We used to grow our business by bringing a new line out and oh wow, we just added another whole revenue stream by bringing a new product out.

We realized when we got to we got to 22 products at one point and it was getting quite unmanageable in terms of stock control and things.

So we thought okay let's just do a rolling small batch that we can use as a marketing tool.

Just give people a reason to be contacted.

Each month.

A geologist and a product designer quit their jobs to to make honey wine in a shed on a Welsh border.

Now they're in Selfridges and Michelin star restaurants.

Either genius or completely mad.

This is business without I am Andy Ori and this week we finally got the co host I always wanted.

I'm an accountant, she's a lawyer.

So between us we can tell you exactly how much a business is worth and how many ways it can go wrong.

Gemma Hotter welcome.

Hi Andy, delighted to be here with you.

And yeah you've got me as your co host, the one who actually can't swear.

So I'm really pleased you got me on post the rebrand to business without bs.

Yeah I, I completely forgot this gentleman.

You can't swear but this, this, this creates many amusing moment for me to push you into swearing and I don't consider swearing but anyway so Jeb is a lawyer with us in the firm qualify both sides of the Atlantic, New York attorney as well as the uk.

So if anything gets spicy we've got it covered.

And to Jane.

Today we are joined by Kit Newell and Hive mind Mead who make award winning modern mead out of the Y valley.

I can say that with a couple of Meads in you.

So Kit, we're going to start with a quick fire round.

Yeah get to know you a little bit better.

So what was your first job Kit?

Oh worked in a garden center.

Yeah I got fired for not sweeping hard enough.

Worst job.

Worst job working tile company moving stacks of tiles around when I was 16 and they were were so heavy.

Well by hand, not by her no fort.

That's why child labor is much.

It would have been brilliant.

Favorite subject at school.

It should have been history actually but probably, yeah probably geography.

I think I've got into that a.

Bit more your special skill.

Business related.

Yeah, it doesn't need to be.

Doesn't need to be something in a.

Bedroom perhaps.

That's business I suppose.

I quite like to give a businessy question.

I quite like sort of matching advertising exercise or like a creative solution to like marketing or something nice Thing.

I think that's what I would say I was good at.

What did you want to be when you grew up, Kit?

Again, that was a really challenging.

I just had no idea and I really.

I still don't have much idea.

So I've just been making up as I go along really.

I found it really.

I was always very jealous.

Those who always said, I want to be usually a train driver when you're a child.

My brother always wanted to be a geologist.

That was easy for him.

And I think I had 25 jobs before.

Before I did this, so.

So you didn't know when you were 15 that you wanted to own a Mead company?

No, but I suppose I. I studied advertising and I really, really enjoyed kind of creative process.

So something.

Something creative which.

Which was.

Was the.

Was the goal.

Did your parents have anything that they wanted you to be when you grew up?

No.

No, they didn't actually.

And I suppose in a way I'd been easier if they were pushing me into.

Into that.

But no, it was all very.

Do as many qualifications as you can to give yourself options, I suppose was.

Was their angle.

Yeah, I did.

I did two years horticulture, like landscaping design course.

And I thought I wanted to be a landscape designer.

And then it looked like incredibly hard work, so I stopped doing that.

I did a year's gamekeeping course for working on an estates and raising pheasants.

Gamekeeping course and shoot it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what it boiled down to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I really.

I really struggled with what to do.

I suppose that's kind of why I'm desperate to make this work because otherwise I've got to figure that out again.

It's good though.

It gives you this great broad experience that I'm sure comes into play.

I'm amazed when people know what they wanted to do.

And you've already said you've been fired.

Have you been fired multiple times?

No.

One.

Yeah, Once for.

For not sweeping hard enough.

And.

You were very casual for the sweeping.

I had it.

Well, you're more stroking than.

Yeah, that week I had a. I had a peninsitis.

So I was.

I was taking it easy.

And the day after I got fired, I had my appendix out in hospital.

And then I went.

I went back there two weeks later and.

And then the guy, was he.

Very sorry but you could have done.

An unfair dismissal case for that.

Probably.

Yeah.

Is it.

Is it too late?

I mean, was.

He was 16.

And I think it would also be a bit dickish.

Went on a podcast, they said, I Had a claim, you know.

Well, it.

Office dogs.

Office dogs business or BS business for sure.

That's cool.

I'm sorry.

Two office dogs.

Yeah.

You can stay on the podcast.

Karaoke song.

What's your karaoke song kit?

Oh, man.

You've got to be quite a special level of.

Of having.

Yeah.

A lot of meat in you before that happens, but usually like Bon Jovi or something horrendous.

Oh, mine's living on a prayer.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Such a good song.

Yeah, it is a good.

Tommy used to work in the docks.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

Poor Tommy.

Yeah.

Your vice, do you have a vice?

Can't say booze.

You can say booze.

Probably procrastination until.

Until.

Yeah, until it's absolutely critical and then.

Yeah, so usually that, I suppose.

Yeah.

And the.

And the absolute million dollar question.

What the is mead?

Yeah, that's.

That's a good question.

It's a drink made from honey.

So it's the world's oldest drink.

It's the world's oldest non alcoholic.

Yeah.

Oldest tipple.

Yeah.

What is the oldest alcoholic drink?

Yeah, so it's.

Who invented it?

The monks or something.

The monks popularized it, I suppose, and the Vikings popularized it actually was probably made accidentally thousands and thousands of years before it was found to be made on purpose.

So they found traces of it being made 9,000 years ago deliberately.

But.

But if you mix honey and water together, which would have happened with hunter gatherers and people, that then it would.

It will naturally ferment.

So yeah, there's.

There's tons of kind of old.

Old folklore and things about, you know, mixing with a.

With a wooden spoon at midnight and things.

It's all because they were brewing meat and they didn't really know how.

How it was happening.

But yeah, it was all just kind of magic and they didn't really know what they were doing.

But one day they knew they'd put these things together and it would be water and honey and the next day it will be all foaming and bubbling and.

And it would make you very sleepy and.

Yeah.

So it was magic.

I learned the other day a ripe banana is 0.5% alcohol.

Really?

Yeah.

That's why they.

All those alcohols are set of 0.5% because it's.

It's the food tolerance.

I think if you leave your orange juice in the fridge for too long and it kind of goes a bit fizzy, that's.

You've been making homebrew.

Apparently.

Well, you tell me if I'm wrong, but apparently they used to give Mead to newly married couples.

Yeah.

To you know, supposedly help with fertility during the first moon cycle of their marriage.

And that's why we call it honeymoon.

Yeah.

One moon's phase of mead.

Yeah.

They're meant to tip the mead maker if you conceive during that month.

Oh really?

So we're waiting for our royalty checks from them.

That's really cool.

Yeah, that's excellent.

Yeah, we need to make that.

We need to actually what's one of, one of the things that we've been looking at.

