Andrew Newlands discusses building the Monty Bojangles brand on playfulness, creativity and exceptional taste

Hi Andrew, it’s great to connect. Firstly, can you give us a brief introduction to the Monty Bojangles brand.
Monty Bojangles is an award-winning premium confectionery brand, launched in 2009. The brand features a wide range of different gifting, sharing and self-treat products, ranging from bars to Belgian chocolates, flaked truffles to Italian nougat… And, of course, our range of widely distributed cocoa dusted truffles. The brand sells across all multiple retailers in the UK, into the speciality sector, e-tail and also exports to approximately 20 international territories.

What vision did you have for the brand when it first launched?
To answer this one, I’ll reference our 2014 re-launch if I may, as I believe this is the most significant point to reflect upon. I wanted to create a brand that transcended the confectionery it contained. To weave the promise of indulgent – yet justified – escapism into our artwork. Our enigmatically balanced raison d’etre was as follows: “Curiously moreish adventures in taste.” Pillars of playfulness, creativity, discovery and a focus on exceptional taste experience above all else.

Fantastic. The Monty Bojangles brand is bright, colourful and distinctive. What factors did you take into consideration when designing the brand?
I expect the correct answer here is to describe a clever, pseudo-scientific approach to the initial design process, resulting inevitably in a desirable and unique outcome! In reality, sometimes things just click and what starts as a doodle grows into a sprawling vision where scenes simply create themselves!

Once this bountiful creative was afoot, the most challenging task was reigning it in to work on a small design space – and securing a strong brand look that communicated consistency despite the exuberance behind it! By this point, originality ceased to be a concern!

When you reflect on your design process, are there key lessons you have learnt along the way?
Certainly. When we relaunched Monty Bojangles with a new design in 2014, our primary goal was to present a fantastical, beautiful and enigmatic range of vibrant truffle boxes. The artwork on these boxes were crafted to evoke a sense of the extraordinary taste experiences waiting inside.

While the essence of our brand remains unchanged, the evolution of Monty Bojangles has undergone refinement and grown in sophistication. The brand expansion to cater to various occasions has necessitated a strategic enhancement in our approach to communication, and the prioritisation of our design pillars.

“I wanted to create a brand that transcended the confectionery it contained.”

This evolution ensures that each Monty Bojangles creation not only looks visually appealing, but also seamlessly aligns with the brand’s ethos and unique essence of each product.

Flavour is crucial for a product like yours. What approach do you take to NPD from a taste point of view?
The world of taste can be simplified into a finite number of experience targets. When making a new recipe, we aim for the dead centre of one of our core flavour targets. We only finish our work when we know we have delivered the most incredible taste experience possible within that space. We do not let kooky ingredients derail this philosophy for the sake of sounding exotic! Equally, we like to be discrete about the precise nuance or provocative catalyst that transforms an okay taste into an incredible taste. We make experiences after all! Much of that is the wonder of the unknown!

You’ve launched a Monty Bojangles Monty plush. Is this the start of more brand extensions and a focus on Monty as a character?
Very much so! We have an ambitious, vaulting agenda to expand the Monty Bojangles brand beyond the realms of the confectionery space. Imagination, passion and purpose is a powerful formula!

While all Monty Bojangles ranges are extremely popular, no range embodies the soul of our mascot and feline founder Monty Bojangles himself more than our enigmatic Cat Tins! I believe there is an exciting potential for taking these remarkably characterful felines and diversifying into many types of non-food arenas.

On that, what new categories do you think might work for the brand?
Monty Bojangles wishes to create experiences, not simply foods. Visual spectacles, chocolatey aromas, playful messiness, joyful copy! Before a truffle is even bitten into, magic is delivered. The Monty Bojangles brand promise is highly portable to product ranges and composite gifts that offer indulgent, self-care, cosy Hygge, mellow sofa moments – as well as chocolate-adjacent sensory experiences.

“Monty Bojangles wishes to create experiences, not simply foods.”

