Rushina Shah on LinkedIn: We are delighted to announce that Insane Grain has been chosen alongside 6… (2024)

🎉 IT’S A VERY BIG DAY TODAY! 🎉Insane Grain is now available in Tesco! 🛒It's taken:4️⃣ years3️⃣6️⃣ emails (I counted)8️⃣ different contacts4️⃣ trips to the Tesco HQSpecial moments like these make all of the hard graft worth it. So I had to capture the reaction, of some of my team, when I told them the amazing news!✨Let's see if we can now convince Harry Kane to stop by a Tesco store to see his face on the shelves. We've got a short window to make this happen before the Euros!Paul Curtis - challenge accepted... 👀

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𝐖𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒... 📈In 2011, the Davies Report first proposed a target of 25% of female board representation by 2015. That target subsequently increased to 33% in 2016 and today, 40% of the UK FTSE board positions are held by women [Reuters, 2023].This shows that with the right support and crucial changes being made, ambitious targets can be achieved. Just imagine what this figure could be by 2034! 🚀Earlier this week, I was invited back to 10 Downing Street for #InternationalWomensDay to stand alongside some exceptionally inspiring women from all walks of life – policewomen, ex-footballers (Mollie Kmita and Rosie Kmita), doctors, movie producers and F&B leaders, Julianne Ponan MBE and Emma Heal ✨And we heard from MP Maria Caulfield (Minister for Women) who said that ‘‘𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘢 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘭 𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩-𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯-𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩-𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘴.’’She shared details of the newly formed ‘Women-Led High-Growth Enterprise Taskforce,’ which has been put together to build a better understanding of the UK landscape.Their work includes identifying opportunities to break down the barriers faced by women when starting and scaling high-growth enterprises:❌ Just 18% of high-growth enterprises include one or more women on the founding team. In comparison, all-male founding teams make up 82% of high-growth enterprises [Beauhurst, 2023]. £250 billion of new value could be added to the UK economy if women started and scaled new businesses at the same rate as men in the UK [The Rose Review, 2019].❌ Of the UK’s multi-billion pound venture capital funding, female entrepreneurs routinely received less than a 2% share of the investments made each year [Beauhurst, 2023]. For every £1.00 equity investment in the UK, just 2p goes to fully female-founded businesses [British Business Bank, Small Business Equity Tracker, 2023].❌ Women are still in the minority when it comes to studying STEM and often don’t have the right support and resources to pursue this path [UCAS, 2023 cycle application figures]You can read their plans to tackle this in the link shared in the comments 👇🏽

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🤯 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐒 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍!Last month, I was invited to 10 Downing Street to join other SMEs for the launch of the government’s new ‘‘Help to Grow’’ campaign.To my shock, Rishi Sunak started talking about Insane Grain - the business that I set-up from my kitchen table (albeit we aren’t technically stocked in bakeries up and down the country 😂).There are 5.6 million businesses registered in the UK and a huge 99% of them are classified as SMEs. The Help to Grow initiative provides business support and guidance to help them scale. You can check out the resources available in the link in the comments below.So now we have the Prime Minister’s attention, should we create an Insane Grain crisp pack with his face on it next? ‘The Sunak Snack’ has a ring to it… 👀P.S. We want to make clear that we don’t have any political allegiance. We have a snack for every party!

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🚨WHO ELSE WANTS TO WIN A FREE HOLIDAY?!* 🌴A month ago, we offered you the chance to win £500 towards a holiday of your choice, if you recommended a successful sales candidate to join us at Insane Grain.We’ve made one successful hire through a recommendation and so we’ve decided to offer this again!We are now on the hunt for a National Account Manager looking to make their next move. The candidate would ideally have past F&B experience with a challenger brand (although this is not mandatory).Do you know anyone that fits the bill and wants to be part of a team that includes England men’s football Captain, Harry Kane?! If so, send them our way… and get those sunnies ready! 😎 Potential candidates – please email your CV tohello@insanegrain.co.uk. *we’re not kidding.

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We are beyond excited to share that Insane Grain has been chosen as one of the 27 brands to join the first cohort of the new Tesco Accelerator Programme! 🚀I first approached Tesco 4 years ago... It's taken a lot of knocking on the door, multiple presentations to different buyers, a heap of perseverance and different product iterations. But we've finally done it!🎢And it's all thanks to one person who believed in us from the get-go - Paul Curtis 🙌🏽 Thank you also to the wider Tesco innovation team (Samantha Payne, Lorna Dickinson, Christina Bridstrup, Gordon Gafa and others). Your commitment to support purpose-led challenger brands and bring real innovation to consumers is amazing.A number of well-known brands (including BrewDog, Fever-Tree, graze, Propercorn, BOL Foods) have all historically made their name after going through the year-long programme, so we are absolutely ecstatic to be included as part of a cohort of stand-out brands!✨A special mention also to our Commercial Director Paul Simon Mumford who this wouldn't have happened without!Insane Grain will be launching into Tesco stores in April... More details to be shared soon👀

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👨🏼🚀 WE SENT HARRY KANE INTO SPACE 👨🏼🚀Ok, we didn’t.But we did send Insane Kane to space. Genuinely!After weeks of research trying to figure out how we were going to send a crisp pack into space, we purchased a weather balloon and attached a camera and device to track its whereabouts and height.The pack reached 122km above the earth’s surface. And we overdelivered because space apparently starts at 100km!🪐But why on earth did we do this?Because ✨WE HAVE LAUNCHED ONTO BRITISH AIRWAYS FLIGHTS✨ and we wanted to test if the crisps still tasted delicious and crunchy after being in the air and reaching a high altitude. We can confirm, that it does!So we can now officially say that… Insane Kane is on a plane! ✈️

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We’ve been quiet over at Insane Grain, because we’ve been trying to figure out how on earth we’re meant to top the announcement that we got England men’s football captain, Harry Kane, to join our team?!Then it came to us…We needed to think of something out of this world! 👩🚀🪐Here’s a little teaser of what’s to come…👀

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