What's the, what's the me occasion?

And we think.

Yeah, wedding gifting is perfect for that because.

Yeah.

It's literally.

It's a drink that's been made over a long time.

It's got lots of, kind of similar, you know, lots of links with marriage and.

Yeah.

And it's a natural.

Yeah.

It's got that tradition.

Yeah.

So you, you, you.

Your brother's a geologist.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah.

And you're in tech and product design.

That was what I was doing before, yeah.

Yeah.

And then you started drinks company.

So what did you have to unlearn to run a drinks company?

Unlearn how to have a reliable income?

We did.

We didn't.

This is not a very business the answer.

But we didn't really intend to turn it into a company.

I think we were just, it was just snowballed from home brewing to people liking it to them making more of it and then.

Okay, okay, well if we, if we're going to do that then we have to do it in this sort of scale.

Okay.

Now we need to register my brother's garage as a, as a winery and then if you do that, you may as well.

And then you want.

A shop wants to buy it and then two shops want to buy it.

So it's grown from that really.

It's grown from a hobby and just enjoying making things.

Also my brother's a beekeeper and that's kind of.

That was his.

That was the kind of main for.

That's why it started.

Yeah.

So we had all this honey and I was looking with a bit more business head on, I suppose.

But what else we can do with honey that isn't just putting it in jars and selling it at farmers markets Because I don't know, I think it's pretty common knowledge that a lot of honey isn't real honey.

Isn't it?

It's all honey, isn't it?

Isn't it a lot of like sugar syrup?

Yeah, I think it's like, like if.

You look at the ingredients on a squeeze on a squeezy bottle of honey, it doesn't usually just say honey.

Yeah.

It says.

Check your covers now.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, this probably shouldn't be a big whistleblowing episode but yeah, it's, it's fairly known that a lot of the honey isn't actually honey.

So it's been bulked out and it's been every step of the way it's been adulterated to get.

To make it go further and added things to make it pass those tests and things.

Anyway, the reason we got into making Mead is because we were thinking, okay, what else can we do with honey that isn't just selling jars of honey because people don't really respect the value of honey because it's so cheap.

Britain imports 90% of the honey we consume.

But I big them up, Steens Honey.

They're very long term clients of mine make finest Manuka honey in the world.

If you know them.

Amazing, amazing product.

And I've known them for years and yeah, I mean I've watched them when they first came into the market and people in the UK don't understand UMF ratings and you know there was huge.

It was in the public things.

You can talk about it.

It was, oh, I forget the name.

The, the, this huge brand that was just packaging crap and selling it as Manuka Honey.

There's massive dodginess in the industry.

Anything with a value, they'll be, they'll be counterfeit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So honey is, yeah, it's milk and olive oil and honey are the top three most counterfeit products in the world.

Wow.

Just pretty terrifying.

Yeah.

But yeah, so that's why we made it into.

We're looking at what else we can do with it really.

Can you do a Manuka honey?

Have you tried to do one?

I guess.

Yeah, you can.

I suppose the yeast doesn't really care if it's the best honey in the world or the worst honey in the world.

It all just eats it and make alcohol.

So you can.

But it's usually if there's a strong flavor within the honey that we want to bring, bring out.

That's, that's the kind of motivation to use a special honey.

And Mutiny does taste good but I suppose it's the, it's the other antibacterial.

Yeah, that's the bits that, that make it really fancy.

But you can get really amazing.

Like we, we've done Mead with Zambian Forest honey which is almost black like treacly like honey.

And it makes this amazing like oat tasting kind of earthy mead.

So yeah, it's really fascinating.

But yeah, so we got into it just by trying to value.

Add honey, I suppose, and turn it into something else.

And we were home brewing beer and then adding less malt and more honey every time we did it.

And then in the end we were adding 100% honey but still treating it like a beer.

So still bottle conditioning and putting hops and things in it.

And then we hadn't really.

We thought we were kind of pioneering this amazing thing.

Hadn't really thought, of course, that we're making mead, but we were doing it in an unusual way which was treating it like a beer.

So it was session strength and, and hopped and things.

And we.

We hit upon this really quite unusual kind of sessionable Mead, which.

Which is a bit unusual.

I mean, it's not like this sort of one which is this traditional wine strength.

It's like a.

You drink it like a beer or cider.

What was the point when you kind of took it from.

It was your hobby.

Yeah.

To actually leaving your jobs, both of you.

And this was your full time.

Yeah.

Was there a certain point.

So I did the tech job I had in reading.

I was made redundant from there.

And that was the kind of catalyst at that point to make it into a.

You know, I wasn't doing much else.

I was trying to find other jobs, but I had all this time to focus on it.

My brother was still working as a geologist and in that kind of six months I was looking for other work.

We really grew it quite a lot.

I then was rehired by that company.

So.

So for.

For two and a half years afterwards, I was doing.

Doing both things right.

And then at a certain point, something.

And then it was going Covid happened and so remote working and actually, yeah, I was probably doing a bit more mead making than.

Than my actual job.

And yeah, not that that's.

Yeah, that will hurry.

That's every remote working company's nightmare that, that their employees are actually at harboring making me.

Yeah, that was kind of it.

Really.

Something had to give and eventually we were able to draw a very meager salary from it.

And we thought, okay, well, we're getting such good feedback.

We're in these.

We're in a really lovely budget shops.

We've proved that if we spend more time and energy on it, it does pay off.

So our wives or our partners at the time had some nice stable jobs.

So we thought, let's let them do the words.

Yeah, absolutely.

Let's be modern men.

I mean, you, you went through a rebrand, which is always an agonizing thing.

You went from Y Valley Meadery to Hive Mind.

Yeah.

Why?

And was it.

Was it a nightmare rebranding or what's your learning?

I had to really campaign for this.

Between my brother and myself, there was many good reasons to stay as Y Valley Meadery, but I thought there were more good reasons to.

To evolve into Hive Mind.

So we had two brands.

We had Hive Mind, Hive Mind Brewery for our beer side.

So we did honey beer.

So as we go through this, you'll see every.

Yeah, we've got like 15 different product lines now, which is arguably too many.

So we just.

If there's an opportunity, we'll kind of make a product to fit it.

We had a beer range and a mead range.

It was getting quite challenging having two different brands and we thought the Hive Mind brand resonates a bit more with the kind of markets that we're trying to reach into.

We're trying to.

We're trying to modernize Mead and sell it to kind of contemporary beer, wine spirits fans and having.

We did a bit of an exercise where we plotted all these different brands that were named regionally and whether they were forward looking or backward looking.

And it turned out that a lot of the brand.

Yeah, it kind of as.

As you might imagine, a lot of the ones that were named regionally were kind of more traditional, classic brands, especially breweries, with a few exceptions, of course.

But.

Yeah, so we thought Hive Mind, a bit dystopian, a bit kind of cool.

