Catch up with the latest UK Israel Business Breakfast, which featured an interview with Simon Gray, CEO of Boost Drinks.
The latest UK Israel Business Breakfast kicked off with a word from Colin Glass, OBE, who detailed recent visits to Leeds from Israeli captains of industry: “Last week, the NHSA (Northern Health Science Alliance) hosted a delegation from Israel in Leeds as part of the International Health Tech R&D and Pilot Programme. The aim is for the UK to be the innovation development partner of choice, with the NHS being the best place in the world to trial and test products at scale. This partnership with the Israeli Innovation Authority, supported by the UK Israel Tech Hub is leading the way for engaging at scale with companies at the forefront of life science globally.”
The meeting then continued with an interview with Simon Gray, CEO of Boost Drinks. On 5th December 2022 Boost Drinks Holdings was acquired by A.G. Barr, which Simon discussed: “The situation we’ve got is that we’ve been bought 100% outright. There is a two-year period which there are performance clauses. As long as we’re doing right by numbers then the operation is 100% ours. There are certain matters for the board for anything that sits outside of the two-year plan; it’s not that they won’t support it, it’s just that they want to understand it.”
The questions then turned to the best and worse advice that Simon had ever received in his career: “One of the best bits of advice came from Steve Armstrong early on, because we had some challenges with the brand. It was: ‘Don’t be scared.’ And I think we tried from day one to respect the competition and respect the market, but I think when you do the right thing – with brand in particular – there’s nothing more important to the brand than trademark protection and having strong advisors there. In terms of the worst advice, you get plenty of that. I’m a strong believer in gut instinct.
We get data as most businesses do, but I think you need a barometer. Everybody has an opinion, but some of the advice you get shouldn’t be believed.”
With both consumers and legislation increasingly focused on environmental concerns, Simon was asked how the business was tackling those expectations: “Sustainability is not a new thing. It’s become more visible and more talked about, but we’ve been doing a lot of things over
the years, looking at where packaging and ingredients are sourced from; a lot has been going on in the background already. In the press recently there’s been information about the Deposit Return Scheme (which is in place in Scotland and will be implemented across the UK by 2025), which from an environmental perspective is absolutely the way forward. This is a journey we’re all on. We talk internally about people, planet, profit, and we try to get that balance where we can, but there’s also all sorts of dynamics at play and trying to do things now – with inflation where it is – is really challenging. It doesn’t mean the journey’s wrong, it’s just not a straight line.”