Jennifer Sieg meets Amy Moring and Jeff Webster of Hunter & Gather Foods to see how they’ve managed to keep up with their brand’s rapid growth in a booming market.
For start-ups, the hunt for capital can be difficult. It can be so difficult, most entrepreneurs turn to credit cards to find the money.
Amy Moring and Jeff Webster did just that.
At one point, the couple-turned-co-founders behind the award-winning natural food brand Hunter & Gather were even renting out rooms in their home for some extra tax-free cash.
The resilience and hard work ethic, however, didn’t go unnoticed.
Hunter & Gather, which specialises in natural-ingredient foods and supplements, has now raised a total of £1.2m and counting alongside a growing team of 20.
The brand – which was founded in 2017 – has gone from strength to strength over the past seven years.
Its turnover recently hit £6.5m and is expected to hit £12m in 2024. Sales totalled £1m in July alone.
A start-up has to start somewhere
Moring, who was working for natural pet food brand Lily’s Kitchen at the time of Hunter & Gather’s inception, couldn’t help but notice a growing need for more natural-based products in the health and wellness market.
If pet owners willingly paid for premium and all-natural food for their pets, surely they’d do the same for themselves.
“Lily’s was such a pioneer in its space,” Moring says.
Hunter & Gather’s 100 per cent avocado oil mayonnaise.
“It was showing a path, that there’s a route here for a brand that had strong values, was really clear in what it was doing, was innovating and was giving a much healthier option – a more premium price, yes – but people were willing to pay for it.”
The founders hit the ground running with just 300 jars of avocado oil mayonnaise – which now sells for around £4 a jar – and entered the market at what now seems to have been just the right time.
You could say a post-pandemic focus on healthy eating and well-balanced diets played a significant role in the growth of Hunter & Gather, but Moring and Webster are confident that if you have the right product, anything can be possible.
“Consumers want it all,” Moring says.
“They want taste, they want convenience, they want quality – they want traceability, sustainability [and] ingredient integrity.”
Now, Hunter & Gather’s award-winning products can be found on the shelves of various well-known retailers, some of which include Ocado, Holland & Barrett, Whole Foods Market and Selfridges.
This list, they say, only continues to grow.
Standing in your own way
Moring and Webster bootstrapped the business for as long as they could.
What they didn’t realise, however, was how hard it would be to keep up with the pace of its growth. Especially while balancing a day job on the side for the first three years.
“We hit somewhat of a breaking point towards the end of 2021 [and] we started to stand in our own way,” Webster says.
We hit somewhat of a breaking point towards the end of 2021 [and] we started to stand in our own way.
“Do we keep it at this and make it more profitable, or do we have that responsibility to make this as big as we can?” the two of them recall asking.
Once they decided to give the brand their full attention, its future and success as a business became clear.
Innovation is key
Being one of the first in a growing industry can be challenging, but staying ahead of competition will be what helps any start-up achieve longevity.
“We like to be first in things that we do,” Moring says, with a smile.
Chiming in on the concept of innovation, Webster adds that they will forever be “students” in the game of business.
“You never get to a point where you’re like, ‘oh yeah, I’ve got it all figured out’,” he says.
“It’s an art and science of identifying [and] understanding what could happen going forward.”
What’s next for the growing team at Hunter & Gather could be seen as a million-dollar question for the two, however, building the brand’s presence in the UK seems to be at the forefront of their focus.
Especially given that the UK has been named one of the biggest wellness industry markets in Europe, with an estimated value of over $223 bn (£169 bn).
CV
Name: Amy Moring
Company: Hunter & Gather
Founded: 2017
Staff: 20
Title: Co-Founder and CEO
Age: 32
Born: Essex
Lives: Essex
Studied: Equine Studies at Writtle College
Talents: Focus and Project Management
Motto: Little by little a little becomes a lot
Most known for: Supporting women in business, riding horses
First ambition: Create a positive, challenging place to work that changes the lives of our customers
Favourite book: Beyond Domestication by George Knight
Best piece of advice: Don’t compare your chapter 1 to someone else’s chapter 20
CV
Name: Jeff Webster
Company: Hunter & Gather
Founded: 2017
Staff: 20
Title: Co-Founder and COO
Age: 33
Born: London
Lives: Essex
Studied: Building Surveying at Anglia Ruskin
Talents: Innovator and knowledge seeking
Motto: Good, bad, who knows
Most known for: Advocating nutrient dense nutrition
First ambition: To educate the world on the benefits of ancestral living
Favourite book: Why we get fat – Gary Taubes
Best piece of advice: Know your numbers