It gives us an opportunity to do more stuff with the, with the brand.

And it's very cool, the branding, for sure.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah.

So you were just looking for that edge, really.

And that's what's going on in these sort of.

Alcohol's a bit naughty and it's a bit sort of edgy.

These are people who are looking.

Yeah.

Niche.

And I think also we were talking to some larger stockists and then I think they just thought of us as a small, parochial brand in.

Based in the Y Valley and just selling to the wy.

Yes, of course, we're saying, oh, you know, we're a little Welsh company.

Absolutely, yeah.

And then we had, we had desires to, you know, export and, and sell into, you know, retail, national retailers and things.

And you wanted something a bit more sex.

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

And actually we were doing such a wide variety of products that we could.

That the word hive mind, it was Hive Mind, Mead and Bruco in the end for long.

But, yeah, it kind of covered everything that we did also.

It's a very collaborative.

It kind of spoke to the collaborative nature of what we do and it's me and my brother and a few really fantastic helpers and employees.

Now, is it also a suggestion of that, because alcohol is one of the few drugs that when people take it, everyone has the same experience.

Arguably everyone gets drugged together and sort of their brains come together.

Yeah.

Some sort of mind melding exercise.

Yeah, I probably amongst.

Yeah, that isn't.

But I'll say that that's what it is.

Yeah, Use that.

That's really cool.

No, I think also just.

Yeah.

Just to kind of, you know, Bees are.

Bees are a hive mind in that they're all working together, of course.

The bees.

Yeah.

Oh, so stupid.

No, no, well, that's.

Yeah, that's kind of.

That was the.

It was just a play on.

Yeah, it was.

With Hive.

Yeah.

Very good rebranding.

I mean, it sounds all like a marketing exercise.

I bet the legals behind the.

Behind the scenes must have.

Was that a really difficult part to.

Yeah, actually, there's not many people doing Mead, as you might imagine.

So that.

So there wasn't.

It wasn't being used.

And so the IP side, trademarking it, that was all.

Okay.

And then did you keep the trademark from the previous brand as well, just to protect it, or did you.

Were you leaving?

Yes, I don't think we actually.

I don't think actually bothered trademarking.

It wasn't a brand we could protect because it was a region, I don't think anyway.

But it was a.

It was a regionally named thing and.

And actually, unless there was somebody else based in the Y Valley doing Mead, which.

No, we would.

We would find out where they lived.

Whereas Hive Mind, there was no issue with that.

Yeah, exactly.

Did it screw up sales, though?

I've watched Class rebrand.

It absolutely buggers sales.

And this was a.

This was a very challenging argument between my brother and myself is.

I thought we would gain more than we lost.

There was a few brands.

Sorry, A few retailers that really loved the fact that we were this parochial small brand and.

But I thought, they'll come.

They'll come round.

And actually, they nearly all did.

I think a couple didn't, but, yeah, they nearly all did and we gained way more.

But it was painful for a bit.

Yeah.

And also just.

Yeah, there's.

There's a really hard transition point where you've still got loads of stock of your Old stuff, the old labels stickering.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So there's all that to do.

But we weren't.

Yeah, we were.

That was 20, 23 when we did that.

So it wasn't.

Yeah, we were.

We were still fairly small.

Yeah, I mean the thing with the rebrand.

Register your trademark 100% you're going to re.

If it's going to change your name, change it early.

But changing a name is.

Is seriously painful to a business for sure.

So you tell that you did it early enough just to.

Yeah, I think so.

I think I could see where it was going and.

And yeah, get the pain out of the way soon.

Do you then also register the IP internationally?

Do you have international ideas?

Yeah, we actually, we would love to sell in the States and then we found a company that would.

Wanted to import and distribute for us but then we had to register our brand in the States and then we couldn't really find.

You might be able to advise us on this.

But we had to get our trademark registered in the States and basically had to give a blank check to a US attorney as far as I could tell to.

To get a brand registered over there because.

And then the other.

I know someone at the British Consulate based in the US who helps with trademarking for British branded companies.

So we'll intro you.

Yeah.

Because it seems quite easy the other way around.

Anyone can register a trademark in the uk.

There's a process in the US too.

But the US lawyers are crazy expensive.

So maybe it just went to the.

Wrong law at that stage.

Yeah.

And it was, it was for a company that wanted to license our brand and then would manufacture it in the us we just, it just all got.

A bit much, I guess, a bit to what we were talking about before.

A lot of people do think that Mead is this historic drink, you know, only really drunk at like history festivals.

So how much of your job is.

Is making it versus changing the perception of Mead?

Yeah, I suppose I do the sales and marketing side.

My brother is definitely the maker of.

So it's a good split.

But a lot of it is changing preconceptions about what Mead is.

Although there's a surprisingly large amount of customer base which is buying it for what.

For what everyone assumes it is.

To that end we launched a meet very recently which just goes okay, here's one that absolutely speaks to that market.

A traditional old school Mead, which is actually quite interesting because that way new consumers can still taste what it would have tasted like historically, even if it's just their introduction.

Yeah.

Our kind of traditional one before we just.

The branding we used on it was very.

We're keen to avoid putting monks and Vikings and things on it because that's kind of falling into all these stereotypes and it's not, it's not what I believe is the growing market.

But yeah, a lot of it is explaining what it actually is and a lot of the people's assumptions is that it's some sort of medieval beer or some sort of strange beer.

All that it is is the alcohol comes from honey rather than grapes to make wine or apples to make cider.

It's just the yeast has eaten honey, so the sugar's in honey to make mead.

That's as weird as it is.

And I probably should do just an ad campaign, which is.

It's not that weird.

It's just alcohol from honey.

It's not weird, it's just honey.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

But, but yeah, there's a lot of it is, is trying to, is trying to change those preconceptions and, and encourage people to try it for the first time.

And usually, yeah, when they do try it, it's.

We get a fantastic sort of try to buy ratio of markets and things.

So yeah, how important is.

So when you sort of progress and got a deal with Selfridges, is that really important for you and how did it change your business?

Places like Selfridges and there's a few, yeah, a few wonderful stockists like them, they kind of give people just like, yeah, just like we were saying about changing the preconceptions, they go, okay, well if it's in that shop, it must, it can't be too weird.

It must, it must be good, which is really helpful.

So we won the, we won a three star great taste award for our traditional mead and then we won the Golden Fork for Wales.

And that really helped as well to kind of get people to change their mind and go, okay, well, it's.

People think it's delicious.

Maybe I should try the star.

The taste thing.

Good taste.

That's quite influential that.

Definitely.

And it's quite hard to get.

Three stars is really hard to get.

Yeah, we, we, we didn't know how rare it was at the time because the year before we won a three star for, for our.

We did a smoked honey beer and we won a three star for that and we thought, okay, thank you, that's very kind.

