You Can't Be What You Can't See | Female Entrepreneurs & Challenger Brands

You built something from scratch. You saw a gap, you felt a need, you made something that mattered. But somewhere along the line, it got difficult. The funding didn't flow, the credit didn't always come your way, and somewhere in the back of your mind, a question: is this industry actually built for someone like me? Today's guest has spent years challenging that question. Mex Ibrahim founded Women in the Food Industry. A community that spans chefs, farmers, manufacturers, writers, and everyone in between. She doesn't pull punches. Restaurant ownership is elitist. Funding for women is barely moving. And those bootstrapped success stories?

Hmm.

Many have a hidden advantage they're not telling you about. I'm Karen Green, and this is the Friday Accelerator. Welcome. Welcome. It's a long time we've known each other. I'm trying, I was trying to think, we worked together on, on Zinder Foods back in It would've been 2019. So I thought it'd be great to talk about women in the food industry. What's the elevator pitch when people say, tell me about it?

We are a community interest group and we bring together women across the UK food industry through a series of in-person events, through mentorships, through articles, through features, and through that we try to give them the confidence And the ability to build themselves up and become where they should be in the food industry, because we feel that women at the moment are not as well represented as we should be and as we deserve to be. And it's through that community and through finding out and working with other women, and even just being together with other women, that you find that you can do that, because you realize that you're not the only person that's been through that. Because often it's very easy to think, oh, as a woman, I'm the only person that's ever experienced this. And I think that's really what the heart of what we do is at. It's very much about bringing people together through a community and through collaborations with other people, and even with some, you know, even with our male allies, to bring us closer together and to help us realize that we should all be as equal as men in the industry.

And I think it's great that you're going across, like you say, the whole of the food industry, because as you know, I specialize more in, in manufacturing, retail brands, and, and then you've got retail food and then you've got food service and hospitality. And then I know you're involved with, with writers as well. So there's, it's a, it's, it's a really interesting broad spectrum.

Why we wanted to be across the board is because I think women everywhere in any industry have similar issues. It's not just within food. It's, you know, you'll find it in the law, you'll find it in finance, you'll find it even in the creative industry. You'll still find that women are not really given the same sorts of equality or levels of equality that we should be given. And I feel that we were founded originally because There were like women in meat and women in drinks and women in, as you say, all of these specific verticals, women in farming, but there was nothing really bringing us all together in the food industry. And I think that's really what we, we set out to do was to bring together like nutritionists and bring together writers and farmers. And as you say, producers and manufacturing and people in the supply chain. And also chefs, you know, because we all have the same connection with food, obviously. Food is the connection, and drinks for that matter as well. It's not just food. A cup of wine, you know, a cup of wine and spirits and, and no low too. It was really trying to bring everybody working with food or drink together and not just like create it in silos that it was, you know, obviously all of those groups are great in themselves. It's great to have women in the meat business and, and what Queen of Wines doing with Curious Finds is great, but that's obviously just with wine and spirits. But I feel bringing everybody together and learning from those different verticals is a really great thing. And that's really what we wanted to do.

I think it's, it's valuable and Women in Food Awards, which I know you won an award. Congratulations. That also has tried to go across the industries rather than just be specifically in manufacturing and producing. Which I think is really great actually. And there were some really great people who came up on stage who, to be fair, I didn't know because they were coming in from the different industries in terms of writing and hospitality. And I think it's a good award. So where are you? Where's your, where's Women in Food? Where is the evolution of the organization?

Yes, good question. I mean, the evolution I suppose is that we are probably, well, we're bigger. So obviously that's, that's one good thing. And I think Being bigger means that we get kind of like a greater reach, more people hear about us, which means that more people can actually come to our events. And the evolution, I suppose, is moving towards not trying to just keep our in-person events in London. So we're looking very much to try to do more events outside of London. We've put on some great events up in York. We've got our next event coming up in Bradford. We've also done events in Lancaster. I'm looking to do things in Manchester and Birmingham as well. So I would say our, our evolution is through being larger, that we are able to cover more parts of the country than we were in the past. And that's obviously good.

Well, I'm already hearing from you, and I do see you obviously pop up on— I'm here, I'm there, I'm at this dinner, I'm at this awards do, I'm at this thing. You must be pulled very thin.

Yeah.

If you're trying to do so many, so many things, because it's, it's never-ending, I would have thought.

