‘Pet food was just so boring’: Lily’s Kitchen founder Henrietta Morrison
Launching a premium brand four times as expensive as competitors at the height of a global recession might sound crazy. But that’s exactly what Henrietta Morrison did when she launched Lily’s Kitchen in November 2008. Fast-forward to today, and Lily’s has sales of over 70m, is stocked in 6,000 stores and employs 65 people. We talked to Henrietta at their offices in Hampstead, London to find out how she overcame the odds and convinced retailers and consumers that Lily’s Kitchen was worth paying more for.
What was the inspiration for creating Lily’s Kitchen?
Henrietta with Lily, her Border Terrier.
Lily is my Border Terrier and she got quite ill and developed a lot of sores on her body. I tried different foods from all over the place, and eventually, she just stopped eating and I was forced to cook for her. It was incredible because after ten days she started to get better and I could see it was to do with the food that I’d been giving her. I felt horrified that I was the person who had been making her ill over several months and I wanted to do something about it. The category needed a shakeup and I was incensed that I and other innocent pet owners had no idea that they were buying food that was damaging their beloved pets.
Did you have any experience in the pet food category?
I had no idea about the pet space, and that was incredibly helpful because If I’d worked in pet food or knew anything about it, there’s absolutely no way I would have set up this business. It’s just so hard and complicated. But that naivety meant I could ask all the questions that sounded like silly questions to ask. I visited thirty factories and kitchens, and I would turn up, and people would think, “what the hell? She wants to add blueberries!? She wants to use fresh meat!? Can you believe it? Fresh meat! We never use fresh meat ever!” And factories said, “look, we’ll make you the food that we usually make and you can just put your pretty label on top.” But that was not the point of me coming into this industry and setting up this business. I wanted to make a real difference, and I was excited about other pets being able to have a good meal and pet owners having something in the cupboard they could completely trust.
What gave you the confidence in those early days that it could work?
We launched in November 2008, and it was an awful time. The world was in meltdown, and everybody was losing their jobs. I'd remortgaged my house. It was terrifying because our tin of pet food was £2.20 and then the next one down was 50p, so a huge differential. You could get a six-pack of Pedigree for less than one tin of Lily's Kitchen, and I just thought "what have I done?" But I'd put so much focus on the quality of the product that I felt that pet owners like myself would want something great for their pet. So, with fingers crossed, we just jumped over the cliff. We initially sent samples to local vets and pet shops and asked them to give us some feedback. And within a couple of days, they came back and told us the samples had all gone, and people were back wanting to buy more. That was a positive sign and a relief!
Signage inside Lily’s offices in Hampstead.
What made Lily’s Kitchen different from the market leaders?
Making great food was the first thing. It’s about the quality and the provenance of our ingredients. Frankly, when I got the recipes together, I didn’t look at how much it was all going to cost. I wanted to formulate the best possible recipe and then we could look at the cost. And it gave people the license to be creative and create food that would make us super proud. It’s 60% fresh meat, whereas pet food is usually made with meat meal and other animal derivatives. There are 15 different herbs in there, including rose hip, marigold flowers and alfalfa. It has never been done before. When we totted it up and saw it would cost £2.20, including VAT I was initially shocked. But I knew that once people smelt our food and saw the difference that it made in their pets, they would be happy to pay for that.
How did you communicate those differences to get the consumer’s attention?
Lily’s colourful, illustrated packaging.
The pet food aisle was just so boring. Every tin, bag or treat had a picture of either an Alsatian or a Labrador with their tongue hanging out on a very bright colour background, either yellow, purple or blue. And as somebody who loves shopping, I wanted to connect to what I was buying, and I felt like there was no connection there. Pets give us so much joy and they’re all about fun and they are crazy about food, I thought how on earth can this category be so dead? One of the first things I focused on was making sure that the tin and label felt lovely, so our labels are matt paper not glossy like our competitors. All our packaging was compostable or recyclable, which was critical and very avant-garde at the time. People said, “you can’t possibly put this dry food in a paper bag; it’s got to be in plastic.” Then our design helped us become a brand consumers would be proud to have out on their kitchen counter. When we had cats when I was younger, for example, the cat food had to go in its own special cupboard and had its own spoon, and I wanted people to feel proud about what they were buying, not just commoditised stuff in a tin.
What is Lily's Kitchen challenging in the category?
We were the brand that solidified that notion that your pets are the heart and centre of your family. Before then pets were in your home but had separate food kept in a separate cupboard and there wasn't the idea that pets are the centre of family life. I think that's the change that we've seen and been a part of over the years. I think that got everybody to think quite differently about how and what they feed their cats and dogs. Pet food is no longer a commodity, it’s now a moment to have an emotional connection with your pet and feel joyful and proud that you're feeding them something they love.
You go through so many dark and long days when you're setting up a business that you've got to be full of passion for getting it off the ground. If you're somebody who has a brilliant idea to make money, you're not going to ever challenge an industry with that as your premise. The money has to come last. You've got to ask what can we do here? What do I actually want? What difference can we make? What needs to change?
How did you convince the big retailers to list you?
One of the unusual things about Lily’s Kitchen was that we never went knocking on retailer’s doors. We built the business really on the foundations of our website and also on independent pet shops and vets and we waited for a call. I had no experience dealing with groceries so I wanted to understand the business inside-out and get a real tribe of people who loved us before I started relationships with retailers. So we did turn them down for the first five years. Then it became awkward for customers who were driving 30 miles to buy our food, and that’s when we said yes to Ocado and then Waitrose. By that point, we’d got our core 10,000 customers and it felt like we already had something of a movement. There’s often a tension between wanting to control your distribution but also not make it a pain in the neck for your customer who just can’t get hold of your product.
What advice would you give other challenger brand founders or marketers?
My mother always said to me, walk in as if you own the place. It’s great advice because if you walk in with confidence then people are like, okay, she has something to say, I better listen.