Newly appointed CEO of Hip Pop, Graham Beales
Independent brewer of gut lovin’ drinks, Hip Pop, is rounding out an exciting and successful year by welcoming a brand-new CEO to head up its close-knit team and focus on the scaling and growth of the business.
Graham Beales, former Head of Operations at Grenade, was originally brought in by Hip Pop to support with operations, however, due to his wealth of FMCG knowledge and experience, the Manchester based SME made the decision to appoint him as CEO.
As part of the senior leadership team at Grenade for almost five years, Graham worked closely with Grenade co-founder – and long-term advisor and board member of Hip Pop, Juliet Barratt, to help build, develop, grow and focus teams across all disciplines including operations, marketing, sales and finance. During his time there, he was not only instrumental in almost quadrupling the brand’s revenue from £17m to £65m, but also a successful £200m acquisition by Mondelez.
Co-founder of Hip Pop, Kenny Goodman, commented: “Bringing Graham on board early gives us a huge strategic advantage. He will drive the business forward allowing co-founder Emma and I to focus on strategy, brand, product, culture and important brand relationships. In addition to Graham’s relentless energy, he’s also a wonderful human being, and we are thrilled to welcome him to the team!”
Graham Beales added: “My background is in operations – both at corporate and SME level. I’ve recently spent two years working as a consultant, supporting growing, emerging startup brands, and brands that are going through very significant growth curves. I look forward to working with both Kenny and Emma, as well as the operations, sales and marketing teams to help to align, direct and focus them on the growth they need to achieve.”
Originally founded as ‘Booch & Brew’ in 2019, Hip Pop has now evolved into an established independent drinks brand that is redefining the functional drinks landscape with its tasty and healthy range of vegan, low-sugar and non-artificial kombucha and sodas that “taste good and do good”.
2023 has been an instrumental year for Hip Pop, having gained increasing recognition for both its superior brewing quality and business success. Not only did the brand take home a total of 5 stars across 4 of its gut healthy drinks* at this year’s Great Taste Awards, positioning itself as an official Great Taste producer, but the self-confessed “rebels of the gut-health world” were shortlisted for ‘SME Emerging Business’ at the Food & Drink Federation (FDF) Awards 2023.
More recently, Hip Pop’s Gut Lovin’ Orange Soda – which launched in Sainsbury’s this year – has just been awarded The Grocer’s Top Launch of the Year in the ‘Carbonates’ category, as well as being shortlisted at The Grocer New Product & Packaging Awards 2023, alongside a number of industry giants including Red Bull, Rubicon and Shloer.
Co-founder Emma Thackray was also selected to join Insider Media’s ‘North West 42 under 42’ list for 2023 – an annual campaign which profiles 42 people from the region who are excelling in heading up businesses, aged 42 and under.
Hip Pop is currently stocked by a number of retailers including Booths, Harrods, Fortnum & Mason and most recently, 280 Sainsbury’s stores – the brand’s largest commercial listing to date – with ambitious plans to further increase its retail distribution by 150% over the next 12 months.