It is, really. And, and, you know, there are, there are a lot more events, as I said, down here, and I do try to go to the ones that I feel, you know, that we ought to be at, we ought to be seen at. But there are lots of, you know, people in the north or in, in the Midlands who would say, well, why can't we do the same up here? And I said, you know, you're more than welcome to. And I'm I'm happy to give you as much marketing support as I can, but it does need like a core team of people to actually go out, find the venues, and make the connections with, with the people that could help support you and put the events on.

Right now you can grab a free copy of my book, Birology, at my website, birology.co.uk/free-resources. Your tagline, you can't be what you can't see. Was there a point at which that's become relevant for you? Is it born out of personal experience?

It's almost kind of like what you, you, you were saying as well earlier about sort of like women of a certain age as well is kind of another area because often you think, particularly with me, of having a career in social media. It's, it's often where I started my list. I worked for Yahoo a long time ago as community manager, as one of their first community managers. And social does tend to feel like it's for the young'uns. And if you can't see people that don't fit your, you know, where you are in that you're an age that's over 50 or that's, you know, working, coming from a sort of potentially working-class background, not necessarily having a moneyed family and, you know, being from an ethnic minority and all of these things, if you can't see people being successful who have all of those, you know, things that you haven't, you've been through, whether you call them challenges or not. Sometimes they are challenges, obviously. Sometimes you can use them to your advantage. But if, if you feel that you're not seeing, like, women winning Michelin stars, or, or Black women winning Michelin stars, or— winning awards or being on TV shows or being mentioned in the press all the time or having huge social media followings and becoming influencers, you feel that, well, that's never going to be me. I'm just never going to do that. It's just not me. The powers that be are not looking for those people. So I feel, yes, it's an important tagline for us because it's really what we're about is trying to give put women into the spotlight from wherever they're from, really. So we don't just deal with women that are necessarily majorly successful. Obviously, we've interviewed a lot of those people in our time, but we do like to look at women who are, who are rising up and who are making waves, you know, from a startup level. And I think that's why, as you said, that, you know, the Women in Food and Drink Awards are, are great, because they were, you know, it was about like The new people and the young entrepreneurs, as well as the seasoned people like yourself, like the lifetime achievement people. So it's having that mix. If you can see yourself in people that are being successful, you think, you know what, maybe I could do that as well. And it's often just having confidence sometimes to put yourself forward. I'm not saying it's easy, but at least seeing those people means that it is I think it's really important.

And I mean, I often quote, so my daughter went to be a doctor. Obviously I'm white, I'm middle class, I suppose you would say. But I remember talking to a consultant before Katie applied, so she would've been about 16 and saying, oh, Katie wants to be a doctor, you know, da da da. And she went, I don't think so. She doesn't come from a doctor family. She's not at a private school, 'cause she wasn't. She graduated actually, and she, she became a doctor and she got into UCL, which is one of the best schools in the country. Food is, is, is obviously different, but, but I mean, cheffing's elitist. I don't think retail's very elitist, but—

No, I mean, I think, I mean, maybe, maybe cheffing in itself might not be as elitist, but certainly restaurant owning is completely elitist. And, and with that, you really do need to have some money or you need to have a backer and it's It's kind of like that, you know, we all know that women get less backing than men, you know, for whatever reasons. Well, we know what some of the reasons are, but it's, you know, if you therefore have not come from a money background with someone that can help you, if you haven't got a background like that and you're trying to open a new restaurant, you would think it's just not possible. It's just literally not possible.

Yeah. Yes.

Unless you can get backing from an investor, and then obviously again, that comes with its own problems too. So, and also in food production, I think there was an article in The Grocer about a year ago which said that a lot of food founders, particularly ones that were successful, were coming from like middle-class backgrounds because it's very hard. Because you still do, you know, you need money for everything. You really do. To start up, you need money. And it's If there isn't someone around to bankroll you, or you've not inherited money, or you don't want to go through the lengthy process of crowdfunding, it's very, very difficult because every part of the industry does need money to set it up and also to grow. Everything else will come, like mentorship and all that sort of stuff, but actual funding and hard cash is what most people need right now, and that's the thing that's very difficult to, to get hold of. And particularly, and another thing I think as well about if you come from a sort of like a, and, you know, working class or even a lower middle class background, your, your expectations are kind of lower as well. And, and you won't feel that you can go out and actually ask for money in the same way that people who are from a sort of more wealthier and a more privileged background do, because they feel that it's kind of like their right to be given money. So if you're not like that, you think, well, why would they give me money? Why, why would they give me money? And therefore, again, you don't go for it because you don't see other people doing that.