And then, and then they were like, oh, it's only like 1% of all entries, of which there's tens of thousands, get a three star.

And.

Okay, that's actually incredible.

And then the year after we got a three star and the golden fork for our traditional mead.

So at that point we're like, this is actually pretty cool.

We're doing.

Yeah, we're doing something.

We're doing something cool.

Was it after that that you got into Selfridges?

Yeah, it was, yeah.

I think, I think actually the buyer from Selfridges saw our mead in a lovely little shock in Colford in the Forest of Dean.

So he was holidaying and saw it on the shelf and he thought, this looks really cool and I'll send it in Selfridges.

And.

And it's.

Yeah, so that's.

You never quite know what do we.

Have on the table?

That's the whiskey barrel.

Yeah.

So this is our.

Interestingly, this is our traditional mead.

We age for a year in whiskey barrels and that.

That only won a two star great host award.

So we've.

We've somehow made it worse by, by spending more time on it.

Such is life.

Yeah, but yeah, it's just give everyone the kind of confidence to try it, I suppose.

And it puts it in front of people who, who wouldn't otherwise.

We should try it.

Should we try it?

Yeah, we should try.

Now we need a glass.

Hang on, have we got any glasses?

I suppose, which.

That's the one that can run.

Three stars.

Three stars.

Yeah.

So, yeah, liquid honey.

Yeah, it's very drinkable, isn't it?

Yeah, that's delicious.

Like you can't even tell that there's any.

There's alcohol in that.

It's 14 and a half.

It's quite, it's quite pokey but if you could imagine I'm having like a dessert wine or like an after dinner digest.

Yeah, it's like.

It reminds me of something, right?

Yeah, yeah, probably, yeah.

Digestive wine.

Pair it with cheese.

Works really, really well.

So a lovely kind of sharp blue cheese or something Works, works Really good idea.

Let's get Hungarian takash.

That's really nice.

So we sell into quite a few lovely cheese shops.

There's one in South London called Little Mouse.

They.

They do a healthy meat trade in there.

But it's kind of because.

Because there isn't that mead occasion and it hasn't had years and years of advertising which tells you it's, you know, meat o' clock or anything like that.

And yeah, it kind of.

People don't.

It's the occasion and, and things that people are Struggling with a little bit.

But actually, yeah, we just say like after dinner with the bit when before you have your coffees and, and everything else, just have it as like a lovely little.

Yeah.

Digestive.

Nice.

Interestingly that.

So the same, exactly the same ingredients in this one, which is our sparkling mead, which is our modern mead.

So it's modern in that it's, it's much less alcoholic.

It's 3.4% and it's, it's the same product but it's aimed at a very different market, if that makes sense.

So it's more kind of a cider or beer occasion than it is.

Is your, is your brother is sort of like, like I've come up with a new one.

Is he a bit of a mad scientist with like, oh, we're going to percolate it through granite.

We'll kind of do it as a reaction to what people to feedback because we do a lot of in person markets and events and things and, and this is the sort of one we launched the company with.

So it's, it's a light, refreshing one.

That's lovely.

Yeah, you kind of have it as like a, like a cider alternative.

I'm, you know, I don't really drink that much anymore.

I'm trying not.

We're going to start.

Yeah, the low.

But the low percentage beers, I mean they use, you know, everything had to be high percentage before and people have got really into them.

Again, the sort of 2, 3% sort.

Of really nice value linked with alcohol.

Well actually now it's totally changed in that.

Yeah, low alcohol beer or non alcoholic beer is actually needs more work than typical beer.

So it's no, it's no cheaper I.

Think too when you're sitting in the sun all day or something like we've got this nice weather at the moment, isn't it?

It's, you know, 3% is perfect.

Absolutely.

I've got this one I keep drinking, which is a grapefruit beer from Germany.

That's 2%.

Yeah.

People are now deliberately seeking that sort of strength but they still want to have something that's, that's got craft to it.

So mead is perfect for that because it's.

Yeah.

It's fermented honey.

It's, it's all kind of authentic and real and if they are cutting back, they want to drink real stuff.

Yeah.

So actually quality, yeah, quality, not quantity.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

That's, that's what I said to my wife.

Let's try this one online.

Try that one.

Let's try the Whiskey one.

That one's a bit stronger.

It's 16, a bit more.

So that's the first one you tried?

That's the first one he tried, but aged for a year in whiskey barrels.

So it's.

It's kind of had that extra step.

It's interesting.

Then again, with the two stars.

We think so, yeah.

I think.

What was the category, though?

Best.

Best.

I think they do fall into the same.

They fall into the same category.

So it's like a.

It's like a wine category.

So that's the other thing is there's.

Oh, is it a beer?

Is it a cider?

Is there a wine?

And you go, well, yes, it's kind of got bits of all of them in it, really.

And it's got the occasion and it's got the customer type in all of them.

So if you were to draw a Venn diagram of all those things, you could meet in the middle.

And they'd all be bees with meat.

Yeah.

Which is.

Which is quite challenging when we're trying to decide where to put it on the shelf in the shop.

Where do they tend to put it?

So we.

We had a trial with ms, which was.

Went from June until just last year until just now, and they initially put it in with the kind of craft beers and sort of.

Yeah, like the, the.

The.

That one they would put with the craft beers.

Yeah, we had.

We had this one.

The spa food.

Yeah.

As part of their future food program.

And they had it.

Yeah, with the beers initially, and then they put it in with the.

With the kind of ciders, and it actually sold better in the beer area.

Even though it is more similar to cider, it's sold better in the beer area.

And I think that's because people don't like cider.

Yeah.

They go to that area without a plan in mind.

They go.

They go there to have a look, whereas they might go.

I think they go to the cider aisle with their favorite.

With a plan.

With a plan.

And I think that's why we do so well in kind of farm shops and garden centers, because you don't go there with a shopping list.

Usually you go there just, you know,.

A bit peckish and so what, 180 hives?

Yep.

18 Hours a week.

What's that amount of hours you're working?

80 Hours a week.

180 Hives.

80 Hours a week.

It has been, but.

Yeah, currently.

Yeah.

Maybe not so much now.

So it's all your own honey?

Yeah.

Okay.

That's better than buying honey.

What happens if you have like a bad year and that's a supply chain.

Yeah.

So bees.

That was another reason for, for the rebranding.

It used to be all our own honey and it was all Y Valley honey.

As we grew, we weren't able to.

To supply just our honey.

So we don't want to be disingenuous.

So we were buying honey in as well from other local suppliers and beekeepers.

So it's not all, it's not all our own honey.

The traditional mead is Wall Wai Valley honey, but for the, for the other ones it's.

That's why the whiskey one lost a star.

How much that one is because it's.

That one aged for a year.

But yeah, yeah, you're right, it's.

Yeah, it's hard to make that much honey.

