Issue 45, December/January 2006
James Averdieck’s pudding range Gü has got the supermarkets and the UK consumer begging for seconds. He tells Matt Thomas why he’s hungry to feed the growing demand.
Nobody can be arsed to make a good pud anymore but the Brits love one,” enthuses James Averdieck, the founder and MD of Gü Chocolate Puds, formed less than three years ago and currently shifting 200,000 of its premium products each month.
“We don’t have a food heritage but we love good food. Unlike the French we can’t make it, so there’s a great appetite for quality convenience food.”
That’s exactly where Gü has found its niche, entering the chilled desserts market at the top. Its desserts look, feel, cost – and according to Averdieck – taste better than anything else on the shelf. Open them up and, if it’s an oven-ready soufflé, you’ll find they come in reusable glass ramekins – a deliberate quality mark.
“We’re the cheat’s choice,” he says. “But it doesn’t matter if people know you haven’t made it. It’s about taste, and they’re restaurant quality. Good restaurants would knock our puds out at a fiver a pop.”
At around £2.50 for a two-person serving, Gü puddings are more expensive than other products in the chilled desserts section.
“We’re right at the top of the narrow niche of chilled desserts and we’ve moved the quality needle,” admits Averdieck. “If we do have a competitor, it’s not on the same shelf, it’s Ben & Jerry’s or Green & Blacks.”
Averdieck thinks society’s current fascination with food, from fad diets to gastro pubs and celebrity chefs has left the supermarkets perfectly positioned for a proposition such as Gü.
“Food is trendy and there’s been a polarisation between healthy, diet food – which personally I can’t stand – and very indulgent food. Supermarkets have seen it with soups, pizza, pasta, wine, etcetera. We’re creating that trend in the puds market.”
Establishing a brand
Gü is more than a great tasting product: it’s a brand with wide appeal, and its packaging – black card boxes in a sea of white and blue plastic – sets it apart. There’s also an Innocent Drinks-esque element of fun and pretend amateurishness to the whole affair, while the word ‘Gü’ is highly evocative itself.
“Chocolate is about fun and indulgence; it brings out the kid in us,” says Averdieck. “The smell; it reminds you of sticking your hand in the mixing bowl. I think we’ve got a romanticised pudding thing and our central themes are fun and quality.”
Add the special ingredient ‘convenience’ and it’s no surprise Averdieck’s recipe for success is to target young busy middle class urbanites – and for him there’s a slice of West London that serves as the perfect taster. “We target the 35-year-old Fulham, Putney, Wandsworth brigade. We’re a national brand but if you target a certain type of person, then people buy into it from there.”
The building of the Gü brand and packaging was no slap-dash affair, though. “Branding is a total nightmare. You could look at hundreds of names and not tell if they’d work. I mean, you wouldn’t have picked out Mars until you saw it in the packaging.”
Branding agency Big Fish sold Averdieck the Gü brand and packaging together – bizarrely by making him believe it was a real company in Europe selling the same concept.
“They showed it me and I thought what a brilliant brand name, it’s totally right and it looks great, but fucking hell, they’ve beaten us to it – I was totally hooked.”
Once in on the secret, Averdieck deployed his own piece of unorthodox research. “I took a few boxes into Waitrose, put them on the shelf and watched to see if people picked them up – because that’s what matters. They did.”
Track record
Catching a growing niche with a premium solution; great packaging; even better brand. It’s a good story – but nowhere near the complete one.
Gü has been so well executed it will have sold £11m worth of puddings in only its second full year of trading, is well into profit and growing at 90% a year – all without raising a penny.
Most entrepreneurs wouldn’t have pulled it off. Take a closer inspection of Averdieck’s CV and you begin to understand how he has. His track record is a VC’s wet dream.