I do remember the article. There was some controversy about certain brands who, who basically were saying we bootstrapped. And you're like, yeah, you have bootstrapped, but you don't pay, have to pay your rent or someone somehow your rent is being paid for you. And, and, and so therefore it's a lot easier. I remember talking to one who will remain nameless and I said, well, what's your— because we would— she was a startup and she's, she's done very well actually. But I was like, well, what's your, what's your living expenses? Because we need to sort of think about what do you need to take out the business? And she was like, I don't know. I don't think that's relevant. And I was like, okay, but trust me, because I've spoken to a lot of people for whom that is Super relevant. And then, you know, yeah, my rent is this. And so I really need to make $2,000, $3,000 a month or whatever it is. But then again, you meet a lot of food founders that don't pay themselves anything, which is another bugbear of mine where they'll go, yeah, we are. Yeah, we may, we're making a profit. And I said, well, what are you paying yourself? Oh, well, I don't know. If this is your only income, I mean, for me, this is my business. I have to earn money. You know, it's got to make money. It's not, it's Otherwise it's an expensive hobby. And I have had an expensive hobby business. Um, I did own a gym for a while and I was putting money into it a lot, but it's not, it's not good, good business sense. No.

Well, it's not, it's not sustainable, is it really? It's, it's, it might be fine to get, to get a business off the ground. I think, you know, with Women in the Food Industry, we, we bootstrapped ourselves at the start and before we became a nonprofit. But you can't continue having a very expensive hobby because after a while it just becomes too expensive and you think, why am I doing this?

It's, it's just, it's just draining, isn't it? So you've worked with a lot of female founders. Do you think women approach things differently, like MPD, setting up their business, money?

I think a lot of women start up food businesses to meet a purpose which was lacking. It's because they wanted to, like, you know, they had a particular allergy or that their children had a particular allergy or that they were just looking for certain things which just didn't exist on the market and didn't cater for their particular personal needs. And therefore it's very good to be able to have a purpose-driven business because you are then passionate about it. And I think that happens probably, I would say, more so with female-founded businesses in terms of like, you know, developing the product in the first place. It's meeting a gap that they found in their family when they've been going out shopping. Because if you look at the people that do most of the purchasing decisions around food, Globally, it's women. So therefore, if we're going out and we're going into shops and we're looking for like a gluten-free snack bar that's for children, you, you know, and you're, you're then looking for it actually on the shelves and you're not seeing that, you might then be tempted to think, do you know what, I feel like I could do this, or I feel like this is There is a gap in the market. The great thing about women and the strengths that we really do have is the ability to empathize and the ability to put ourselves very clearly and very strongly into other people's shoes. That's not saying that men do not have that ability at all. Many men do have that ability, and it's great that they do have, but I do feel that that's really, really important in food. It's about not just necessarily thinking about yourself. This is it because I want— all right, you know, I want to be a chef because I want to be the best chef in the world. It's often like a thing that we hear from often men in the culinary world, whereas a woman might be, you know what, I want to start a cafe and I want to be a cafe that deals with the local community and that particularly can help young mums or can help people that are older. in the industry, or people that are, you know, me caring, and that people that want whatever is often a reason sometimes that people start a restaurant or will start a cafe. And we also think, oh, well, we've got this great type of food that was passed down by my grandmother, was passed down through my family, and I want to make sure that that food continues, and I want to make sure that people can, people can carry on tasting that. Rather than, I want to be the best chef in the world. A lot of the women that I've interviewed over the past, in terms of like podcasting and interviews we've done, there's virtually always been a background story like that. There's always been like a purposeful, driven story. We're all now, you know, we're all battling against everybody, you know, for supermarket space. And if there's an amazing story that the founder or food business or the brand can tell, that then empathizes with other people and it's like, okay, you know what? Yeah, that does actually sound a bit unique. Or I've never, you know, I've, I've also been looking for food that I haven't looked out for. And now, oh look, I'm here. Hey presto, here it is.

It's much stronger, isn't it? Than, oh, I'll buy a bottle of Coca-Cola, which is just a generic thing. It's a generic brand. Yeah.

There's nothing, there's nothing behind it. And often, you know, there's, there's some great brands around, built around the founders. Which also again has its big advantages. There are sort of disadvantages you get again as the business grows. But to start off with, if you've got a purposeful driven brand or an idea or something you just feel so passionate about that you can bring other people on board with that passion, you can bring investors in with that, you can also bring your customers in with that because they can tell that you're genuinely passionate about it. about it. It's not something we've made up. It's genuinely believe in that. And that's, it's that genuine belief, which, which marks good products against, you know, the alternatives.