So is it as production has grown, as the brand has grown, you've needed to get honey from.

Are they all from Wales or British honey or honey or British honey?

Yeah.

So that's only because we.

Provenance is.

Yeah.

We can't be sure of provenance unless we go and visit the beekeepers and do all that.

So that's, that's really important to us.

So like trying to scale up but retain authenticity is.

Is a real, is a real.

Is a bee crisis.

Honey crisis is a, is a drop.

Yeah, definitely.

I think with.

Yeah, it's kind of.

Oh yeah, it's.

It's often reported on but no one really does normally knows what to do about it.

But yeah, I think it's pesticide use and habitat loss and, and yeah.

Global warming, I suppose that.

Well, just.

Yeah.

Climate change has made the conditions very, very different.

So when, when it's, when it's really hot and dry like it has been, actually you think, okay, that's great for bees but, but actually the plants will stop producing nectar.

So.

So it has been that you have to feed bees even when it's summer because they, they are bringing food in.

Okay.

We've kind of got this symbiotic relationship with bees.

They need, they need to be, they need humans to manage the hives and we need them to, to pollinate our crops.

So yeah.

That there's not many wild beehives anymore, which is really sad.

Yeah.

So there's not many wild bees.

I see bees in my garden all the time.

Yeah.

So they'll be foraging within a three mile radius.

Oh, they'll be from a hive most likely.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So someone, if you, if you were to put a little GPS tracker on that bee and follow it back it'll be.

And it's actually amazing.

So it'll be stuck on the ground.

Yeah, yeah.

It's amazing that all the, nearly all the pollination happen in the UK happens from, from hobbyist beekeeping.

There isn't really the pollinate like in the States.

You see those lorries which drive down to the, to like the almond plantations and, and have hundreds of thousands of hives on there and they go, they'll go and pollinate as a contract.

That doesn't really happen in the uk.

So it's all kind of small scale.

Beekeepers and so we've been keeping bees for so long to pollinate our plants.

If we stop keeping bees the whole thing would collapse.

I probably, that probably needs a BS checker but I, but yeah, that's my understanding is that it's, it's that yeah all the crops and everything is pollinated by, by small scale beekeepers.

Wow.

And actually it's, it's quite good.

So.

So a big like apple orchard or something.

You might still get people brought in to pollinate them because you can, you can plan the, the harvest of the, of the apple orchard based on when it was pollinated.

So if you know the day that the, all the apples are pollinated you can, you can then plan when they're going to apples be ready rather than, rather than having done by wild.

Yeah that's cool.

But yeah, there's definitely this and there are, there are some wild bees like people like living in people's chimney pots and in, in tree hollows and things and like dead trees and stuff.

But, but you can imagine there's not, there's not as many dead trees with hollow bits in them anymore.

The rebel bees.

Yeah, they're just that habitat doesn't, just doesn't exist really.

Where's the, where's the money go then?

In a bottle of mead.

Is is it.

Is the honey the bit expensive ingredient?

The duty alcohol duty is pesky, pesky tax.

It really is.

So yeah.

What's the duty?

It'll be sort of £5 on a bottle pretty much.

Yeah.

So we do a 700 mil bottle of this one.

Yeah, it's about 6 pound 80 or something I think for duty on that.

So it's far higher than the proportional cost of honey in there.

Yeah.

Which is, which is upsetting actually.

There was, there was a kind of alcohol duty shake up recently.

But before then to make this product out of honey would be taxed five or six times more than a beer just because it fed into like a wine category rather than a beer catalog.

And it just massively stifles industry creativity because then you're making things based on tax brackets based on making it rather than making.

Don't let tax work the dock.

Yeah, yeah.

And do usual.

Do normal soft drinks not have some higher duty or something or like sugar.

There's a sugar tax and actually we are below the sugar tax threshold.

Because you're using natural honey.

Yeah.

You can use less honey as you would like cane sugar for example and have a same perceived sweetness level because it's kind of.

It's the aroma as much as anything else that gives you that sweetness like taste.

So because it, because you're.

You're smelling it and it smells sweet and that's the flavor of honey that has a higher perceived sweetness level.

So you don't have to put as much honey in there as you would sugar.

So it works though.

Yeah, yeah.

But.

But it's.

Yeah.

So we made the soft drinks as a reaction to kind of people looking at the back of.

You know, look at back of any soft drink now and even if it is one with sugar in it, they've sub.

They've added artificial sweeteners in order to bring down the sugar level.

So it's kind of a hybrid of artificial chemical sweeteners.

As much.

As much as sugar.

Yeah, as well as sugar.

Sorry.

So you read the back of it and it's like an absolute confusing cocktail of all these different ingredients that you've never heard of.

And then I think people are just looking at and going I don't want to give that to my kid.

I don't know what half these things are.

So yeah, we made the honey aid based on that really because everyone's heard of honey and it's all British honey and it supports the rural economy.

It's what's beekeepers.

Yeah, it's actually it's been really well received.

Obviously we're a very, very small player in the soft drix market which is colossal and we probably couldn't scale it up.

To be anything like a major player isn't enough I need being made.

Any bet that could have sunk you?

Yes, well lots of little things like where we are.

There's not many actual places to put our business.

So there's a real lack of suitable food and drink based units.

We small warehousing basically there's a shortage of those everywhere.

So during COVID we took over.

Used your mum's bedroom?

Well yeah.

So we were in my mother's room garage for a bit and Then we, as we scaled up we rented the corner of a brewery that was based in.

In Chepstow near us.

They then were winding down as we were.

As we were growing.

And then the landlord saw what we did and said, oh, you've made the.

Made the building worth a lot more so I'm going to put your rent up.

Brilliant.

Brilliant.

So and then we wouldn't sign a long term lease and somebody else would.

So after, yeah, we did all that and literally did one brew and then had to move and that very nearly killed us.

But we, we were a bit stubborn so we moved to a bigger unit a bit further out.

So in Caldecott and spent a year learning how to lay resin floors and dig drains and yeah, all that sort of stuff.

So we, that's what we were doing during COVID We were building and hiring diggers and stuff and to build us to build it all which was, which was cool.

Where's Calder car?

So it is 10 more minutes into Wales from Chepstow.

So it's between Chepstow and Newport.

So yeah, South Wales, but still.

Yeah.

On the edge of.

I get another reason to not call it Y Valley Media anymore because we're no longer in the.

In the Y Valley.

You're no longer there.

So you won that.

But yeah, our beehives.

Our beehives are.

But this would be awkward in this part of the podcast.

Not actually in the white.

Well, like my name will know.

Yeah.

You're in Slough.

Yeah, warehousing space we can drink.

There's a.

There's a. Yeah, there's a Calder cot near Slough actually, so you could migrate.

It's a school.

Anyway.

Yeah.

You should ask the big million dollar question.

Yeah.

What is BS within the Mead industry?

