Many of you founders working with niche ingredients out there might have struggled with this question:
How do you build a new category when consumers don’t yet understand the ingredient, retailers don’t know where to place it, and nobody is walking into stores asking for it?
In this episode of Brand Growth Heroes, I speak with Andrew Hunt, co-founder and CEO of Aduna Superfoods, about what category creation around niche ingredients really looks like for CPG founders. We talk about how he has built a business that is approaching £5M in annual revenue by bringing ingredients like baobab and moringa to the UK, to creating demand through education, sampling and relentless market development - until these ingredients are on the brink of becoming mainstream.
What I found particularly interesting is how Aduna has evolved as the market around it has changed. The business started out highly ingredient-led and impact-led, but eventually hit a commercial ceiling. Around 2022, Andrew and the team shifted towards clearer consumer needs such as gut health and everyday wellness, while keeping the quality of the ingredients and their sourcing at the heart of the brand. Now, as wholefood supplements, gut health, UPF-free products and higher-quality functional ingredients all move further into the mainstream, Aduna is increasingly well positioned for what Andrew calls the next generation of superfoods.
What You’ll Learn
- How Aduna created demand for ingredients consumers had never heard of
- Why getting a retail listing means very little if shoppers don’t understand what your product is for
- How intensive sampling helped take baobab from almost no rate of sale to a best-selling superfood
- Why Aduna moved from ingredient-first communication towards clearer consumer need states
- What founders building new categories can learn about timing, market education and knowing when the consumer is finally ready
Key Topics Discussed
- Building a new category around unfamiliar ingredients
- Introducing baobab and moringa to the UK market
- Why Whole Foods initially rejected Aduna because “nobody comes in asking for baobab”
- Creating demand before there is established consumer awareness
- The role of sampling in category building
- Going from around 10 units sold in three months to becoming a best-selling superfood in Whole Foods and Planet Organic
- Using early retail success to unlock Holland & Barrett
- Why product education alone can become a commercial constraint
- Aduna’s strategic shift towards consumer needs such as gut health and radiance
- Protecting brand integrity while becoming more commercially focused
- The rise of wholefood powders and supplements
- Why ingredient quality matters as consumers become more knowledgeable
- Aduna’s “Superfood 2.0” thinking around bioactive compounds
- High-flavanol cacao and the difference between commodity ingredients and higher-quality functional ingredients
- Building a proprietary supply chain in Ghana and Burkina Faso
- Working with more than 100 women’s cooperatives
- Agroforestry, tree planting and community infrastructure
- The relationship between Aduna’s branded consumer business and its ingredient supply business
- Amazon as a major growth channel
- Amazon UK growing around 50–60% year on year
- The scale of the Amazon US opportunity
- Aduna’s ambition to grow towards £15 million over the next four years
- Building long-term sustainable growth rather than chasing scale at the expense of quality
Useful links
https://www.instagram.com/adunasuperfoods/?hl=en
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Credits
Thanks to our Sound Engineer Gyp Buggane at Ballagroove.com and the entire BGH team.
