Tim Brooks Oct 18, 2026
Pip & Nut: useful lessons for start-ups...
Pip & Nut launched in 2015 from a market stall, as founder Pippa Murray built the brand on a product difference as people started to take interest in clean products: no palm oil, no unnecessary additives, just high-quality nuts and simple ingredients.
In a category where the brand leaders had been making the same product for decades, this brand distinction gained attention. The brand has since expanded into almond butter, cashew butter, coconut peanut butter and a range of flavoured varieties, all held together by the same underlying commitment to ingredients.
The more recent growth has moved into convenience snacks. Cereal and protein bars (including Honey Nut and Cinnamon Bun variants) were introduced in 2024. The brand also unveiled a full packaging redesign in November 2025 to bring the expanded range together under a more unified identity.
This year, the brand launched a TV ad that used AI as a production tool to bring its red squirrel mascot to film for the first time, having only previously appeared in print and OOH. The campaign scored in the top 1% of System1 rankings for emotional response.
By September 2026, the squirrel had a name, Cyril, unveiled with a deliberately theatrical naming ceremony near the brand's London office, streamed across social channels alongside the latest TV campaign.
2015 is a long time ago in the world of brands and marketing. So, firstly, the growth, and accelerating performance of Pip & Nut is testament to a great body of work creating and building a brand from scratch to scale.
Like lots of start-up brands this one was founded on passion and commitment. The challenge is that this is rarely enough on its own, and the brand needs to evolve to move from small and feisty to established and growing. It can still be a challenger – as Pip & Nut is, but it cannot stand still. Too many start-up brands struggle to navigate this journey. Here are some possible lessons.
Lesson 1: lock down your authentic, Room101 principles e.g. for Pip & Nut a focus on clean ingredients, quality products, and a slightly quirky personality. It is not complicated, but it was authentic and distinctive.
Lesson 2: understand & leverage the zeitgeist! Timing is important. The brand was relatively early to understand the insights and meet the needs of the emerging consumers in a category that was probably operating in a steady state. There is a bit of fortune in being in the right place, right time, but no luck in turning a short window of advantage into a sustainable brand approach. Getting to base camp is the hardest thing a brand ever does, most small brands fail to understand you have a small window of opportunity and you must maximise it. Pip & Nut either consciously or intuitively concentrated on rapidly owning a space they could build from.
Lesson 3: innovate... innovate... innovate. Innovation has risk, especially for a smaller, growing company. We genuinely love the power of the innovation activity - from ingredient additions (coconut, cashew, almond butters) to the stretch into snacking and on the go. Remember: you can NEVER stop for a breather at base camp... keep moving forward!
Lesson 4: brand investment. It is always easier to under-invest in your brand than not. It is hard, but small brands must grasp this nettle. Pip & Nut has always embraced brand building. The new ad is true to the spirit of 2015 but shows a confidence and personality that only a decade of brand evolution could deliver. In the words of a long-lost FA Cup song... nice one Cyril! And nice one Pip & Nut.
