º£½ÇÊÓƵ

From rubbing shoulders with the likes of an England Rugby World Cup winner as a teenager, trials at Manchester City and becoming a professional snowboarder in California through to convincing the founders of Innocent Smoothies to let him sell their products from the back of a cow-themed van, Paul Brown had quite the journey to becoming the founder of plant-based food giant BOL.

Born and bred in Manchester, Mr Brown took the plunge in 2015 and struck out on his own, with the help of a few notable high-end worth backers, and has now set his sights on growing the company's revenue to £50m in the next three years.

Speaking exclusively to BusinessLive, the 41-year-old reveals how he bounced back from failing to make it as a professional sportsman and being unable to start his own business, joining Innocent Drinks as it was just starting out and what the future holds for BOL in a post-pandemic world.

Starting his own business always seemed to be on the cards for the budding entrepreneur, following on the coattails of his father Max, a former general manager of the Mere Resort & Spa and who set up Manchester's first wine bar.

However, sport was his first love and he turned his attention to football, swallowing his pride as a Manchester United fan and trying out for bitter rivals Manchester City.

Playing alongside future star Michael Brown was as far through the system as he would go however and after being told he was not destined for the professional ranks, the young Paul turned to the oval ball instead.

Playing rugby union at Brunel University and Sale Sharks' academy, he pitted his skills against the likes of Ian Balshaw, who would go on to win the Rugby World Cup for England in 2003, and Richard Wigglesworth who himself would play for the national side as well as Saracens and Leicester Tigers.

But with rugby also proving to be a dead end, Paul took a sharp left turn and travelled 5,000 miles to become a snowboarding instructor in California.

Ill fate struck again however when, going over a particularly large jump, the young daredevil broke all the bones in his right wrist and was in and out of hospital for the next nine months.

But it was his experience stateside that rekindled his entrepreneurial spirit after seeing people's mainly plant-based diets.

Wanting to recreate his experience back home in Manchester, the then 21-year-old set about raising money for his own venture specialising in Californian food with a Mexican twist.

However, he was unable to find more than half the money needed to get the business off the ground and he instead turned to the capital to try and find his big break.

"I remember a friend handing me an Innocent Smoothie bottle and it just brought me back to my time in Cali.

"At the time there was a notice on the bottle encouraging people to come down to their HQ so I did and I ended up convincing the founders [Richard Reed, Jon Wright and Adam Balon] to let me sell their bottles out of the back of a van across the north.

"So I started back in Manchester with a van painted black and white like a cow, complete with horns, and getting laughed out of places being told that I should take the smoothies back to London as they would never work up north.

"There were less than ten people working in the business at the time and I was splitting my time as a semi-professional footballer for Glossop North End as well so it was full on."

After joining in 2001, Mr Brown worked his way up the ranks of the fast-growing business all the way to general manager (food) when Coca Cola swept in to acquire the company from the founders.

"I was faced with a choice then and it became clear to me that this was my opportunity.

"Coke were not really interested in the food side of the business so with the blessing of their CEO, and Innocent Drinks, I took what resources I could and walked down the road to Notting Hill to found BOL."

Backed by JamJar, the Innocent Drinks founders' venture capital fund, Mr Brown was able to get his new venture up and running and now comprises a team of 80, headquarters in London's Paddington and manufacturing operations in Nottinghamshire, Skelmersdale and Lincolnshire.

With Mr Brown as its majority shareholder, the company is also supported by Simon Orange, the owner of CorpAcq Ltd and Sale Sharks, as well as Addison Lee's chief executive Liam Griffin, with JamJar still backing the firm.

"It's been ridiculously hard to be an entrepreneur and I never seem to have the chance to switch off.

"I have made a lot of personal sacrifices to get to this position but I have been lucky to be backed by great people and have assembled a fantastic team."

The company was helped through the Covid-19 pandemic thanks to a multimillion-pound growth capital injection just before the crisis hit.

Its existing investors chipped in as well as partners of TDR Capital, the private equity firm which recently was part of the acquisition of Asda, personally investing in the business.

Mr Brown was forced to furlough about a third of his staff for a few months during the first national lockdown but the additional funding enabled the company to not have to access any Government funding support schemes or cut jobs.

BOL is now setting its sights on growing its turnover from £11.5m in 2020 to more than £20m this year before aiming for the £50m mark in the next three years.

"We have enough capital to get us through to that position and I'm open minded about how we grow from there.

"We are launching in Ireland later this year and I want us to reach mainline Europe and then expand onwards.

"How we do that, through securing more growth capital or even by an IPO, is not decided at this stage but I'm excited by the opportunities out there."

Despite the increasingly national and international gaze of BOL, Mr Brown still harbours fond memories and strong attachments to the city where he grew up.

"My mum is still in Salford and I have grandparents in Preston and aunts and uncles in Knutsford.

"I have a five-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter and my wife is from Liverpool so I have a lot of connections still to the North West.

"I would be surprised if in the next five to ten years if I was not back living up in the area and still running BOL if possible.

"I remember when I was still starting out with Innocent Drinks, I had an office above Evans Fishmongers in Didsbury which we called Fish Towers.

"I have so many fond memories of the city and I would love to return full time one day."