The Grocer – 17 August 2019

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Andrew Don

Former Iceland Foods

director of product devel-

opment Neil Nugent has

got behind an artificial

intelligence project to

accurately predict food

trends up to two years

into the future.

Nugent, who left

Iceland last month, has

partnered with Andy

Upton, MD and founder

of film, tech and insight

company Firestorm, to

offer both food manufac-

turing and retail clients

what it calls “an alter-

native approach to food

development”.

Firestorm has devel-

oped a trend prediction

model that uses machine

learning to help compa-

nies create the right new

brands at the right time

Iceland’s Nugent joins

Firestorm to back AI

food trends project

and in the right way, and

help them determine

the future for existing

products.

Nugent has vast food

industry experience with

previous executive chef

and product develop-

ment roles at Morrisons,

Waitrose, Asda and

Hazlewood Foods.

“Historically food

trends and develop-

ment have always gone

hand in hand,” he said.

What was driving those

trends was often listen-

ing to customers while

also having people on the

ground spotting trends,

he added.

“We are now combin-

ing my knowledge and

understanding of food

development with data

analytics and trend

prediction to deliver a

unique service.”

It meant Firestorm was

able to see when a cat-

egory or product would

come to the fore. It could

then do the development

work and branding on

that product.

The accuracy with

which it was able to pre-

dict trends was “a step

change” in food develop-

ment, Nugent added.

Nugent has held roles at

Morrisons, Asda and more

S

omeone recently asked me if we’d any

made any mistakes since we started

Rude Health. My stunned look wasn’t a

reflection of my outrage at the very idea – but

amazement that anyone could possibly think

we’d got everything right. Most of the time we

don’t know what right is until after the event,

when it works. Or doesn’t.

I’d suggest that you don’t start a business

if mistakes weigh heavily on you. We have

launched foods into the wrong retailer (no

names, because it wasn’t about who they are,

rather timing). We have made foods that didn’t

work: RIP Top Banana Porridge and Peanut

Drink, among many others. We have tried to

reach customers who weren’t interested: hello

Body Power and Imbibe. We took the Rude

Health Rants far and wide, and the only place

they worked was Abergavenny Food Festival.

Some countries continue to elude us: Denmark,

are you so happy and hygge that you don’t need

any more rude health?

That’s quite enough failure for one article.

The thing is, if we only did the ‘dead certs’, we’d

make very slow progress, we’d still get it wrong

(because even a ‘dead cert’ is never guaranteed)

and we’d be very boring and bored.

Most failure comes through trying something

and there is nothing more fun than having a

go. We love our Sprouted Porridge Oats, but it’s

taken five years for them to be recognised by the

wider world in the form of two gold stars at the

Speciality Food Awards. A Great Taste success,

finally. We were taking a punt when we made

our Almond Drink in 2013. Almond milk wasn’t

much of a thing then, but we believed in our

ingredients and taste, and had a feeling that

other people cared too. On this occasion we were

right and Almond Drink is now our bestseller.

The big one, of course, is that Nick and I had

never worked in food before setting up Rude

Health. On paper it was more likely to fail than

succeed, but we did it because we believed in it,

and we were prepared to fail.

And you simply have to be prepared to fail, in

order to stand a chance of winning. On which

note, Nick has failed to win the Golden Spurtle at

the World Porridge Championships seven times.

We are all hoping that this year won’t be the

eighth fail.

Camilla Barnard is co-founder and brand director

at Rude Health. Twitter: @rudehealth

stay brilliant

Camilla Barnard

Mistakes are crucial

to success: embrace

and learn from them

Butcher was UK&I MD for

seven months in 2017

David Butcher has

become MD of energy

drink brand Carabao for

the second time.

Butcher has returned

to Carabao after almost

two years with lux-

ury interior furnish-

ings group Walker

Greenbank.

Butcher was Carabao

UK & Ireland MD for

seven months until

November 2017, hav-

ing been international

director for three months

before that.

His remit at Carabao is

to grow the business in

UK & Ireland, reporting

David Butcher makes return to

Carabao for second spell as MD

into the main board in

Bangkok, Thailand.

He takes over from

Mark Young, who leaves

the company after

two-and-a-half years

to “pursue new ven-

tures”, according to the

compa ny.

Butcher said he had

always greatly admired

Carabao as a brand and

since launching in the

UK three years ago, it

had firmly established

itself as “the challenger

brand” in a competitive

sector.

“I see huge poten-

tial for significant brand

growth in the UK, both

through its contin-

ued and considerable

investment in football,

but also by staying

true to its core: creat-

ing energy drinks that

taste great and are low in

sugar,” he said.