Foodpreneurs Festival is a high-impact event for specialty FMCG brands, curated by industry specialist Chelsea Ford. The event is laser-focused on solving the biggest challenges facing brands:
- Breaking into retail
- Scaling operations
- Turning great brands into growing businesses.
Those are the exact challenges Upstock is designed to solve, which is why our team was invited to run a workshop: Scale Into Retail with Automation & AI (more on that below).
Over 80 handpicked brands were selected to participate in the festival – pitching their products, landing deals, and building relationships with people who genuinely want to see them succeed.
It’s a space filled with real conversations, practical insights, and a shared ambition to get better food and beverage products onto more shelves, into more stores, in front of more customers.
Biteback Award Winners 🏆
One of the highlights of the festival is celebrating the brands that are making bold moves and setting new standards.
Congratulations to this year’s Biteback Award winners:
- Launch Legend – Sorry Nonna
- Brand Innovation – Flora Foods
- Brand Campaign – Six-Eyed Scorpion
- Category Crusher – SOLBEVI
- Critics’ Choice – Flora Foods (again!)
- People's Choice – Umei Foods
Investor Hub Pitches
The festival also connects brands with investors. For the grand finale, five brands were selected to pitch to a panel of seasoned FMCG investors. Those brands were:
- SUP Foods
- Isaac's Snack
- GIAGO
- The Why Meat Co
- Spice Craft
All of the pitches were impressive, so it must have been a very tough decision.
In the end, Theresa Dang of Sup Foods walked away with investor backing!
Upstock: From brand founder to platform builder
Upstock cofounder Matt Watson shared his journey of running his own FMCG brand Foxton Fizz – experiencing firsthand the operational challenges that ultimately inspired him to start Upstock.
Like many founders in the room, Matt wrestled with overwhelming admin and the pressure of growing into retail without the right systems in place.
That experience shaped what Upstock is today – a wholesale platform designed to remove the friction that stalls and limits the growth of great FMCG brands.
Upstock transformed Foxton Fizz, automating their sales and logistics, removing the daily grind of admin. It became effortless to handle the complex demands of retailers, which scaled up his wholesale capacity and grew sales.
Upstock Workshop: Scale Into Retail with Automation & AI
As Matt started to develop Upstock he turned to his friend Philip Fierlinger (who cofounded Xero) and together with Duncan Ritchie (another exec from Xero) they created Upstock.
Matt and Philip were invited to run a workshop "Scale into Retail with Automation & AI" – to teach FMCG brands:
- How to get a seat at the table with the supermarkets
- How to use AI to easily cope with the major complexities of supermarket procurement
- How brands use Upstock to expand their retail footprint.
The room was filled with engaged founders asking smart, pragmatic questions.
As the audience peppered Philip and Matt with questions, the owners of Coast n Smoke happened to be sitting in the audience. As Upstock customers with firsthand experience, owners Troy and Claire started spontaneously answering the audience questions – explaining how Upstock completely transformed their wholesale workflow, managing their product catalogues, pricing changes, invoicing, packing slips, pick lists, and more – automating it all with just a few clicks.
They explained how Upstock automates orders from all their wholesale customers – various IGA and groceries, cafes and restaurants – "even butchers love it, and they're very tough customers".
They also explained how their buyers now order more frequently, because they always have the latest catalogue at their fingertips 24/7. And Coast n Smoke are now able to fill those orders faster, keeping up with demand so store shelves are fully stocked and replenished immediately.
Brand Showcase
The heart of the Foodpreneurs event is the brand showcase. Shelves upon shelves featured amazing brands and their specialty products.
It was a proud moment seeing so many Upstock customers showcasing their products and pitching retailers at the event, including:
- Coast n Smoke
- Sidekick Soda
- Innerbloom
- Apostle Hot Sauce
- Secret States
- Corporal Freddies
- Sneekico
- Bippi
- Lady Alchemy
- Sodasmith
- Oats My Goodness
- Tucker Dust
- Yumake
- Bee and Flow Manuka
- Zerup
Many of these brands secured pivotal connections with category buyers and distributors at the event – exactly what Foodpreneurs is all about.
The Upstock team also discovered and connected with so many new and growing brands.
We're thrilled to welcome many of these awesome brands to the Upstock marketplace!
- Cremorne Street Bakers
- Sorry Nonna
- SPICETUB
- Frekl Ginger Beer
- Coco Loco Hard Seltzer
- Red Gum BBQ at Home
- Nutsy Peanut Butter
- And many more launching soon!
See you next year
Chelsea and the entire Foodpreneurs team have created something truly special. Their work is elevating producers, opening doors to major opportunities, and energising the entire FMCG community.
We can’t wait to return next year.
In the meantime, we’re still catching up with all the demand and opportunities this festival has generated!
