Amy Moring, Co-Founder Of Hunter & Gather Talks Being A Female Founder, Growing a Startup to £6m+, Building A Loyal Community and More!

Amy’s quest for clean, wholesome foods, driven by her battle with Coeliac disease, led her to create something truly special - Hunter & Gather was born in 2017. Alongside her partner Jeff, they embarked on a mission to redefine the way people eat. They have seen exponential growth in the past year and grew by a whopping £3 MILLION and are looking to launch 6 new products in 2024. This is a brand to watch.

Join us at the Startup Summit on 23rd May 2024 where Amy will be delivering the keynote talk and delving further into the triumphant story of Hunter & Gather.

Where did the idea for Hunter & Gather come from?

Hunter & Gather was created due to the need of the two Co-Founders and partners Amy and Jeff. As a lifelong Coeliac (I, Amy), finding real food products that were clean labelled, healthy and that I could trust was really important. As we went through our own nutritional journeys of discovery, removing refined sugars, seed oils and grains from our diet - it became increasingly difficult to find brands we aligned with. That's why we created Hunter & Gather to help provide real food products you can trust as well as education on how to live ancestrally in the modern world.

What made you decide to take the leap and go full time on Hunter & Gather?

For many it comes as a surprise that I was still working part time for Lily's Kitchen whilst running Hunter & Gather with my partner Jeff. It was not until the business was turning over £1M per year, did I step away from my role at Lily's. Timing is everything and we didn't have any financial support for the brand initially so it was a case of doing what we could to grow the business on a limited budget. Me still working, gave us the space to not make rash decisions in the business early on. Thankfully I was very fortunate that the team at Lily's supported this and everything was very transparent. 

Did you get your product right from the start?

No, I don't think anyone does in all honesty. Even if you think something is perfect there will be feedback that happens from customers and we are ever evolving. 

At what point did you feel that you were gaining momentum?

We grew relatively quickly early on, not realising that this wasn't the norm for all businesses. I would say, however, that it was 2022-2023 where growth really accelerated. We grew by almost £3M in one year and the pace is speeding up with expectations that we could double the business this year with the opportunities that are unfolding, which is very exciting.  

Have you encountered any moments where being a female founder presented unique challenges? How did you navigate through them?

There are a number of scary stats about how female founded businesses get less investment and this can stifle growth potential and even cause businesses to fold. Thankfully, we now have really great supportive investors and angels. I actually see me being a female CEO and Co-Founder as a huge asset to the team and it adds a real balanced view to the Senior Leadership team also. 

What's one piece of advice you wish you had received when you were first starting out in the food industry?

I wished that someone would have told me that "overnight successes" often take 10 years of hard graft to get there! 

Can you share a story of a setback or failure you've experienced and how you bounced back from it?

We had a really unfortunate moment, where we had sold a lot of stock to a wholesaler to enable a launch into Holland & Barrett. Which was very exciting. We had sent the stock but had yet to receive payment for said stock as it was on invoice. In the meantime the wholesaler went bankrupt and needless to say we have never received payment for the stock, which was around £60,000! Thankfully, the stock had made its way to Holland & Barrett from the Wholesaler and the launch went ahead as planned. We now have a super relationship direct with Holland & Barrett direct vs being through a Wholesaler which in the long run, is a huge win for the business. 

What’s a typical day in the life like for you at work?

Get up, see the horses for some fresh air (I am an avid rider).

Head to the office and enjoy a Rise & Glow collagen tonic to start the day

We work on Asana, so I will review both my diary and any tasks that are due

We often have team meetings on Mondays and Wednesdays, otherwise I like to time block deep work

Finish the day with heading back to the horses and ideally a ride.

How do you personally connect with your customers and build a loyal following for your brand?

We have a super community at Hunter & Gather, from the Facebook group (which I manage and connect with customers 1:1), our social channels or the customer services. We are honest, open, transparent and caring and this comes across in our amazing review scores.

Looking ahead, what excites you the most about the future of Hunter & Gather?

We are just scratching the surface, with 80% of our revenue online, we are taking the leap into major grocery this year - with an exciting launch imminent. We are also now available on Amazon US and EU and we are launching our D2C website in Europe this year too. We also have a stacked pipeline of NPD, with a whopping 6 product launches this year planned.