As I say to my NPD team, “We don’t make chocolate boxes, we make beautiful things”. We have a wondrous catalogue of visual assets, designs, characters and styles that would translate beautifully into a wide range of consumer goods. Great tasting non-confectionery foods are clearly the most obvious marriage. We make delicious chocolates. What other food categories would the Monty Bojangles brand be able to deliver equivalent ‘deliciously unshareable’ delights within?

Looking back, did you feel that you were entering a ‘David versus Goliath’ contest when launching into the chocolate sector?
I respected all brands on shelf and still do. I recognised the challenge before us, but was confident in the quality of our product, the beauty of our designs and the effectiveness of our price strategy. Furthermore, I knew we had some advantages on our side: The creativity of Monty Bojangles, the agility of our development process and the tenacity of the passionate and incredibly clever team at Truffle HQ!

What tips would you pass onto other challenger brands when entering a competitive marketplace?
A lot of the time, the mistake is to aim for a technical niche to survive. While this naturally reduces competition, it also lowers the ceiling of possibilities. The trick is not to try to make a different ‘thing’, rather to aim to make a shopper feel different with a thing that everyone wants. More special, more knowledgeable, more entertained, more cared for, more considerate or whatever works for your idea. Focus on the shoppers’ feeling, not the technical nature of the good to offer a point of difference.

Good advice. Looking at retail, how easy is it to keep retailers happy?
A question that could be answered in an essay! I shall mention three simple methods. We keep their needs and goals always front of mind. We work hard to recognise opportunities that we perceive across the market and share our insights for the betterment of their ranges. We also make sure that a Monty Bojangles experience – be it at the shelf, at home, in a meeting, on the telephone – is always one to be looked forward to and always one that delivers delight.

You have recently given talks in schools to students. What advice would you give to young people interested in pursuing a career in design?
My advice to any young designer is simple: Never lose sight of what your goal is when designing! Being a designer and artist myself, I am acutely aware of the pull towards vain, glorious over-designing! If the shopper is confused, distracted or mislead by the promise the art implies, then your design – regardless of how lovely it is – sucks!

In an environment of equivalent creative potential, I’m drawn to candidates that laughs more! We are a brand that is very much alive. I believe that the passion, soul and joie de vivre that permeates through Truffle HQ manifests into our products. This makes them more inviting, more charming and more successful!

Great answer. And what advice would you give to anyone launching a new brand in 2024?
Boring answer inbound… Pricing and margins. Your RRP needs to take care of all the wholesale and retail margins in your value chain. Don’t plan to make money. Not for ages. Not ever if you can manage it! Your profits should be reinvested to grow future years. I believe this incredibly strongly… Don’t go into business to make money. Go into business to have the time of your life and spend your earnings to increase the possibilities!

Before we wrap up, what have been some of the highlights for you and the brand over the last 15 years?
Our brand is now worth more than £20m at retail. We have won countless awards for ‘Great Taste’, for business success, for NPD quality… We have been recognised by two monarchs by winning a Queen’s Award, then a King’s Award, for Enterprise. We have traded through pandemics, lockdowns, global supply crisis, fuel shortages, shipping crisis, political chaos, inflation, HFSS – yet have survived and thrived through it all.

“We have an ambitious agenda to expand the brand beyond the realms of the confectionery space.”

My feet are firmly planted upon terra firma and I am aware of the challenges we all face, yet I’m extremely proud of what we as a team have achieved these past 15 years. Yet more excited still for what is to come…

Finally, in the wider world of chocolate and confectionery, is there a company, brand or individual you admire or learn from?
I admire all who strive to succeed in this challenging industry. The world of chocolate is ridiculous; we reinvent ourselves every season. We sell delicate, perishable delights that are incredibly complex to produce. Our products need to be affordable and – reasonably –practical, but also must deliver splendour, wonder and delight both on shelf and at home when they’re ripped in to. Confectioners are the world’s true alchemists! We turn the world golden! This is extremely challenging. Bravo to all my fellows for turning up every day!

Bravo indeed! Thanks Andrew.