James Averdieck

Why organisations work with James Averdieck

• He has done it twice. Gü was sold to Noble Foods for £32.5 million in 2010. The Coconut Collaborative, his second venture, sells into the UK, France, Germany, New Zealand, and the United States.
• He speaks from the commercial end of brand building, not the marketing-theory end: pricing, packaging, retailer negotiation, and the point at which a premium product earns its listing.
• His Gü story is one of the most widely studied FMCG launches of the last two decades in UK grocery, which gives commercial audiences a reference point they already half-know and want the inside version of.
• He judges the Lloyds British Business Excellence Awards, which puts him in front of hundreds of growth-stage UK businesses every year and sharpens his read on what separates the ones that scale.

Biography highlights

• Founder of Gü Chocolate Puds (2003); sold to Noble Foods in 2010 for £32.5 million
• Founder and Managing Director of The Coconut Collaborative, a dairy-free dessert business trading in five countries
• 2023 judge, Lloyds British Business Excellence Awards
• Graduate of Arthur D. Little; nine years in food industry at Safeway and St Ivel
• Economics, Durham University (College of St Hild and St Bede); Uppingham School
• Featured on “On Brand with Rory Sutherland” on brand building and category creation

Biography

The premium chocolate dessert aisle in UK supermarkets did not really exist before 2003. Gü created it. A £65,000 seed, a black ramekin, and a deliberate refusal to cheapen the product gave the category its first breakout brand, and gave Noble Foods a reason to write a £32.5 million cheque seven years later.

The founder behind that build is James Averdieck. Before Gü he spent his twenties at Arthur D. Little and then nine years inside Safeway and St Ivel, which is where he learned what retailers actually buy and what they quietly refuse to list. The Belgium posting at St Ivel is where the Gü idea began.

The second act matters as much as the first. The Coconut Collaborative, which Averdieck founded after acquiring Bessant and Drury in 2014, is now a dairy-free business selling in the UK, France, Germany, New Zealand, and the United States. It gives him a live operator’s view of how category creation works a second time, under different conditions, in a more crowded free-from market.

What he brings to a commercial audience is the mechanics a buyer rarely hears explained by a consultant: how a premium price point gets defended in negotiations with a multiple, why packaging decisions are commercial decisions, and where most founders give ground they should not.

Key speaking topics

• Entrepreneurship and challenger brand building
• Premium brand creation in FMCG
• Category creation and shelf-space strategy
• Scaling from seed capital to trade sale
• Marketing and branding for consumer businesses
• Founder discipline and commercial negotiation

Ideal for

• Commercial and sales leadership teams in consumer businesses
• Founders and senior operators in growth-stage FMCG and food and drink
• Marketing and brand teams responsible for premium propositions
• Corporate audiences running innovation or intrapreneurship programmes

Audience outcomes

• A first-hand account of how Gü was priced, packaged, and sold into UK retail
• A clear read on where challenger brands win and lose against category incumbents
• Practical perspective on raising, deploying, and protecting early-stage capital
• A second operator view from The Coconut Collaborative on building in a more crowded market
• Honest commentary on the trade-offs between growth, margin, and exit