Blendsmiths, a company founded by lifelong friends Ryan Moore and Chris Farnworth, has made waves in the UK drinks industry since its launch in 2017. Known for its bold, innovative blends and strong commitment to sustainability, the brand has garnered a loyal following. Ryan, who brings a background in Sports Science, Nutrition and Business, is the creative force behind Blendsmiths, while Chris plays a pivotal role in bringing the company’s vision to life. In this interview, Ryan shares how his personal journey in sports and his passion for health influenced the creation of Blendsmiths—as well as the challenges and successes they have experienced along the way.

VegClub (VC): Hello Ryan, thank you for taking the time to sit down with us and share your insights. Blendsmiths started as a collaboration between lifelong friends, but your background spans Sports Science, Nutrition and Business. How did these disciplines inspire the idea of creating unique blends and how did you bring that vision to life?

Ryan Moore (RM): I’d been advised on what foods and drinks I should consider consuming from the age of 9 after spending several years in a Premier League football youth academy. Naturally, making sensible decisions in this area has been part of my routine for a long time—30 years! Competing in professional environments at high levels of sport comes with a large amount of self-discipline and persistence—those core principles have stuck with me throughout. The creation of a purposeful company reflects my experiences on the journey so far.

VC: Your role in the company is described as the ‘creative dreamer’. Could you share some of the extravagant ideas that helped shape Blendsmiths’ vision and product range?

RM: It’s a pretty accurate description, in fairness, for whoever came up with it. There have been many hours from daylight to darkness, dreaming up ways to create something beyond the ordinary. This would often, as my business partner Chris would suggest, “lead down a path of no commercial sense”, but I’d respond, “Chris, wouldn’t it just make the best campaign?” (if we had Oatly’s budget). It depends on what constitutes extravagant; for me, taking the leap of faith and trusting in my own ideas, which I believed consumers would love, was the extravagant step. It was bold, for sure—60% of our range was untried and untested in the UK market, but getting as many people as possible to sample the products is what initially propelled the business forward, from a concept to something with real purpose.

VC: Sustainability is a major part of Blendsmiths’ ethos. How did you ensure that both your ingredients and packaging are ethically sourced and environmentally friendly?

Blendsmiths

RM: It’s an ever-evolving process where we must work within the realms of our capabilities. We’re a small team and rely heavily on our partnerships. From an ingredients perspective, this means partnering only with suppliers who meet certain criteria and hold specific certifications that require them to produce and export/import ingredients cultivated in the right way—without human or animal suffering, fair pay, sustainable working conditions and equality. As we grow, our intention is to ‘direct trade’ as much as possible. Just last week, we signed two new deals with cocoa and matcha suppliers where we can offer full traceability, which helps us on our journey to be as sustainable as possible.

Our packaging has been carefully selected through intensive sampling over many years. We’ve now settled on suppliers who are producing packaging that is either recyclable or made from recycled goods. Our flexible packaging options are aligned with the forthcoming PPWR requirements.

VC: Blendsmiths has grown since its launch in 2017 and is now stocked in some of the UK’s best shops. What challenges did you face when scaling up and how did your background in the consumer goods sector aid this growth?

RM: I’d be lying if I said there weren’t many challenges faced in the early days, but that’s normal for any startup. We decided early on not to seek investment and to do things our own way, with a small budget. Truthfully, the growth has been very much organic—it’s only in the past 12 months that we’ve started to put substantial finances behind marketing and paid advertisement.

We both had full-time jobs when we started the business. We were literally blending products in any spare hour we had, during weeknights and weekends. It was a family affair; everyone chipped in and helped—we honestly couldn’t have done it without their support. We didn’t have a facility to begin with; Chris converted his garage into a blending room and his lounge became the stock cupboard. As we started to get busier, it was wonderfully organised chaos.

Read more Lisa Gawthorne: The vegan duathlete who transformed her life and conquered the world

Two years in, we began to gain great traction in the market and then lightning struck when the world closed its doors—COVID-19 took everybody by surprise. For us, it was a case of getting our heads down and continuing to do things the right way. People needed an outlet, and coffee shops usually provide that place of sanctum, but they were forever closing due to changing restrictions. We had to pivot quickly and focus more energy on the home market, through e-commerce development and more efficient delivery options.

One thing you learn working for global blue-chip supply chain companies is ‘continuous improvement’. It’s everywhere, in every aspect of successful businesses, and it prepares you to keep looking internally. Whether you’re two years into your journey or twenty, you can’t rest on what you have. So, in the early days, it was about applying new ways of working from a process perspective as the landscape changed rapidly around us.

