As part 1 of the “Meet the Brands” series, this week, we have decided to catch up with our friends at Wholey Moly to ask them more about their brand.
The interview went as followed: (Enjoy 😊)
[Urban Snacker] Hi Meenesh, Thank you for agreeing to this interview. To begin with, perhaps you can start by describing your business in one sentence.
At Wholey Moly we are on a mission to prove healthy doesn’t have to be boring, we do this by making healthy cookies which are made from 100% natural ingredients which have all the taste, loaded with nutrition but without any of the crap.
[Urban Snacker] How did you come up with your idea and turn it into an actual business?
The idea for Wholey Moly came from our frustration of working in a corporate office where the 3pm slump is greeted by a bombardment of sugary and empty calorie treats like donuts, cakes and cookies.
We still wanted that sweet treat with our afternoon cuppa – who doesn’t? But why couldn’t it also be good for us?
After 2 years of baking in our little flat in London, thousands of attempts, and an awful lot of failures, we settled on naturally healthier cookies. This means the cookies are made from 100% natural ingredients, nothing processed and no refined sugars but still tastes like a damn good sweet treat with your afternoon cuppa.
[Urban Snacker] What start-up challenges have you faced and how have you overcome them?
We ripped up the baking manual and started from scratch, you won’t find any of the usual suspects in our cookies… no butter, refined sugars, empty calories or guilt, just honestly good cookies. But there was a reason why traditional baking used these ingredients, it made the cookies taste great, soft in the middle but strong enough to not break at the change of the wind. This was our biggest challenge, using completely natural ingredients meant our cookies were brittle – in fact we did a farmer market in the early stages to test the customer reaction and by the time we arrived to the market all our products had completely fallen apart!
It took us over 2 years of baking in our little flat in London, with thousands of attempts and an awful lot of failures to find the perfect balance of crunch, nutrition, and flavour for our naturally healthier cookies.
[Urban Snacker] What has been your biggest achievement with your business so far?
When we started out we set ourselves goals of where we wanted to take the business, they were mostly just wild dreams, one of which was to launch our cookies into Selfridges. At the time we had zero experience in food retail and these goals were more of an unachievable goal, something which you aim for and hopefully end somewhere nearby but never thought that would actually happen.
But 2 years later that is exactly what happened, we launched into Selfridges in July 2018 – our first stockist. We are still rubbing our eyes when we see our friends and family sending us pics of them in Selfridges purchasing something we created in our kitchen.
[Urban Snacker] What is your next big business goal?
To scale the business and get the cookies available in more retailers and nationwide.
[Urban Snacker] What do you think will be your biggest challenge getting there?
Food retail is a busy and competitive market, it will be challenging to stand out from the crowd, whether it’s standing out in a buyers eye or on the shelf where you are directly competing with others to get your consumers interest.
[Urban Snacker] Which other entrepreneur inspires you and why?
Richard Reed – Innocent founder. The food & bev industry is thriving with start ups and innovation and I think it’s largely to do with what the innocent guys did. 15-20 years ago, the F&B market was almost solely ran by the huge conglomerates offering homogenous products with dated branding. Innocent came along and created a transparent, simple and fun product which has opened the door for a raft of new and innovative F&B products.
[Urban Snacker] What are your three tips for business success based on your experiences so far?
Get stuck into the detail for all areas of your business and don’t be shy to ask dumb questions, you have to know your business inside out.
Networking. I can’t stress this enough, the start up community is a very friendly gang and you can learn a lot from others who are in similar positions as you or are a few steps ahead.
Persistence without being annoying. You have to accept that as the small start up the power doesn’t lie with you so don’t get offended when you don’t get a response, stay persistent without being annoying.
[Urban Snacker] Anything else you would like to share? We’d love to hear any interesting anecdotes, lessons learned or favourite stories from starting your business.
Highly recommend reading ‘The Lean Start Up’ before starting.
And that was the interview held by Urban Snacker with Wholey Moly in October 2020. We aim to present to you more brands we work with in order to give you a deeper insight into the values and vision of each company we work with. If you have any questions, or would like to contact us for whatever reason, please feel free to get in touch via email, WhatsApp or the old fashioned telephone call.