Speakers

Session Title

Lessons in life, love & business – building a multi-million pound Peanut Butter Brand

Session Description

Via exploring the ups and downs of building ManiLife – Unequivocally the UK’s tastiest and occasionally the UK’s fastest growing Peanut Butter Brand – a journey that has birthed burn out, a wife, twin girls a team of 30+ people and a 16,000 sq ft. factory in Shirebrook – I distil the key learnings from just over a decade in Peanut Butter. Learnings that are allegedly entertaining, potentially thought provoking and hopefully useful. 

About Stuart Macdonald 

Stu founded ManiLife off the back of a year stint in Argentina where he was working for a peanut butter social enterprise. He subsequently met the people behind the estate that ManiLife still source from today and fell in love with them. After importing the first tonne of peanuts, he had a brief spell as an accountant at PwC before finally packing it in and going full-time peanut butter in October 2016.  

 
Today, ManiLife has over 20,000  distribution points globally and has seen phenomenal growth. While the first ton took six months to sell, ManiLife now produces well over 100 tons of peanut butter every month out of their own ManiFactory in Shirebrook . Though volumes have increased substantially, the brand stays true to its craft ethos, making all products in batches - over 2,500 small batches a month to be precise!