The thing to remember here is, ‘consumers’ behaviours didn’t change, they were simply forced to conduct their behaviour in a different place. We adapted the best way we could, but our core product quality principles remained the same.

VC: Why did you decide to enter the vegan market and how do you think your products contribute to the vegan lifestyle?

Blendsmiths

RM: It was a simple choice, in all honesty. If you make your products non-vegan, you ostracise a huge proportion of the market and our very premise is ‘to change the way the world drinks’. We can’t do that by excluding part of it.

The market is now filled with vegan food and beverage options, but that wasn’t the case for a long time. Our aim has always been to offer an alternative option at breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper time that gives people a choice—a really tasty choice!

VC: Blendsmiths is known for its bold flavours and unique creations. How do you and the team go about developing new blends and what inspires these new flavours?

RM: We try to get everyone at Blendsmiths involved; it’s part of our hiring process. No matter your position at the company, we want our people to have an input. Although we’re flexible, we tend not to jump straight onto ‘what’s hot at the minute’. It’s a much more considered approach and one that needs to fit into our overall strategy. The inspiration tends to come from what we believe to be exciting and more importantly, whether we believe we can make the products tasty. Without taste, no product can stand the test of time.

Once we decide on an avenue to explore, we will source a whole range of ingredients from supplier partnerships we’ve developed over many years and get to work on making the magic happen.

“It’s been the catalyst for increasing my levels of patience—‘not everything can be achieved overnight’.” on becoming a father and entrepeneur

VC: The company focuses on bringing people together. How important do you think community and conversation are in shaping the Blendsmiths experience?

RM: Who are we without people? Who is anyone without people? Connection is incredibly important to everyone at Blendsmiths. Whether you’re a full-on subscribed user or are coming across us for the first time, how are we connecting with that person or business? Is it a positive experience? The answer, of course, we hope is yes. Our messaging tends to be positive energy-related. Our typography, packaging, imagery, and content as a whole are designed to evoke happy vibes. It’s really a testament to our first-ever hire and marketing whiz, Jasmine Feingold, who has brought our vision to purpose—she has developed a connected community through the eyes of Blendsmiths and helped shape our overall experience.

VC: As a father and entrepreneur, how has becoming a parent influenced your approach to business and Blendsmiths as a brand?

RM: It’s a great question. Naturally, I’m quite an empathetic person and becoming a father for the first time has contributed to adding more nurture tokens—what I mean by that is I feel an even greater responsibility now than ever before to nurture every aspect of the business and the people who decide to join the company. It’s been the catalyst for increasing my levels of patience—‘not everything can be achieved overnight’.

I think Chris would agree with me here; he has two young children. We are brave in our decisions and do we consider our families when making these decisions? Yes, of course, but from a place of real excitement. There is an element of ‘is this a smart decision that could affect the future of the company and would our children be proud of this move?’

VC: Have you ever imagined that one day you would be creating such a cool brand and does your family still consume Blendsmiths products regularly?

Blendsmiths

RM: We 100% believed we could create an interesting brand and products that would spark intrigue in the curious among us, which we believe to be everyone in some way, shape or form. But did we think our style would resonate far and wide? We can only say we held out hope!

I can’t speak for Chris, but my family are so supportive. My parents are both retired now and tend to have days out each week to various cities around the UK, where they always try to find a shop that serves Blendsmiths. My dad will proudly make it his priority to let everyone working at the shop know that I’m his son and proceed to send me a picture of them consuming whatever the blend of the week is—it’s really quite sweet.

VC: At the end of the day, a good brand is often one that delivers results. For our vegan entrepreneurship audience, could you share which area you believe is the most important when starting a business: The marketing side, the sales side, or something else entirely?

RM: I really like this question and it’s made me reflect on our early days. My answer would be two-fold. Firstly, if you’re passionate about the product OR, very importantly, what the product does for others, the chances of longevity increase. When you start a business, you’re often working 14-hour days—will you still have the drive 12 months down the line if you’re not passionate about these things? And secondly, structure—one thing we did well from the start was to set things up as if we were a company ten times bigger than we were. Systems, documentation, organisation and achievable goals that we held each other accountable for—this not only helped us manage periods of growth but also gave the impression of professionalism that we didn’t fully appreciate until much later.

Stay tuned as an article about Blendsmiths will be coming up soon and VegClub will reveal everything about their delicious blends, including their unique vegan white chocolate blend.

If you enjoy our articles and want to read more of our content, check out the top 7 vegan restaurants in Germany for you to try this summer. Perhaps take a look at so young and so vegan: Ryan Spänhoff—’The Junior Chef’ on how he became vegan. Or explore 8 European outdoor brands that use organic cotton.