What's.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

I won't mention brand names but there's a lot of kind of novelty gift shop meadow and it hasn't got this, it hasn't really got this like kite mark or something that it has to be X to be called Mead.

There's a rough kind of loose one which says it has to be involving honey.

Oh I think it says 30% honey or something according to the actual.

But no one's really checking.

So it's very tempting.

If you're purely in it for profit margins you would make it from white wine and sugar or use ethanol, alcohol base and flavorings and things.

So sadly like there is with anything, there's always a cheap knockoff version of it.

So we, we, when we, we were quite naive when we started this.

We just thought everyone was doing it properly obviously.

So when we were making our traditional meat which, which you know, it's 30 pounds for a, for a 700ml bottle because you know, real honey and, and all that, all that stuff, there's companies that are selling a 700 mil bottle for £10 or something and you just physically with the six pound duty and the cost, impossible.

So we met a few people from there and then they said, oh yeah, we don't use honey.

But sadly they're the ones that are in all the lovely gift shops of some places.

It's quite shocking when you get into manufacturing how much BS there is.

Oh my goodness.

It's so disheartening.

So disheartening.

And yeah, there's big kind of packers who will be making a lot of, a lot of drips or drinks.

In particular, there's a lot of packers will be making like 90 of all the drinks brands that we've heard of and spirits and things.

And then they're all just made from the same two vats.

And also, you don't know, we may used to make skincare.

And then I remember talking to the supplier and they said, oh, we ran out of that ingredient two years ago.

We were like, that's one of our main ingredients.

And they were like, what are you using?

I'm like, oh, we chucked some other crap in.

It's like.

And they don't even tell you.

They don't even tell you.

They're just like, oh, we haven't had any organic yarrow or whatever it was.

In two years that you're marketing yourselves as, including you.

Unless you're gonna stand there and watch your body in it.

How do you know what's so true?

So much of it is marketing and actually just, just selling on what people are shoot on people's assumptions.

So people think this is made from honey and therefore we're going to play on that and put pictures of bees on the label maybe and not they're not doing anything illegal.

And it will say things like deep honey flavors on the label.

Again, that's, that is a descriptor.

It's not saying it's made with honey.

So how do you, how do you fix that?

So we, I think we just, we're just very, very transparent as a company.

We show we every opportunity, we show people around where we make it and we all our socials is about behind the scenes and, and you could do tracking too.

That's what Steens did.

That's what it was sort of quite pioneering at.

When you put a QR code on.

A box on it and it will.

You go online and it will go straight to the hive.

It came from the sort of.

I mean, I know they're telling the truth, but you could still sell it.

I mean, that's, that's qu.

Powerful.

You can still BS that as well if you wanted to.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So it's, it's really authenticity in a food and drink brand, I think, is.

Is really hard, especially as they grow, especially as they go into larger retailers, because the margin requirements from everybody involved is.

Is so big that actually it encourages the producer to absolutely make it as cheap as they can cut the corners.

Well, you go back to the consumer, which obviously a lot of people are suffering and, you know, the budgets are tight, but.

But ultimately we've grown up in this world where everything kept coming cheaper and we want it cheaper and cheaper and, you know, all that's raised to the.

Bottom and then it just raises the bottom.

Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't encourage the producer to be making the best food and drink they can.

So wouldn't you rather have one amazing drink than six rubbish ones?

That's our bet.

So.

And, and actually that is.

That is being proven to be true as people are drinking less volume, that they're looking for authentic experiences, which mead is.

Is a fantastic way.

And then put the price way up and then you pay the other thing.

You start saying it's £200 a bottle and people are like, yeah, like with.

The fancy tequilas and all of a sudden everybody's buying them.

Yeah, yeah.

And they've used that as an option we haven't considered.

Let's discuss.

Yeah, but.

And actually, yeah, people are looking for authentic experiences and, and actually you're.

You've got a. I think that's why farm shops and delis work so well for us, because, yeah, people are there looking for that sort of experience and, And I think the best food drink out there won't ever.

Won't ever be in a supermarket.

It will be.

It will be a local farmer's market or it'll be a high street stall or, or, yeah, if it's some craft cider, it will be in a milk carton behind a bar or something.

It won't be ever in a, In a big retailer because just because it's.

It's gonna stifle.

Yeah.

Quality.

I never forget drinking cider when they get it in Dorset, if you go to the right time of year and you go to these pubs and it's like, it's.

It's like a drink you've never had before.

I mean, I still remember getting one from the bar.

Like, sit.

Whole thing went down, straight back in.

So this is the most beautiful drink I've ever.

You know, why does this not leave?

Ends up being like 10 as well.

So.

Yeah, it's 10%.

It doesn't leave Dorset.

They're like, oh, don't let this out.

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, meat industry, it's similar to the cider industry.

There's so much apple syrup being.

Being used, which is imported apple syrup, which will be.

Yeah.

Sugar with apple flavoring, which the yeast won't care.

The yeast will ferment it and make alcohol.

But it's not authentic.

We care.

We should care and I think we should be aware.

Yeah, we should be aware.

We should have that choice.

And I think the marketing of it has a lot to answer for in that, of course you want to kind of, if it isn't being done like quite.

You want to put pictures of fields and, you know, like the meat industry has lovely, like invents the names of these farms that they put on the packaging of meat and.

And then you feel good as a consumer that you're okay.

This is from a.

This isn't from some horrible, like, anyway.

Yeah, no, no, very good.

But you actually, you have people who come.

Come over.

They learn to make me visit the hives.

That.

That must be quite important in terms of that authenticity and making sure that people actually connect with the brand.

Yes.

Yeah.

So we have, we do a monthly mead baking course and beekeeping course which we initially did as an extra revenue stream and now we, we will never stop doing it because it's a way of.

Every, every month we do it, we have another, you know, 30, 40 brand ambassadors who, who go, yeah, okay.

They actually do do it properly.

Here's the stings to prove it.

And here's.

Here's a barrel of mead that I.

That I made when I was there.

And it's really hard to track the value of that.

Yeah.

So.

So that's why we do it, really.

It's.

It's on the day, it's.

It's kind of.

It's an insane day.

We used to open every Friday and Saturday as a bar in our premises, but now we do it once a month.

We do a beekeeping course.

9 Till 12.

And then we do a mead baking course.

1 Till 5 and then we have an open evening where we put a live band and the food truck on.

Oh, nice.

And that goes until 11, 12, midnight.

And so it's a mega day.

We get about 200 people through.

Oh, fun.

Which is cool.

And it's in the most unassuming industrial state in Caldecott, opposite, you know, a scrap yard.

And it looks pretty rough, but.

But yeah, I mean, people come to Caldicott now, so people would have heard of Caldecott.

Who.

They've come from all over the UK and from abroad.

We'd have people coming in and they all stay locally and have a big party and.

Amazing.

