Tom's Story

I was working as a management consultant for Bain & Co - a great company but management consultancy didn't really float my boat. I had always wanted to do my own business and always assumed that I would - I'm from a farming family in Staffordshire and so I always grew up in a family business and entrepreneurial environment. Both of my (younger) brothers are back at home now - Rob runs the pigs, under the brand Packington Pork (he came runner up in the best UK farm supplier to M&S this year), and Alec has a chicken business on the farm (he supplies the chicken for "Alec Mercer's chicken soup in Waitrose - not his soup but his chicken in it, and Tanfield, the soup manufacturer label all their products after the supplier).

I had a few different ideas but focused in on the breakfast market. As a City worker I thought there were loads of options for lunch and dinner but very few quality options for breakfast - and thought there must be a gap to provide a really great breakfast to commuters in the morning. I sent an online survey round to friends asking about their breakfast eating habits and the results were clear: a) there wasn't much on offer b) people wanted what I thought was important to them: something healthy, filling, natural and delicious...and, of course, quick to grab-and-go.

It was time to put the idea to the test, and I decided on a couple of live trials in Waterloo. At that time my main product was what has now become the Oatie Shake - oats, yoghurt and fruit all blended into a bottle. I got about 200 water bottles from Tesco, emptied them out, pritt-sticked labels on them that I printed at work, and got all of the fruit from New Covent Garden Market, and the yoghurt and oats from Tesco. I then spent all night chopping fruit in my living room, blending it with oats and yoghurt and pouring it into bottles. I quickly found out that kitchen blenders aren't meant to work for hours at a time - as two of them soon burned out! Out the streets in Waterloo we set up a trestle table and started giving them out to commuters for free in exchange for their email address. When I'd used the first batch I went back to my house only to find that I'd locked myself out with another 50 bottles sat on the side in the kitchen. Needs must and I smashed the kitchen window with a traffic bollard to retrieve my precious samples. I then emailed a survey to everyone that had given their email address. We got about 60 responses overall and the overwhelming feedback was good - although several people said that they didn't try it as they didn't trust the product being given out under a dodgy bridge in Waterloo.

It was time to take the plunge. Bain kindly gave me a couple of months to look into the business. I spent the time developing the business model, looking at potential sites for stalls, and I even visited New York, after going to a wedding in Mexico, to see the breakfast offer there.

I finally left Bain properly in August '05. The plan was to set up breakfast stalls selling delicious, healthy and filling breakfast to commuters. These would give me the platform to then start supplying other channels and eventually supermarkets. I spent the next 3-4 months developing the idea and mainly looking for locations to put our stalls. I spent hours biking round London looking for suitable sites on the streets, and hours on the tube looking for suitable sites in underground stations - somewhere with sufficient footfall and where the stalls wouldn't cause congestion. When I found suitable sites I would sketch out a map of the location, and then spend a morning counting the number of people walking by during the morning rush hour. I actually got chucked out of a couple of stations for 'loitering' by the police who were suspicious of someone just standing there beadily watching commuters! I also spent several mornings counting the number of people walking past coffee carts and fruit stalls and calculated the percentage of people walking past that would stop. I reckoned we needed a footfall of about 10,000 people between 6.30 and 10am to make it viable. I would often spend lunch times debating strategy with my friend, Ed Thaw, in Clerkenwell Green, outside his offices, as he'd offered to help in the pre-launch phase. I pitched the idea to councils and the London Underground with no joy. However, my break came in November '05 when I managed to get permission for a site at two overland stations - Waterloo East and Vauxhall.

Things then changed dramatically. I was no longer working on a pipe dream but something that could actually happen, and switched my attention to the operations. The key things over the next few months were to finalise the branding (which we did with a great guy call David Jenkins), and to finalise the flavours (which I'd been working on with Ed and Sue Thaw, the first people to become shareholders other than me). There was also the issue of getting a stall - after walking round the 'furniture district' (it exists...honest!!) I got a Bisley filing cabinet, which a metal worker then fitted wheels and header board to. There were lots of other details to attend to: buying an old BT white van, hiring a railway arch in Deptford, installing a big fridge, finding suppliers for all the pots, ingredients, and labels, and doing interviews for people to help me. I ran a couple of focus groups in January and February 2006 to help decide on the product mix and flavours; and am always grateful to the people that came along to help. Amy Farren came along to one of these sessions and stayed involved full time and as a shareholder for the next two years. The name Moma is the name of a god of harvest and fruit, thought to be a giver of life; it felt short and catchy so I went with it.

Finally we were ready to go. The date had been set - Friday 24th Feb 2006. The day before was hectic, as you can imagine. At one stage I was lying under the van fixing a winch in place (to pull the stalls into the van) when someone walked into our arch and strolled off with my laptop. Luckily Amy spotted him so I made after him and after a short bear hug on Deptford High St, managed to recover my precious laptop (with all the recipes on!). It was a tough night, and we were very fortunate to have the expert help of a chef called Campbell Star along to help us. At 6am we wheeled the stall into place and trading started. We were shouting and screaming about our products and heckling commuters - the response was great and I still remember our first customer.

The next few months were hectic to say the least - we opened 2 more sites very quickly - one in Vauxhall and one in Canary Wharf. I used to get up at 1.45am, start work in the kitchens at 2.30am, start selling at 6.30am, then do a full day's work. After 4 months it was time to hand over the night shift to someone else!!

The first two years Moma grew quickly. Importantly at this time we beefed up the management with the arrival of Alex Smith and Paul Nel. Both were a little alarmed when I said I was off on the Mongol Rally for a month, but they really rose to the challenge and it was a great break for me. By the summer of 2008 we had nine stalls and sold into a few offices and shops, including Selfridges but since then we have been pushing very hard on the wholesale side of our business selling into offices and shops. The latter part of 2008 and all of 2009 were particularly tough - sales were struggling on stalls as commuters tightened their belts and offices were struggling as people were made redundant. We did however pull in some great wins - with Waitrose, Ocado, and also 1000 products a day onto Virgin Atlantic flights. I'm also very pleased and proud to say that the Moma team always remained boldly optimistic and confident even when times were tough.

At the end of 2009 we made the bold decision to re-brand, and to go with Pearlfisher, the awesome (but expensive!) design agency. We launched the new branding in April 2010 and quickly followed it with our 'Vote for Oats' campaign before the 2010 elections. The new branding not only helped our products stand out, and communicated our products better, but also seemed to give us license to be braver and more forthright in what we were doing...and to have more fun! May 2010 seemed to be a turning point for us - whether that was the fantastic branding work, an accumulation of all the hard work we'd put in on sales leads, a slight easing in the economy, or even some slight consumer confidence gained from the election, or most probably, a bit of everything. Since May 2010 our sales have increased by over 100% and we've launched in all the great retailers and businesses you see on our Finding Moma page. There is a great buzz about Moma and a real sense of momentum.

We have a great product, great brand, and a fantastic team. And I really think we can achieve our dream and become nationally recognised as the best breakfast on the market.