About Fuelling Foodies: The Food Marketing Podcast
Fuelling Foodies is for the real food & drink founders who want to scale without the fluff. Hosted by Kate Williams, founder of KW Marketing, this podcast gives you the raw truth about growing your food business. Forget generic advice – this is about real stories, struggles, and breakthroughs.
Every episode will dive deep into what it actually takes to build and grow a food business. From expert digital marketing strategies to the gritty challenges founders face, we share what works (and what doesn’t) in building food & drink brands that THRIVE.
Whether you're just starting out or scaling up, Fuelling Foodies gives you the insight, inspiration, and no-nonsense advice you need to FUEL your growth.
Black Friday 2026: Don't Discount Until You've Heard This.
Black Friday is nearly here… and somewhere inside a food & drink business right now, someone is suggesting 20% off. Someone else wants 30%. The Meta budget is going up. And everyone is talking about how much revenue they're hoping to generate.
But how much of that revenue are you actually going to keep?
Because a record-breaking Black Friday means absolutely nothing if you've destroyed your margins to get there.
In Episode 28 of Fuelling Foodies, the team got together to talk about what we're REALLY seeing across food & drink brands heading into Black Friday 2026.
Should every brand even take part? Is 20% off enough anymore? Should you run a sitewide discount, bundle products together or offer something completely different? And when competition gets expensive, where should your marketing budget actually go?
Because the answer isn't automatically “discount more and spend more.”
From protecting your margins and premium brand positioning to making better use of the customers you've already paid to acquire, we're getting into what can actually make Black Friday profitable.
You'll hear:
Whether every food & drink brand should participate in Black Friday
Why you need to understand your margins BEFORE signing off a discount
Sitewide discounts vs bundles, free delivery and gifts with purchase
How premium brands can participate without cheapening their positioning
Why your existing customers and email database could be your biggest Black Friday opportunity
When we'd scale Meta, and when we wouldn't
Why Google Ads plays a different role during peak buying periods
The Black Friday mistakes that can eat into your profit, or even steal sales from December
What we'd prioritise if a brand came to us TWO WEEKS before Black Friday with no plan
The biggest takeaway?
Your goal shouldn't be to have your busiest day of the year. It should be to have your most PROFITABLE one.
And if your email strategy needs some attention before peak season really gets going, download our FREE Email Playbook (https://kwmarketinguk.co.uk/email-playbook-food-drink/).
LINKS & RESOURCES:
Download our free guide: The Email Playbook (https://kwmarketinguk.co.uk/email-playbook-food-drink/) - How one food & drink brand made £56.7K in email sales (with no extra ad spend!)
Need help with your marketing? Book a Strategy Call with Kate (https://kwmarketinguk.co.uk/food-marketing-agency/)
Follow us at @kwmarketinguk (https://www.instagram.com/kwmarketinguk) for podcast clips, content, and food & drink marketing tips!
If this episode inspired you, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a fellow founder - we love seeing how you’re fuelling your growth 🔥
9 Oct 2026
Building A Food Brand in a Crowded Category with Wild Thingz
Standing out is as a brand hard. Standing out in a crowded confectionery category? Even harder. 👀
Walk down the healthier snacking aisle and there’s no shortage of brands telling you they’re better for you. Less sugar. Better ingredients. Healthier choices.
But how many of those brands could you actually remember five minutes later?
That’s the challenge Wild Thingz is taking on.
In Episode 27 of Fuelling Foodies, Kate sits down with Fliss Newland (https://www.linkedin.com/in/fliss-newland/), founder of Wild Thingz (https://wildthingz.co.uk/), to talk about building a challenger confectionery brand in one of the most competitive categories in food & drink.
After years working at Mondelez with some of the biggest names in confectionery, Fliss made the leap from big corporate to building her own brand, taking what was once Veggie Bears, completely rethinking the positioning and relaunching it as Wild Thingz.
You'll hear:
Why Wild Thingz chose to make “better-for-you” confectionery feel FUN rather than worthy.