It's really cool.

And it's.

I guess it's just kind of people.

Yeah, I guess having authentic experiences and stuff.

It's.

Yeah, it's really nice.

So I'm gonna go off on a quick waffly tangent just very quickly.

I saw in your video, this probably won't get in, but I saw in your video that one of you, maybe you're your brother, were in the beekeeper's suit, but nothing on your hands when you were handling.

Handling the hive and all of the bees around the hands.

Is that actually the way that he always.

After the video.

Because surely you get stung.

Yeah, he.

He says it keeps him, you know, engaged.

Okay.

No, he doesn't.

He.

He.

He says you've got to do a lot of.

Actually, a lot of it is your.

He says that you get direct feedback for the bees that way.

Yeah.

If they're not happy, they'll.

They'll sting you.

Also, you're doing a lot of.

Kind of high fidelity, kind of.

They'll be quite dexterous.

And if you're rough and clumsy with the bees, then they'll be cross and upset.

So he.

You'll quickly find out he doesn't get stung that often.

And actually, he's probably so used to it now that.

Yeah, he just sort of just, you know, one tear will come down.

So he genuinely does that.

That wasn't just for video because he.

Just forgotten his gloves, probably.

Yeah.

That's probably the reason you were like,.

He's forgotten the crucial thing.

No, no.

Yeah, he does it, I think.

Yeah.

If you're trying to.

If you're trying to do something delicate, the last thing you want to do is be going in there with big clumpy gloves and squashing things and.

Yeah.

And actually you're.

There's a queen bee in there which you've got to be so careful if you're trying to, you know, move her or check where she is, the last thing you want to do is, you know, damage her or anything else.

So.

Yeah, he doesn't wear gloves.

Very good.

Okay, my favorite part of the show, we're going to read some phrases to you.

You have to tell us whether you think they're business or.

And we can discuss.

You get a paddle.

I love doing business.

Or BS if you like.

Tread on a pin or something.

Do you say.

I would probably say sugar.

You ever sworn?

Yeah, I'm sure I have.

I work here.

Come beekeeping with us and.

Yeah, then I'm sure I would also.

My, my husband is Aussie so his entire vocabulary is swearing.

So I'm sure I've picked some of the.

Yeah, okay, very good.

Do you understand the rules of English in here?

A lot of fun.

Yeah.

Hold it.

I should bring one of these back to the meter actually.

Yeah.

Okay, let's go.

You.

You start small batch business.

Wait, I try to explain or do I just hold the paddle up?

You can always explain if you wish.

Yeah, small batch is good.

Small batch.

We.

So yeah.

Hard to make money though.

Yeah.

So we use that as a.

As a marketing tool.

So we initially we used to grow our business by bringing a new line out and oh wow.

We just added another whole revenue stream by bringing a new product out.

We realized when we got to I think we had to 22 products at one point and it was getting quite unmanageable in terms of stock control and things.

So we thought, okay, let's just do a rolling small batch that we can use as a marketing tool and it gives people a reason as we're shifting to do quite a lot of direct to consumer e commerce websites.

Yeah.

Just give people a reason to be contacted each month.

I think I struggle with the whole just sort of a pointless post or a pointless email which just says Happy Friday.

Cheers to having a. I just cringe.

And so I think you've got to tell.

Gotta be giving people something information or something.

So yeah, you produce a small batch to bring attention back to the products basically.

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

And we can try out wacky experimental product ingredients and you know, we did a.

This month we're doing a Bakewell tart mead, so cherry juice and almond extract to make like a, like a, like a cake in a.

In a bottle.

Do you get a lot of feedback from your questions?

We do, yeah.

And then, then we do.

We do an annual kind of competition to see which ones we bring back Next year.

And it's just basically a nice engagement tool and things.

But.

But one that isn't just marketing sort of guff, I suppose.

Artisan.

That's probably a bit.

Because I think the word artisan can be used by anybody and it's devalued it to the point where everything's artisan.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Misused.

Yeah.

Organic maybe.

Yeah.

Passive income.

That would be.

That would be lovely.

Yeah.

When you're working 80 hour weeks, it's probably.

Yeah.

I mean that would be the dream, I think.

Yeah.

In, in the, in the job that we do.

I suppose the dream is to have a reliable income stream that's every month.

So hence why it'd be lovely to work with like a large retailer.

But actually they aren't as.

They aren't as.

I guess you build.

If you build your business on that.

Yeah.

And it goes away, then you're in trouble.

So every month we're kind of like scrambling for.

To make, to make it all kind of add up each month.

So yeah, it would be lovely to have a, a reliable income.

We're a lifestyle brand that probably is.

That probably is business in that.

In that the ones that genuinely are lifestyle brands.

You can tell probably.

Yeah.

You can tell how tired do the people who work there look.

And I think they're a lifestyle brand.

They don't have time for a lifestyle usually.

Although actually I think lifestyle brands also to some people it can mean, it can mean that it's just sort of a kind of a wishy washy kind of fun, a hobby thing.

I think it's something that will never scale.

Yeah.

So it's your lifestyle to produce this thing.

But there could be very nice businesses that.

Yes.

I mean there's a session with scaling and exiting and it's like something wrong with building a nice lifestyle.

It's definitely had that conversation ago.

What are we doing?

What's our plan?

And, and a few years ago we thought, we thought it was to.

Yeah, we, we didn't have any, we've not had any investment at any stage.

It's all just been my brother and I's sweat and blood.

Yeah.

And we put in like five grand at the beginning and that's it.

And then just reinvested each, each profit and now we can, we can draw a salary and we can employ people as well.

Which is, which is cool.

But you, you've had a debate with it.

Oh yeah.

Of whether you should stay a lifestyle brand or scale.

Yeah.

And then we were trying to attract investment because we all Thought, okay, we want to do a big marketing campaign.

We want to get salespeople.

So we talked to some sort of investors and they, and they said, okay, well we would invest if you can, if you can hit, if you can draw up a three year plan and give us some exciting numbers and then, and then sell in three years time and we'll exit and I just don't know what are we.

That was never the plan.

There was never was a plan, I suppose.

Yeah, yeah.

But actually what would we do then?

We'd have to do something else.

And if we can make what we're doing now enjoyable.

And, and what would the bees do?

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

And then end up taking like sugar and just making these products.

Yeah, exactly.

So I don't know.

Yeah, I think those are the sort of ones that may be a bit more disingenuous perhaps.

Sustainability.

Probably is.

I think, I think that would mean something different when everyone can claim that they're being sustainable just by using.

You mean like greenwashing is bs, right?

But genuine can mean a lot.

Yes.

What does it mean?

Is the question you would pose.

Yeah, I suppose.

Are you doing things if everyone.

I guess, yeah.

What does it mean?

And it's just so woolly that everyone says that they're sustainable just because I use a, I don't know, recyclable packaging or something.