What about, what do you think are the mistakes that female founders are making? Where do they trip up?

There's a few things, I suppose. There's, there's, there's one, I suppose, is kind of like the The confidence, I think, to like to ask for help is often a trip up. And that could be, you know, help on, you know, growing your business, but also deciding when you're going to pay for that help. Because you can't rely on like free help all the time. And sometimes you do have to pay to bring in an expert because you've just not got the expertise. And when you start a company and you are the founder, you're the person doing everything, there does come a point when you think, do you know what? I'm actually not that great at finance and I need to bring on like a CFO. Or I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not a great people manager, so therefore I need to bring on an HR advisor or, you know, one of all of these fractional roles that we get now, which are fantastic. But they are, but they do enable us to then bring on people who, who, you know, can counter our strengths and leave us to get on with the, you know, what we're good at in founding a business or the vision or the strategy to see it through and to have other people, fractional people to come on board to help with the sort of day-to-day things, which take up a lot of time. And if you're not good at it, it takes you even longer than someone that's really, really good at something.

I work with a lot of food founders on the commercial side and on the sales side. And some people are just born to sell and other people just go, oh, I don't like selling. I don't want to sell. And it's really hard then because I'm kind of like, well, if you can't sell, you're going to struggle. So you have to take people back and then start to say, well, actually, we're all selling something, whether it's, you know, when you're going on a date or whatever, there's always that negotiation, that interaction. It's hard though, I think, as a founder to find the money. There is a book and I can't remember what it's called about the gap where food, where it's not just food funds, but businesses start to accelerate and then a lot of them fall down the gap because they have, they can't take that, just that big leap and that big leap usually needs some investment. And it is, it is a, it's definitely a challenge. Do you think It's getting better? Do you, are you seeing it get better?

Well, in terms of women getting more funding or?

Yeah, I don't know what the stats are.

I know. I mean, the stats apparently don't really seem to be that much better, unfortunately. And, and I think this is kind of really why we need, like, you know, I was at an event called the National Allyship Summit, literally. last week, and it was sponsored by Scottish Widows, and there were loads of the big banks there and all of the big finance houses. NatWest were there. It was a really big, like, organization. It was at the Stock Exchange as well. And they were, like, saying, like, all— yeah, of all the FTSE 100 companies, like, only— I think only 5 are run by women out of, you know, 100 companies. That's 100 most successful companies, and then 5 of them have got a woman founder, or sorry, a woman CEO.

Yeah.

And that's not great. You know, it's really not great. If you like ask young people in the streets to name a famous business person, they would struggle. You know, they wouldn't think of a woman. It's just not there. We don't see women as running successful companies and being like the heads of companies that are doing really well. There are a few, but there aren't many.

I was just thinking of the retailers. So you kind of, a lot of the senior teams, there's a lot of women, but actually who's running Tesco's, Sainsbury's, Waitrose? John Lewis was female, but she's gone. I can't think of one.

It's, it's, it's so difficult. And, and that's kind of, that's across the board. It's once you start looking at who's actually running the company, who's actually making decisions and making, because that then all floats down. Because if you see a woman at the top, she is then more likely to be able to help you and also be able to see things that, that which, which women uniquely go through, like menopause, like periods, like having children, all of these things which, which were, which were kind of like discussed in this like allyship summit. And so we talk about the gender pay gap, but there's also the pension pay gap.

Gosh, that's huge. It's huge.

Women usually take some time out, not often, not always, but will take time out to have a child, when you've done that, your pension stops. And so, and also, even if you've taken time out to care for like older people in your family or younger people in your family, that gap was really surprising. I didn't really think about the pension pay gap at all. I just thought about like the gender pay gap in general, which we all know is huge. Scottish Widows giving all of these figures, and also because she'd been through the same herself. She was now a single mum. She was telling all of these really, really great personal stories with empathy, and they were fascinating. Some of the most amazing things of that particular day. So if you've got a woman at the top of a business like that, she will be much more prepared to give women time off or provide affordable childcare and things like that, which do happen in other countries. It's not like it's rocket science. to have affordable childcare. It happens very much in Scandinavian countries. It's not like we're trying to reinvent the wheel. We're just not really at the same level that many other countries are at when it comes to equality and basic rights and basic things that women go through at whatever stage of their life. It's only now that people are starting to talk about menopause, so it's not like a dirty word. It's like, you know, people can understand that it's something that every woman will go through. It can be like almost like a walk in the park for some women. I was, I was quite lucky with mine, but for some people it's just hideous. And it starts quite early with some people. And we've had 2 very good events that were for people, you know, women of a certain age. We have one that's literally called Women of a Certain Age, and then we had one that's about, you know, hormonal health. during the menopause and they were both like packed and not even just from people that were of those age, but people who were younger thinking, do you know what? I'm going to get there one day. So I want to, you know, I want to know how to deal with it.