The challenge of designing and marketing a product for two very different audiences: parents and children.
Why being distinctive and memorable matters in a category dominated by huge brands and even bigger budgets.
Why getting the biggest retail listing as quickly as possible isn't always the right goal.
The expensive TikTok Shop lesson, and why what's working for another brand might not be right for yours.
What's next for Wild Thingz as the brand looks towards bigger retail opportunities, community growth and 2027.
And perhaps the biggest lesson of all... challenger brands don't need to be everywhere.
When you have limited time, budget and resource, every “yes” to one opportunity is a “no” to something else.
The job is knowing your customer, understanding where your brand genuinely has an opportunity and focusing your energy on the things that are actually going to move the needle.
Because in a category as noisy as confectionery, having a better product isn't enough.
People have to remember you.
LINKS & RESOURCES:
Follow Wild Thingz (https://www.instagram.com/wildthingzsweets) and explore their wildly delicious sweets.
Join the Food Marketing Club (https://www.foodmarketingclub.co.uk/) for just £57/month - your monthly hub for digital marketing strategies, templates, and support
Want tailored strategy support? Book a Strategy Call with Kate (https://kwmarketinguk.co.uk/food-marketing-agency/)
Follow @kwmarketinguk (https://www.instagram.com/kwmarketinguk) for food & drink marketing insights, email tips & digital strategy
If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a fellow founder building a challenger brand - we love seeing how you're fuelling your growth 🔥
25 Sept 2026
Heritage Meets Modern Growth - The Miles Tea & Coffee Story
Heritage is powerful. But it doesn’t mean you can stand still.
Some food & drink brands spend years trying to build the kind of heritage Miles Tea & Coffee already has.
Generations of history. Loyal customers. Products people have been buying for decades.
But that creates a different challenge…
How do you take everything people already love about your brand and use it to build the next stage of growth?
In Episode 26 of Fuelling Foodies, Kate sits down with John Halls from Miles Tea & Coffee to unpack exactly that.
From a hand-coded website in 1998 and a very first online order worth £125, to customers now spending £60, £70, £80 or even £100+ online, Miles has seen the way people buy tea and coffee completely change.
And yet, one thing has stayed remarkably consistent: customer loyalty.
You'll hear:
What genuine heritage actually means commercially, and why being “in it” can make it difficult to see the value you have.
Taking a heritage brand online - from Miles' first hand-coded website in 1998 to its modern eCommerce operation.
The power of genuinely loyal customers
Growing without losing your identity
Finding the next generation of customers
The customer journey beyond the purchase - from packaging and dispatch to email and creating a memorable experience.
What's next for Miles
And perhaps the biggest lesson of all... you don't necessarily need to reinvent a heritage brand. You need to tell more people why it matters.
If your food or drink brand has history behind it, the question is: Are you using that history to drive your next stage of growth, or are you simply talking about it?
LINKS & RESOURCES:
Follow @milesandteacoffee (https://www.instagram.com/milesteaandcoffee/) and explore their heritage teas and coffees. (https://www.milesteaandcoffee.com/)
Join the Food Marketing Club (https://www.foodmarketingclub.co.uk/) for just £57/month - your monthly hub for digital marketing strategies, templates, and support
Want tailored strategy support? Book a Strategy Call with Kate (https://kwmarketinguk.co.uk/food-marketing-agency/)
Follow @kwmarketinguk (https://www.instagram.com/kwmarketinguk) for food & drink marketing insights, email tips & digital strategy
If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a fellow founder building their brand - we love seeing how you're fuelling your growth 🔥
Who has been a guest on Fuelling Foodies: The Food Marketing Podcast
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Phoebe
Laura
Hannah Wilding
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Spotify
5.0 / 5
4 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 17 / 100
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Quality
21
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
32
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Questions about Fuelling Foodies: The Food Marketing Podcast
Who hosts Fuelling Foodies: The Food Marketing Podcast?
Kate host the show. Published by KW Marketing.
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