Pantry Files: VGood Founder, Sally Breden
In this edition of Pantry Files, we speak with Sally Breden, the founder behind VGood, an Australian owned and operated small business that we are proud to support. Sally founded the delicious range of innovative nut-free spreads and snacks so that everyone could enjoy them, regardless of their dietary choices or needs. This spirit of inclusiveness is inspiring, and we can’t get enough of all the VGood deliciousness!
What was the inspiration behind VGood? How did it start?
I’ve spent the past 20+ years working in marketing and product innovation in the health and wellness industry. I’m passionate about cooking, healthy options and feeding my family well. I wanted to find a way to use my skill set, along with my passion, to create something meaningful that could impact the lives of other people in a positive way, and that would challenge me to step outside my comfort zone. I wanted to channel my passion into something that enabled me to be a positive role model for my kids as someone prepared to follow their dreams. To be a great mum with a career that I am proud of.
I’m a huge fan of chickpeas, and the idea of developing my own range of chickpea spreads literally came to me early one morning while lying awake wondering what I could do with the next stage of my career now that my kids are all full time in school. I shared the idea with my husband who jumped at it. It just felt right, like it was a perfect way of bringing together my passions with my skill set. It was certainly not the first time I’d had an idea, but it was the first time one felt so right.
As a mum of school aged kids, I am often faced with the gap in availability of healthy lunchbox-friendly options that my kids love that are simple to prepare and that are also suitable for use in nut-free school environments. Sandwich spreads are a great time-saving option for school lunchboxes, but most of the spreads available lack health credentials, and the healthy options are generally nut-based and therefore not suitable for school. This idea for chickpea spreads represented a possible solution to this gap in the spreads category.
I had a few contacts in manufacturing and nutrition science and engaged an R&D facility to better understand the science behind recipe development, ingredients, and flavours. We started out with the development of PeaNOT Butter and it was by chance that HazelNOT Choc joined the range. I was working alongside a very talented food scientist who has a lot of experience in working with flavours and in particular chocolate products, and he pretty much perfected our HazelNOT Choc recipe on the spot while we were waiting for a batch of PeaNOT to cook…you take the wins when you get them!
Initial development involved kitchen sized batches and enlisting family, friends and neighbours to test and optimise flavour profiles, followed by a good year of working through manufacturing, logistics, packaging, and distribution challenges, launching into Australia and New Zealand in December 2020.
What do you want people to know about VGood?
Mum owned and operated small business providing unique products with taste as the priority, supported with great ingredients that provide compelling health credentials, available at an accessible price point. All products are clean label and plant based, certified vegan and non-GMO, made in a purpose built facility free from 14 most common food allergens.
What were some of your biggest challenges when you started VGood?
Building a brand from scratch and creating the consumer awareness to ensure products sell through is much harder than I’d expected. I work with a fantastic brand agency who have helped to bring to life the vision for VGood and have created fabulous packaging and branding and helped kick start our awareness program. But regardless of how amazing your products are, getting the products onto the shelf is one thing, making sure consumers know about the products and buy them off the shelf is another and it takes a lot of time and hard work to get this part right.
Also, knowing what to focus time and investment on is always challenging, making so many decisions on my own was at many times very overwhelming.
And as with most other brands since COVID, we have had the same challenges around the cost of all our ingredients and packaging components increasing significantly since we first launched. We’ve taken a big hit on profitability right from the start.
What’s next on the horizon for VGood?
While we do have a few really exciting and delicious new products in the pipeline, our big focus at the moment is building scale on our existing items. We want to maintain our accessible mainstream pricing in the market and to do so we need to ensure we have good steady and growing volumes. One of the strategies here is a focus on export opportunities.
How do you typically start your day? What is your favourite daily ritual, if any?
First thing is a green tea to get me going, and while I’d like to say I make it an ‘experience’, its generally while I am rushing about packing the kid’s lunchboxes. Getting them off to school with a healthy and delicious lunchbox is a big priority for me.
How do you manage the challenges of being an entrepreneur/running a business while also being the best parent you can? Do you have any advice for parents facing the daily juggle?
Don’t beat yourself up when you don’t get everything right! Self-love and forgiveness is so important. Making time for yourself and putting your own wellness as a priority ensures you have the energy and headspace to face all the challenges that the juggle presents.
Image: Sally and her children, Daisy, Chloe, and Finn
What does wellness mean to you?
Happiness and balance equals wellness to me. For me to feel happy I need to eat well most of the time but also allow myself to enjoy that piece of chocolate cake every now and then. Regular exercise and a good amount of sleep every night is really important, I simply can’t function without both. Taking regular time off from work and household chores to spend quality time with my kids and husband is also really important, we have dinner together as a family most nights and on the weekends love playing board games, heading to the beach or going for a walk together.
What is your favourite way to use VGood spreads?
My personal favourite is PeaNOT Butter bliss balls, and I also love HazelNOT Choc Coconut Ice Blocks. Since launching in the USA I’ve discovered the joy of PeaNOT Butter & Jam!! But there are so many amazing recipes, I love experimenting all the time with different ideas.
What’s something that’s always in your fridge?
Tofu (my daughter and I are both vegetarian and love tofu in so many different ways) and hummus which I have for lunch or as a snack with veggie sticks, and the kids also often have it as a dip in their lunchboxes.
If you had to pick three pantry staples that you can’t cook without, what would they be?
What is your favourite family meal on rotation right now?
Spinach and ricotta lasagne
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