I think there is more recognition and I think there is more openness, but there is, there's a long, a long way to go. So what's your 3, 5 year vision for the business? How are you going to accelerate growth as it were?

One of the main things is, like I said, to try and do things that are more outside of London. And also to try to, I suppose, I wouldn't say necessarily appeal to a wider market, but I was thinking about this just before I came on the call with you, that sometimes we get given like ideas and think, yeah, you know what, there's probably about 10% of our audience that might think that's interesting. It's kind of interesting. It's really interesting to 10% of the audience, but no matter how interesting it is to 10% of the audience, that's not really what I feel is good for the whole community. It needs to be interesting, I would say, to at least like 70, 80% of the audience. And also sometimes to do things which are— I wouldn't say free because I don't really like doing free events because—

No, because people don't value them and they don't—

People don't value them. And often if there's something else going on, people just won't turn up. And so you— It means it's really, really hard for me to put on an event when, say, you've got like 100 people have registered and you'll be lucky if, you'll be lucky if 50 people turn up. Whereas if 50 people pay, even if they pay £5, those 50 people are more likely to turn up. Yeah, no, it's true. So, uh, yeah, so what I'm looking at is to do more things at possibly that sort of like lower price level. And just get more, more, more people in because we are, you know, we're a nonprofit. It's like, and once again, once we became a nonprofit, which was 3 years ago, almost 3 years ago now, it was in July 2023, that freed us up a lot more because it meant that we're not trying to like make money.

Yeah.

We are doing it purely purpose-driven. And also it meant that people looked at us differently. It meant that we got a lot more help. From supporters, from venues, and all sorts of stuff like that, because we were openly a nonprofit. We weren't just like a couple of women running it, doing an expensive hobby. So yeah, so yeah, so I think my— yeah, our future vision is more outside of London, more popularist, is that the word? Low-ticket events.

Yeah, broader, broader piece.

Yeah.

So that's the broad big picture. What about on a weekly basis? So what does your week look like?

Regular? No, it's not, it's not particularly, it's not particularly regular. There's certain things that are like regular with everything. There's like, you know, planning what you're gonna push out that week on, on your socials and on, and what I'm gonna do for our fortnight newsletter and all those sorts of things. So they're all sort of like regular things. exist. But then it's like, yeah, working out my sort of meetings, who can I bring on board as supporters and who are going to be helping us for future events. I'm always like planning ahead, like future events. Then to, as I said, to attend any events that I feel— I don't go to every single event that I get invited to. A lot of people think that I do. I really don't. Because if I did, I would literally be half dead. And then even though this is a Friday afternoon, I do I often try to take Friday afternoon off and just like, you know, keep it to myself and just do some gardening. I've just recently got an allotment, so, you know, go on to the allotment or, you know, go shopping or just like eat cinema or, or just something that's a bit of exercise stuff that's not, you know, not work-related. So I do try if I can to finish my Fridays. By about 1 o'clock.

Thank you for giving up your precious afternoon or the start of your afternoon.

It doesn't happen every single Friday, but I do. And also, you know, sometimes it can't happen every single Friday, but mentally it is quite good to do that. Women in general, and also as founders, we do need to take a bit of time off and look after ourselves because I think everybody's in danger of burnout.

So to help you, what's your— do you have a Productivity hack? Do you have an app you use? Ritual tools? Top tip?

I wouldn't say I have an app per se. I do sometimes if I'm, if I'm trying to think of something and I have like a, a blank thing ahead of me and I need some help, I do admittedly turn to AI.

It's okay. It's not drugs.

Yeah, it's not.

It's not.

And I've learned, I've learned to know now that it is okay. 'Cause sometimes when you've got that blank thing, it can just literally help your, you know, it's— It does.

Yeah.

