Keskorra Co

The plant based sector in the UK and Ireland has grown exponentially since the start of the pandemic in 2020 – but signs are pointing to a marked slowdown in the segment as investor funding dries up. Have we hit peak investment for vegan businesses, or is there more still to come from this sector?

We wanted to find out – so we've sifted the data and put together The Vegan Investment Insight Report, a deep look into the funding landscape for plant-based FMCG businesses over the past three and a half years (H1 2020 - H1 2023), drawing data from 66 UK and Irish businesses and 117 investors involved in funding them to examine the prevailing trends and offer insight on the current opportunities available to those seeking funding for their own plant based organisations.

There's some really interesting data in there, some of which we'll be sharing over the coming days. If you'd like to read it now, you can get hold of your copy by clicking on the link in our bio.

Getting a brand identity designed is a waste of money. There, I’ve said it.

I should probably clarify, lest I get the entire design community coming down on me like a ton of bricks:

A brand identity is useless without a proper brand strategy to go with it.

Put like that, it’s simple enough. Only a fool would try to build a house without putting secure foundations in first. In the same way, only foolish businesses would try and build a brand without first knowing what their brand strategy looks like. Right?

Sure, a beautiful, elegant brand identity designed without context or insight can attract eyeballs to a product or service but there’s a catch – if it’s not speaking to the right customers, setting out the ideas that matter or, worst of all, unaligned with the solution being delivered then, to quote my Dad, it’s about as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

The truth is that a brand identity informed by brand strategy will always add more value to a business. It’s a conversation I’ve had with founders several times, and the benefits from this process bear repeating.

There's not enough space in a LinkedIn piece to go through all the reasons why a detailed brand strategy can transform your business – so I've gone into detail over on my Substack:
keskorra.substack.com

“There is no such thing as a neutral piece of design. While as designers we cannot anticipate (or plan for) every possible outcome of the design work we produce, it is incumbent upon us to recognise that each piece we create tells a story that has an effect on the fabric of society, not matter how large or small.

Because of this, we have a genuine responsibility to make sure that these stories help to shape the world for the better, in whichever form that takes.”

I explore this idea in more detail in my latest Substack post over at keskorra.substack.com

I’ve started writing on ! I’ll be posting weekly pieces on all things sustainable design and branding – from how ethical businesses can use design to stand out to why marketing strategy is far more important than most purpose-led businesses think.

Take a look via my bio link.

If there was ever an argument that capitalise dogma occasionally gets in the way of itself, it’s that is considering building a 90km pipeline to transport water from the Severn to the Thames – a move that will likely compromise the water supply in the west and north-west of England and still provide less water than the company loses each day from leaks in its existing supply network (it loses 635 million litres per day to leaks!)

Why not fix the leaks instead? Because the cost to do so is higher than the value of the water they lose.

This river diversion project potentially saddles us all with a huge environmental cost – but at least Thames Water gets to protect its profits, right? 😑

New work alert! Delighted to see The Plant-Based Crohn’s and Colitis cookbook, showcasing the amazing recipes and photography of (and laid out by Studio BS3) is now available to buy!

As a sufferer of Crohn’s Disease, Helena really struggled to find useful, actionable information on what a healthy vegan diet looks like for someone with the condition, despite the potential benefits for the diet to alleviate some of the impacts of IBD. This cookbook is the result of a huge amount of research and countless hours of recipe testing (having eaten all of the recipes in the book at least once, I can confirm they are tasty AF).

The book is now available worldwide through Amazon.

A business without a is like a fruit fly without a head. See, flies can lose their heads and keep going for a while – but eventually they’ll die from a lack of feeding. Similarly, businesses can limp on with a damaged or unimpressive brand presence but, over time, their ability to grow their business and engage new customers is only going to decline.

Your brand is the head of your business, not an appendage. That’s why it’s so crucial to get it right.

I've not been able to shake off this statistic since I read it last week. For the past two decades, the very highest earners in the UK (i.e. the top 1%) have been responsible for extreme levels of carbon emissions – as much as the lowest 10% combined.

What is a real kicker is the reasons for these inflated emissions contribution are nothing more than lifestyle choices: taking several flights a year, running large, inefficient cars, travelling between multiple homes, eating high-in-meat diets, purchasing vast amounts of clothing and importing luxury goods.

As ethically-minded businesses, we can encourage and empower our customers to make more environmentally-driven decisions but, as with many things, we remain at the mercy of the richest in our increasingly unequal society when it comes to controlling our carbon output.

Sustainability and luxury are rarely mentioned in the same sentence – largely because they tend to be so incompatible. Certainly, the vast majority of the sustainable businesses I've worked with over the years are (wisely) not targeting the highest earners in society.

Yet it can't be solely be put on the shoulders of the rest of us to make the right consumer decisions for the planet – everyone needs to be accountable if we are to turn things around and keep our changing climate in check.

If we can't stop the 1% from continuing to pollute, we might as well get them to contribute to society by taxing their unnecessary emissions to fund the retrofitting of home insulation, the construction of new renewable energy infrastructure and other projects that can propel us into a greener future.

If the UK had started taxing carbon emissions from just the top 1% of income groups two decades ago, the effort could have raised about £126bn by now – more than double the £60bn public deficit that we're currently facing. Worth thinking about.

Business founders can often become so focused on what they make and how they make it, they forget why they are making it and who they are making it for – leading to serious miscalculations being made when choosing the direction for their brand's identity.

I've spoken about this previously when hosting branding workshops but wanted to revisit the topic and look at exactly how a focus on 'why' and 'who for' can make or break the creation of a brand.

What to consider before you start building your brand identity — McCabe Creative Business founders can often become so focused on what they make and how they make it that they forget why they are making it and who they are making it for. This isn’t too much of a surprise, when you think about it. By the time they get around to branding and marketing their products, fou

Earlier this year, my partner Helena and I chose to put Omnom Magazine – our biannual coffee table magazine about sustainable living – on a permanent hiatus. Despite the decision to stop printing Omnom Magazine, our ambition to work on ethically-minded projects remains as strong as ever.

In the meantime, I have started work on a new creative project – a socially-minded board game called Four Degrees through which I hope to shine a light on how a rapidly changing climate is likely to precipitate mass population displacement on an unprecedented scale.

Starting socially-minded conversation through creativity — McCabe Creative Designer Ben McCabe explores how completely diverse creative mediums – a magazine and a board game – can both be used to spark debate around important environmental and social issues.

Studio BS3 updated their business hours.