Sophie Williamson started Poppy & Olive in late 2013. Being diagnosed with Ceoliac disease at age five, she’d grown up experimenting with different foods and baking things from scratch given the limited availability of gluten free products on the market.
Q: What is the brand story?
A: After working for three years in the public sector, Sophie decided to follow her foodie passion and began selling gluten free baked goods and nut butters at local farmers markets around Auckland. As a health food enthusiast, she decided to focus solely on nut butters as there was a clear gap in the market for peanut butter alternatives. Once word got out, she received requests from retailers nationwide to stock her butters and the business grew from there. Riot Foods (CleanPaleo’s parent company) acquired Poppy & Olive at the end of 2016, and took Sophie on to continue running Poppy & Olive. This partnership has seen many exciting changes to the Poppy & Olive brand, including a brand overhaul, launching the new look/new range in late May 2017.
Q: What is the current product range and variants and what makes these products stand out in the market?
A: There are four variants – Smooth Almond Butter, Chocolate Hazelnut Butter, Crunchy Almond Butter and Cashew Almond Butter. Our nut butter range is gluten free, grain free, dairy free and contain no preservatives, no additives and no added sugar.
Q: What is innovative or unique about the product?
A: The Poppy & Olive range doesn’t add any preservatives, food colourings or refined sugar.
Q: Who is the consumer and what benefit does the product bring them?
A: Products are targeted at consumers (late 20s and 40s+), educated, and understand nutrition, the healthy millennial, looking for the new, healthy foods to fuel her high energy lifestyle and the sugar free mum – she’s a fan of versatile, natural ingredients that she can use in lots of different ways and are low in sugar.
Q: What consumer trend does the product support?
A: Products follow the backlash against sugar and the growth in premium, high quality spreads. Unflavoured single or blended nut or seed butter spreads dominate the category, along with the growing range of diverse ethnic flavours (sweet, spicy and savoury). iGeneration and millennials using nut-based spreads in dressings and sauces and are buying into peanut butter alternatives – a key driver.
For more information please contact Tim Holt on +64 021 873 146 or email tim@riotfoods.com
