

With knowledge of consumer interest in gluten-free, nut-free and dairy-free products, Shannon worked on developing a tahini-based yeast bread spread with the addition of delicious, taste-boosting ingredients such as turmeric, apple cider vinegar and nutritional yeast.

To their excitement, the product was deliciously savoury and umami-ish and helpfully lower in salt than many of its black spread competitors and with a high nutritional profile. So far so good. They did due diligence on their chosen brand name – allmite gold – and sallied forth to launch their new baby.

 

‘We were thrilled with the beautiful golden colour,’ says Laura, ‘and the nice tongue-in-cheek name and slogan of “Better for you Mite” and delighted that its health profile stood up against competitors with a deliciously good tahini base, close to 50 per cent less salt than other brands and the use of nutritional yeast instead of used brewer’s yeast.’

In mid-2022 they went to market with their initial launch brand, allmite gold, and were buoyed by retailer support for the new product and by customers’ enthusiastic response. They were working long hours on all aspects of the business from creation, bottling, labelling and marketing and on their next iterations of the brand (a mild chilli and a three-seed variation) when, within two months of launching, they received a legal letter from Sanitarium, owner of category stalwart Marmite, threatening action over trademark infringement. Enough to make the stoutest heart falter perhaps. But not these two.

‘We hadn’t budgeted for the cost of fighting for our life,’ explains Shannon. ‘They tried to squash us even though we were teeny tiny. They argued we aimed to deceive customers into thinking our product was Marmite. Then Vegemite owners Bega Foods also came after us. More legal letters, more hours with lawyers. More unplanned expenditure. Maybe it was a backhanded compliment, but it dragged on for so long, costing an arm and a leg, and felt like a David and Goliath contest.’ Undeterred, the team knew they were on to a winner when they won the 2022 New Zealand Food Awards Pantry Category for allmite gold original (pictured).

Eventually, the ‘mite’ won through and they settled against both companies, able to use their branding virtually unchanged both here and in the Australian market – their next goal. Not an easy achievement with their ‘bootstrapping’ approach to funding. So far, they employ two full-time (Shannon and their sales manager, who is also an investor) and several part-time staff, with Laura still working full-time elsewhere.

‘We are always pulling on the levers of nutrition with our new developments, for example, the three-seeds allmite contains ground linseed, black sesame seed and sunflower to give a bit of healthy crunch and something new for the breakfast plate. And our new tahini-based sweet range, allnice, which are gluten-free, nut-free and dairy-free sweet spreads.’

So far, the pair is loving every minute of bringing their dream to market and growing the business. With sales growing rapidly year on year, growth has posed some happy challenges for the pair who say one of the best aspects of the business is how much fun they have as business partners. ‘We wear many hats and stay very close to the product, wanting to ensure end-to-end quality.’