It just helps things in nanoseconds. And then obviously, you know, we are people and humans, so you can then think, yeah, that sounds ridiculously like AI, so I need to change it. But at least it's got, you know, it's got something out for me. And it's like, it's like somebody said the other day that it's If you use Copilot or something like that, it's like giving it tasks that are like your frogs, are like your, you know, your big black frogs that just sit there.

Okay, yeah.

And you're like, I know I've got, I know I've got to do this and just keep putting it off, putting it off and putting it off. Whereas often give it to AI, AI will break the back of it.

Yes.

And then, and then you can go forward. So I would say that, yeah, my hack, I've got a It's that, and I, I tend as well to use Fireflies as a tool for when I'm in various meetings. It means I don't have to notate, but it can also summarize. I feel a lot better than some of the other tools.

Is it, is it good? Because I, I've found I've gone down a few ChatGPT rabbit holes and certainly when it's probably got better, I think I was using Fathom about a year ago and it would give a summary of the meeting. And then I just rewrite it because I'm like, well, that's not, that's not how I know. I think it has got better.

Or you can try because they're so fast. You can try like a couple and see which, you know, sometimes I— yeah, exactly. If I'm not happy with ChatGPT, I'll go into Claude instead. And Claude tends to be a little bit more, a little bit less sucky-uppy. And it's less like—

I like ChatGPT sucky-uppy.

It's fun.

Yeah. I have issues.

It's like, well done, so do you.

Shall I just make a couple of changes? And I purr away and go, yeah, all right. Whereas I understand Claude is like, do you know what? This is utter shit.

Yeah, exactly. Claude, Claude just tells it as it is. Claude, Claude does not suck up to you. Claude, Claude will give you, Claude will give you what it wants to tell you.

Horses for courses. So what standout books have you read, maybe podcasts do you listen to that you'd go, I'd really recommend this?

In terms of books, there's a few. One of them is The Quiet Burn, which is by my old employment coach, Lynne Burkes.

Hello!

And it's about burnout amongst Amongst women, so how to recognize it and how to, how to, how to prevent it. So it's kind of like her motto is burn bright, don't burn out. It's really good. It's not, you know, it's not even that thick. It's quite, quite an easy read. And it came out last year, I believe. I should have a look at that. It's quite new. So that's one. The others I would say are something that I absolutely love from a community perspective is The Tipping Point, which I'm sure most people have heard of, Malcolm Gladwell, because it's very much about how you get over those tipping points and how, you know, how you move forward. And it does it very much from a community perspective of the sort of people that you need within organizations or within groups to build. You need the people that are the knowledge people, you need the people that are you know, like the real good community networking people, the people that know everyone. And you need, you know, you need all of these different types of people. So I would definitely say it too. Like I said, it's quite old now, but it's still relevant. And then another one from a woman was called F***ing Humble, and that's by Stephanie Sword Williams. And it's very much again about the things that we do a lot Again, often as women, but not even just women, I think it's often kind of like a British thing as well, is to give other people credit all the time for success. And sometimes you've got to take the credit yourself. Sometimes it's you. But it can be quite hard to do that because we, you know, we're not— we don't have that kind of like American, I would say, confidence of thinking, yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm, I can, I can be president. I can, I can do this. I can do that. And the Brits were like, well, no, we can't.

We're taught to say we, aren't we? We don't go I.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And her book is very much about that. She's got a second one out now, and I can't remember what it's called, but that also looks equally good. So they're my 3. Fabulous.

Well, thank you very much for your time. We've come full circle, and I think it's been absolutely fascinating talking to you. Thank you. For your time, giving up your, your Friday afternoon. And yes, I shall come along to one of your events and pay the money.

It's not a lot of money, but do, do come along. I'd love to see you.

Just before we finish, where can people find you if they want to come and join you?

So basically, womeninthefoodindustry.com. You can sign up for our fortnightly newsletter, which goes out every— I get it, every other Sunday. It's not just full of our own events. full of opportunities as well, and things from our supporters, and interesting competitions and job opportunities. It's full of all sorts, but that's it, womeninthefoodindustry.com.

Well, thank you very much.

Thanks, Karen.

Thanks to Mex for her time. Links for the Women in the Food Industry are in the show notes. And if this conversation resonated, if you recognised yourself in the funding gap, there are a lot to delegate, or just the feeling that your product deserves more traction than it's getting, that's exactly what I work on. Not the theory of it, the actual mechanics of getting your product in front of the right buyers at the right margin with a pitch that cuts through and gets attention. Right now you can grab a free copy of my book, Buyrology, at my website buyrology.co.uk/free-resources.