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- 🚀 Your Weekly Slice of UK Consumer Startups #26
🚀 Your Weekly Slice of UK Consumer Startups #26
The formula for startups collaborating with household brands 🤝
The Startup Slice
October 26, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
Hey 👋
From chai collabs to cocktail bars and startups landing spots with household names, this week’s stories show how the right partnerships can power real growth.
For our Bitesize Playbook, we spoke with Family Secret, the snack brand taking Indian flavours global, and proving that authenticity is the ultimate growth strategy.
📱 From the Feed
☕️ When chai meets hot chocolate: Amala Chai x Islands Chocolate have teamed up on the Chocolate Chai, a comforting mix of spiced chai and single-origin dark chocolate. A purpose-led collab that proves comfort and conscience can coexist. |
👀 ICYMI: Brand Moves Worth Watching
 Mazen Assaf, Founder aka The Olive Oil Guy 🫒 | ☕️ Solo Coffee takes over the UK bar scene: now used in 24 of the UK’s top 50 cocktail bars. The lesson? Build a product that solves a real problem and your customers will do the selling for you. 🫒 The Olive Oil Guy lands in M&S: Less than 1% of M&S products are independently branded, and now The Olive Oil Guy joins that list. They’ve launched an exclusive 250ml mini can for £8, marking a major retail milestone and a big win for indies. 💚 Minor Figures x Wildfarmed: launch Barista Oat (Regenerative), made with 100% regen oats. It’s the first time both brands have entered the plant-based milk space together. Silky, sustainable, and now stocked in Waitrose. |
💡 Bitesize Playbook, Sunny Mudhar, Co-Founder @ Family Secret
This week’s chat comes from Family Secret, the snack brand bringing Indian flavours to the world and showing how heritage and heart can open doors to global shelves and BIG brand collabs.
Sunny Mudhar, Co-Founder & MD @ Family Secret
For those that may not know, what is Family Secret and how did it all start?
Family Secret is all about bringing proper Indian flavours to the world in a fresh, modern way. It started from people's family kitchens around the world whilst on our travels. Family kitchen, real recipes, real stories, and a love for food that connects people. I just wanted to take those flavours people we met our ourselves grew up with and make them easy for everyone to enjoy.
How do you stay true to your heritage while appealing to a wide audience?
For me, it’s about balance. The roots of everything we do come from traditional Indian home cooking essentially, real spices, real flavour but we present it in a modern way that fits today’s lifestyle, with a twist. You don’t need to be Indian to enjoy it, it just needs to taste good and feel authentic. That’s how we keep it true but still reach everyone.
Having Proppadoms in airports and airlines gives the brand a global reach. How has that exposure shaped your growth and identity?
It’s been a game changer. When you’re in airports or served on airlines, you’re instantly in front of people from all over the world - many trying Proppadoms for the first time. That global stage pushed us to raise our standards and think big. It’s helped define us as a brand that’s proudly rooted in Indian culture but globally recognised.
How have you been able to collab with such big brands like Cobra beer?
Honestly, it’s about being genuine. We don’t chase collaborations we build relationships. With Cobra, it just made sense: two brands that celebrate Indian culture in their own way. We both value quality and authenticity, so when we come together, it feels natural. Big brands see that we’re real and passionate, and that’s what makes them want to work with us. Watch this space for even bigger collaborations.
What’s next for Family Secret?
We’re just getting started! There are new flavours, new collabs, and some exciting product launches coming up. The goal is to keep breaking boundaries taking not just Indian snacks to places they’ve never been before, but other innovative launches too. We want Family Secret to stand for something bigger than food it’s about culture, creativity, and connection.
Jalapeno Proppadoms
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