Cassandra Stavrou

Why organisations work with Cassandra Stavrou

• She has lived the operational reality of scaling a challenger consumer brand against entrenched incumbents, from cement-mixer experiments in her parents’ garage to listings in every major UK retailer.
• She made PROPER the first B Corp certified snacks company, then proved the model could withstand a major private equity consolidation deal, completed through Brexit and COVID.
• She speaks credibly to founders and corporate brand teams about the operational discipline required when purpose stops being a marketing claim and starts being an audited certification.
• A recognised authority on UK food and drink policy, sitting on the government’s Food & Drink Sector Council, with Veuve Clicquot New Generation and National Business Award recognition behind her.

Biography highlights

• Founder, PROPER Snacks (PROPERCORN and PROPERCHIPS), launched 2011
• MBE for services to the food industry, 2020
• Veuve Clicquot New Generation Award, 2016
• National Business Awards New Business of the Year, 2014
• Member, UK Government Food & Drink Sector Council
• Board member, WARP Snacks, formed in 2021 through the Exponent-backed combination of PROPER and Eat Real

Biography

PROPER started in a kitchen with a cement mixer and a popcorn recipe. A decade later it was Europe’s largest independent healthier snacking business, with listings in every major UK supermarket and distribution across more than twenty countries. The category it competed in was dominated by global incumbents with budgets that dwarfed anything an independent founder could put behind shelf negotiation, marketing or supply chain.

Cassandra Stavrou co-founded PROPER in 2011 and ran it as a challenger brand built on a specific premise: that healthier snacks did not have to compromise on taste, and that the business behind them did not have to compromise on its social and environmental obligations. PROPER became the first B Corp certified snacks company, embedding the standard from the inside rather than retrofitting it later.

The Veuve Clicquot New Generation Award in 2016, an MBE in 2020 and a seat on the UK Government’s Food & Drink Sector Council mark a track record that goes beyond brand storytelling. The 2021 consolidation with Eat Real under private equity backer Exponent, forming WARP Snacks, gave the next test: whether the discipline that built the brand could survive the rationalisation that follows institutional capital.

She speaks to founders, brand teams and boards on what changes when purpose moves from a positioning line to a binding operating constraint, and on the practical economics of building a category challenger that the incumbents eventually have to take seriously.

Key speaking topics

• Founder-led brand building in consumer categories
• Scaling challenger brands against incumbents
• B Corp certification as an operating discipline
• Purpose and profit in the food and drink sector
• Female founders and capital
• UK food and drink policy

Ideal for

• Founders and senior commercial leaders in consumer brands and FMCG
• Brand, marketing and category leaders in retail
• Investors and boards backing purpose-led businesses through scale events
• Conferences on entrepreneurship, sustainability and women in business

Audience outcomes

• A working view of what changes operationally when B Corp standards are written into a consumer business from day one
• Honest detail on the trade-offs between speed of growth and brand integrity in a price-sensitive category
• The mechanics of negotiating shelf space, retailer relationships and supply chains as an independent challenger
• A practitioner’s account of running a founder-led business through a private equity consolidation