Yeah, yeah.

I have a windmill out the back.

So your point would be specific in what you're sustaining.

You're sustaining bees and.

Yeah.

The rural economy and giving back locally and everything.

Yeah.

Bootstrapping.

I guess that's business.

Yeah, we did bootstrap the business.

All our equipment is third hand and all being jerry rigged from other bits and bobs.

The business account, we treat that as if it's our own account, our own money, which I suppose hopefully might be one day.

But yeah, we're very, very careful about what we buy and don't make any agonize over every purchase and things.

Which, which is bootstrapping the way to run it, I suppose.

Yeah.

The customer is always right.

I guess that's business in that they, they're the ones who are buying your.

Stuff and just don't let them know they're wrong.

Yeah, yeah.

We do a lot more direct consumer.

So having to having to kind of deal with, you know, direct customers.

I don't know.

Yeah.

If they're unhappy, the only way you can make it, even if they're a business, a business customer or a consumer.

Yeah.

You've got to do what they want really.

Or else you never see them again.

Selling out.

Well, I guess selling out is bullshit, but.

Yeah.

I don't know what would be selling out.

I suppose getting.

Getting.

Selling a brand.

Yeah.

Getting Heineken to, if you're listening, you know.

Yeah.

Selling the brand.

I suppose that that is kind of what people are in this to make.

People are in business to make money.

And I suppose if you're not.

If you're not.

If you haven't decided 100 you're running a lifestyle business, then if it helps you to achieve what you want to achieve and, and grow and.

And things.

I think a smaller slice of a bigger pie is still a lot of pie.

Yeah.

Yes, I know it'll be not a lot of mead.

Yeah.

Be nice to have the opportunity to sell out and then say no.

Don't think there's anything wrong with selling out ultimately.

I guess.

I guess the point is, is if they then replace the honey or whatever, you lose control.

You can't you.

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Important one next, Gemma.

Yeah.

Family business, which we all know the joys of.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, that's.

That is important.

And actually I think that's probably got overall more benefits than negatives.

I think you can be.

You can be.

You can be frank and potentially rude to your family in.

In a.

In a way, but it's always, you know, it's always.

It's always family.

It's always kind of.

It's hard.

Me and Matt have very different skill sets.

Very important.

Yeah.

Which is.

Which is really means you don't clash.

You've got your own space.

Yeah, absolutely.

But I think, I suppose then also it means you don't understand each other's.

Skill set, so you have to defer to the other on those decisions.

Yeah.

And you have to, you have to.

Even if you don't understand something, you have to know that it's.

If the other person thinks it's good and trust it.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think.

Do you guys have a shareholders agreement?

Yeah, 50.

50, I think.

But no agreement in place, so I don't.

My family wouldn't either, kind of.

It's a family.

You kind of just go along and you.

You agree things.

But you do you have a partnership agreement.

This is other people besides the family, I mean.

Yeah.

There is technically a buck, probably because we've got non family.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

When your family.

You kind of just make those decisions, don't you, around the dinner table.

And I think families can fall out.

That's the worst one badly.

When that in a way that is really sad.

But you have to have overlapping responsibility.

As long as your responsibilities aren't overlapping then you're good.

Yeah, yeah, I think so.

And also just maybe getting to know what other people are doing and having an appreciation and respect for what other people are doing would help a little bit.

And yeah, you can get bad family members too and then like lazy ones or whatever.

Then you're getting them out the business.

Yeah, that's true.

I don't think luckily it's not in either Matt or I's blood to be.

To be.

I think we will.

We might definitely not work smart but we'll always be working hard.

So I suppose last maybe when we do clashes it's about.

It's about like why are you spending all day doing X when you know the thing you're prioritizing and things like that.

And revenue is vanity, profit is sanity.

Yeah, you do just chase turnover all the time I think and trying to grow.

We.

Yeah we've been.

We've been on a fairly exciting growth trajectory I think for past.

Ever since we did the business.

Starting from nothing it's quite easy to grow excitingly but we probably do lose profit like keeping the profit.

That's a bit of a rambly answer to that.

I think that happens at the beginning.

I mean your accountants love profit.

But businesses need revenue and not necessarily to chase profit off the bat right at the beginning.

Gross profit for you is what matters.

Margin.

Margin.

Margin, yes.

And actually at every stage currently margins being eroded by so many things like energy prices and packaging prices.

It's endless.

Yeah.

And you can't like we priced our products to where we think the limit would be to what someone would pay for it rather than purely margin based.

So some things we're making not.

Not as good margin on, some things we're making better margin on and they all kind of balance out.

But it's been a bit challenging to kind of keep track of all the.

Like there were so many as you grow there's so many kind of ancillary like people and services and software and it's just.

Yeah so.

So keeping that unchanged check is a bit challenging.

What would be your one piece of advice to someone starting a product business right now?

Physical products I think are really hard and especially alcohol.

You know the government's had hundreds of years to figure out how to extract the most money as possible from hospitality and drinks and things have.

Have an eye early on and how if it was to go really well how you can scale it up and how you can make it more efficient and have a route to that and know at which point you need to change your methodology to.

Now that you're doing the X minute units, you have to do it in this other way or else you're just.

We're still pasteurizing things by hand, which takes forever and yeah, we haven't scaled up.

There's bits of it have scaled up, not in line with other bits, which is really hurting us.

So think through all of the process and how you would scale it all.

Yeah.

Imagine everything.

Imagine that thing is going to grow massively.

Could you still.

Could you do it?

And if you can't do it then I suppose, I don't know, do something else.

Yeah, well, except there'll be a lifestyle business.

Yeah.

So where do people find out more?

They go to Hive Mind Mead.

That's it.

Yeah.

So if you just Google Hive Mind Me.

Yeah.

So that will hopefully take you to.

The website and you could buy direct.

What stockists are you in?

So London, we're in Selfridges and we're in a lovely shop called Indie Beer in Islington.

We're in a growing number of lovely little kind of cafes and things with our soft drinks.

So there's two peas in a pod.

Yeah.

Which I can't remember those.

There's.

What was the name of the cheese shop in South London?

Little mouse.

Okay, well they'll find out.

I do a stockist list on your website, that is.

Yeah, Panzer's store is a bit.

Oh, they're near us.

Yeah, they're really John Swede.

Yeah.

They've got a lovely lot of soft drinks in their fridges currently.

And then co op in South Wales.

So we're in all the, all the South Wales co op stores with.

With our Sparkling mead.

Nice.

And then.

Yeah, lots of little bottle shops and, and delis and garden centers and that sort of thing.

But if we aren't in some of what you think we should be, then give us a shout and we'll.

We'll badger them until.

Until we're in there.

Well, I highly recommend it.

Delicious.

So that's been this week's episode of Business Without Bullshit.

We'll be back again soon.

Till then is ciao.