Even after eight years at the helm of Holy Moly, Britain’s rising fresh dips brand, Tom Walker and Gaz Booth have never seen themselves as experts.
The childhood friends were both telecoms professionals before entering the food space in 2017. A healthy dose of naivety, says Walker, has also put Holy Moly on the road to a targeted £30m in sales by 2028.
“It’s been about asking stupid questions, challenging the norms, being different and Googling our way to answers,” co-founder Walker says from their Milton Keynes headquarters. “People feel like they need the answers and data before starting something, but following your gut and not taking no for an answer can pay off.”
Walker and Booth both grew up in Sheffield, attended the same school and business course at Aston University, before joining the same management scheme at BT (BT-A.L) and spending 12 years in the industry.
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Their journey began when Walker hosted a Mexican evening at his North London flat and a jovial argument ensued with Booth over who made the better homemade guacamole.
The crux was that Booth put coriander into his mix, Walker didn’t. Both had also made their own after shunning supermarkets’ “over processed, heavily manufactured” own brands.
“Every supermarket guacamole looked and tasted the same and there was little differentiation,” adds Walker. “The quality was so far off homemade, we were doggedly determined not to give up.
“But had we come from this background, the data would have told you there was no room for brand and nothing was broken.”
Holy Moly aims to revolutionise the UK’s uninspiring dips category.
They “aggressively Googled” their way to understanding the market, which was then all produced in the UK, spoke to factory producers and then stumbled across a dips trend in the US. Four weeks later, they travelled out to a fourth generation family avocado orchard in Mexico.
They found the producer turning wonky, small fruits unsuitable for supermarket export into guacamole. “They were sun ripe with natural ingredients and, from source, tasted so much better,” recalls Walker.
The duo returned with factory samples and hustled their way in front of supermarket buyers, who instantly took to the product. The stumbling block came when they were told it wasn’t a branded category and wanted the founders to produce under the supermarket’s own label.
The co-founders thought otherwise. “We were convinced of the opportunity,” says Walker.
It arrived via Waitrose, a small listing in Ocado (OCDO.L) and 18 months later into Sainsbury’s (SBRY.L). They have now grown from two top-tier products — their original guacamole, closely followed by pre-smashed avocado — to 20 across 16,000 stockist points.
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The entrepreneurs agree that those who disagree can be your best source of valuable information in growing a business. “There were so many points where people told us it’s impossible and not to do it,” adds Walker, as Holy Moly remained a side hustle for its first two years.
“It would have been easy to give up multiple times along the way as we didn’t know anything about this industry, the safety regulations, how to ship and import or setting up an operation here.
“We followed our gut instinct and behaved as consumers.”
Holy Moly’s supply chain has also aided the firm, which currently employs 15 staff, with producers using high-pressure processing for the picked avocados which kills bacteria and gives four times the shelf life.
The avocados are also frozen to maintain freshness, shipped by sea for sustainability, thawed in the UK and packaged off to supermarkets.
“We were kind of making it up as we went along but the supply chain has been a big part of the success,” says Walker. “We have ended up with a very slick process, with no waste, two years to manage the stock and a 30-day shelf life once thawed.”
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Holy Moly has now expanded production to multiple farms in Colombia and Peru, mainly to maintain year-round seasonal avocado quality as well as avoid potential trade disruptions.
They learned the hard way in 2021 when they were hit with an unexpected 40% price hike in avocados overnight in Mexico. “It was one of the toughest Christmases we had as we didn’t have the kind of margin to cover it,” says Walker.
Within two weeks he was on a plane to Bogota speaking to a new factory which had the necessary equipment and another two months before product was delivered. “Without that we may not have survived,” adds Walker.
Holy Moly found a four-generation, family-owned avocado orchard in Mexico and are now expanding their dip range.
Four years on, Holy Moly is expecting retail value sales of around £16m in their latest financial figures.
They have also launched into France, their first venture outside of the UK, with export seen as a key pillar to growth.
“It’s been a fairly crazy journey, especially as we had no experience in this world when we set out,” admits Walker.
“But every product we create still needs to stem back to the founding principles of creating something that is homemade.”
How to scale a business
Tasting is believing and we invested in a ‘Guac Shack’, a converted shipping container which goes to food and music festivals and is translating into a growing rate of sales. That is super important as it promotes our distribution; our supermarket buyers will see the rate go up and give us more stock in stores.
We don’t have big advertising budgets so getting ‘dips on lips’ is a key part of our strategy to grow sales. It’s important to get as many people trying our product for the first time and in 2024 we went to 20 festivals.
We’ve only got 33% of distribution in supermarkets so there are lots to go after and snacking with a higher rate of sale is a chance to get in front of new shoppers.
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