30 Sep When Cherubs met Karen, owner of Pip
Cherubs Interview with Karen O’Neill co-founder of Pip Organic
What inspired you to set up Pip Organic?
Patrick and I have always been passionate about the principles of organic farming but felt that, at the time, there were not many options that were accessible and great tasting for families within the organic sector. So we started out making 100% pure organic juices from a small stall in London’s Borough Market. A whole heap of juicing and a couple of kids later Pip Organic was born, with the mission of creating top-tasting, fun and healthy food & drink for all the family, that is so crammed with 100% organic goodness there is just no room for nasties or compromise.
What makes Pip different from other children’s food and drink companies?
With a strong belief that you only get out what you put in, our pip family of products is only ever made using 100% organic fruit & vegetables. We are always innovating to ensure buying healthy organic products as fun, approachable & accessible as possible and we encourage kids on our ‘Kids Panel’ to get involved in tasting new products and helping us select packaging.
As a family focussed organic brand we take our responsibility in helping to shape future pipsqueaks tastebuds very seriously by offering healthy but fun food and drink products. We always strive to make sure our range nurtures long term healthy eating habits.
Additionally, being sustainable to the core is really important to us and we work in partnership with all our expert growers and have done for many years, with quality, provenance and traceability as a cornerstone to our business. We always do our utmost to be as sustainable as possible.
You’ve just introduced the first bendable, paper straws on your cartons – how important is it for you to keep innovating?
We are constantly looking at how we can improve our range and packaging to ensure everything that we do is as sustainable as possible. Sometimes the improvements are small and not visible to our consumers but add to the sustainability goals within the business. The paper straw, however, has been a focus for 3 years ago and we tested 100s of types of straws and after a successful trial of our paper straws in Feb this year, we are proud to announce that all our kids cartons are now being produced with paper straws on, so keep your eye out for one as over a million packs have been produced through September…so that’s a load of plastic removed already!
Tell us about the Pip Parent Panel?
Our lovely Pip Parent Panel are a group of parents or carers of piptastic kids across the UK. These knowledgeable individuals are all in the midst of raising a kids between the ages of 4 to 11, making them the perfect experts on the subject! Even though Patrick and I are parents we wanted to ensure that our outlook on what is wanted by parents and kids wasn’t just our thoughts or influenced by research that quickly goes out of date. Our Pip Parent Panel help us with quick research questionnaires, samplings, mystery shopping and insight pieces which their responses are made anonymously in order to encourage them to be as honest as possible.
Pip Organic is a family run business – how do you find working with your husband?
That is probably our most frequently asked questions! We are very different from each other and our skills sets rarely overlap so but we make all the major decisions together. I think it helps that we have a great team to work with that we are able to work in small teams, many of which have been with us for many years. In the past we may have talked more shop at home but since having kids we try and only discuss work in the office. Our kids are also really involved in the business and enjoy the benefits of helping us sample our range … and of course claiming all the new product development as theirs!
What’s been your biggest highlight to date?
We are really passionate about supplying healthy options in schools and a highlight for us last year was that we were supplying over 500,000 ice lollies to primary school children as part of their school meal. We received lots of messages from kids saying it is their favourite part of their school dinner. This year our highlight has been to innovate with the roll out of the paper straw a year before the government deadline and therefore reducing plastic, additionally we shared our solution with other producers to ensure that a paper straw is widely available to large and small brands.
What’s next for Pip Organic?
Our brands purpose is ‘to make is easier for parents to say yes’ and we have lots in the ‘pipline’ to deliver this with new products – so watch this space!