Jamie Laing’s posh-boy profile was a “double-edged sword” when starting the cute UK vegan confectioner Candy Kittens, says his co-founder, Ed Williams.
Laing’s modest celebrity status, which came from starring in Made In Chelsea, the “structured reality” show about a group of young west Londoners, opened doors for the pair to pitch their embryonic idea of sweets shaped like cat faces and packaged in pink. But Williams, dressed in a navy suit, admits “a young guy on TV partying and drinking champagne — the assumption is, ‘You’re not serious.’”
Laing, wearing a gold signet ring on his little finger and whose white-blond hair has drawn comparisons to former UK prime minister Boris Johnson, pulls a face. “I [was] also just acting like a complete knob.”
Today, the pair are sitting at a large wooden table, Christmas tree twinkling in the background, in the office of Candy Kittens, down a cobbled mews in central London. They hope the recent acquisition of Graze, the healthy snack maker, from FTSE 100 consumer goods company Unilever might confer seriousness. “We have been plugging away and giving our whole lives to this now for almost 15 years,” says Williams.
The deal is a big moment for the business. It will put Graze, which has about 200 staff, under the stewardship of Candy Kittens, which, together with a podcast company and creative agency, employs about 60. Laing and Williams have ambitions to expand the combined workforce to 300.
The co-founders would not disclose the price, except to say it was lower than the £150mn Unilever paid in 2019, and contrary to reports, the snack company is profitable.
“We’re learning quite a lot,” says Williams, 36, of their dealings with the maker of Marmite and Dove soap. “Jamie and I never worked for anybody else. I’m just baffled by the way things get done. It’s so complicated, so much bureaucracy, all the things that we know are true of corporations.
“We’re used to coming up with an idea and getting it to market within two or three months.” At Unilever, things move “more slowly”, he says.
Can they do better than Unilever? “The brand deserves more,” Williams continues. “It needs love and nurturing and energy. That’s hard to give in a corporation. It’s a big deal for us, it’s a tiny, tiny kind of minnow in the world of Unilever.”
Revenues at Candy Kittens increased to £14.9mn in 2024, from £12.1mn the year before, spurred by increased supermarket distribution — it now sits on the shelves of Tesco and Sainsbury’s. But that push hit pre-tax profit, which fell to £51,100, from £137,000. This year, the playground buzz has made the brand aspirational, particularly its advent calendars. Sour watermelon and wild strawberry are the bestsellers.
The co-founders say German sweet maker Katjes International, which produces Candy Kittens’s sweets and holds a majority share, takes a long view. “UK businesses are terrible at looking short-term. These guys think 30 to 50 years ahead.”
Brands need “personality”, says Laing, 37, warming to his specialism, seeking attention. “With social media, you’ve got all these young social media creators who are creating brands; it’s more exciting, fun. They have a real connection. When a brand is part of a corporate, it’s hard to keep that.”
On their wishlist for celebrities to appear in social videos is the television chef Jamie Oliver, due to his credentials in nutrition and food.
Creating content for social media is a topic Laing knows about. When they started the company, they had a limited marketing budget, so they leveraged his profile on social media. “I open the door, Ed executes,” says Laing, the bouncier yin to a more sober yang. “Ed’s attention to detail is second to none. Ed’s tougher than I am.”
Laing appears in Candy Kittens’ posts, delivering advent calendars or dressing up in silly costumes. He also chronicles his professional and personal life with his wife, a fellow Made In Chelsea alumna, to his 1.7mn Instagram followers. It is “exhausting”, he says. “That’s why most people don’t really last long because you have to constantly make videos. I’ve had a video camera ever since I was 10 years old, so I’ve videoed everything. I love all of that.”
“Jamie is the most high-energy person,” says Williams. “You would be hard pushed to find Jamie tired.” Indeed, Laing seems bright-eyed despite the arrival of Ziggy, his first child, two weeks ago.
As well as the sweets company, the pair have Tuckshop, which helps creators build their business, and the podcast production firm Jampot, which makes Laing’s own chat show, Great Company, and others by his wife, Sophie Habboo, musician Paloma Faith and comedian Katherine Ryan. Housing the businesses in the same office means they can promote the sweet brand through guests and partnerships with influencers.
Laing also co-hosts Radio One’s Going Home show and recently released a book on mental health. “I actually [don’t] really like the weekends that much,” he says.
Two of his “BHAGs” — “big hairy audacious goals”, the term popularised by management theorists in the 1990s — are to host the Oscars and acquire McVitie’s, the biscuit brand built by Laing’s great-great-grandfather, Alexander Grant, who is reported to have invented the digestive. “Look, both will probably never happen. But it’s a good dream.”
For now, the pair’s focus is on the UK market. Richard Caines, an analyst at market researcher Mintel, says confectionery sales volumes have increased modestly this year as chocolate has declined, “suggesting that sweets as a competing treat have benefited as chocolate prices have climbed steeply”. However, new advertising restrictions on high-fat, sugar and salt will constrain future growth, Caines says. Laing and Williams hope Graze products, which do not face such regulation, will benefit, although they face higher ingredient prices. They are not concerned about the rise of fat-loss jabs, insisting their product, which is relatively expensive, will continue to be a treat. However, Williams notes: “It’s tough for everybody in food.”
Candy Kittens’s core demographic is an older millennial female, who “cares about the products they buy”, says Williams, and is willing “to pay for better food”.
Laing met Williams in 2012 at an event in Loughborough. They had a drink and discussed Laing’s dream of opening a sweet shop. Williams suggested producing sweets instead, and the two worked on the product for two years, partly funded by selling Candy Kittens T-shirts and merchandise, and money from friends and family.
When the sweets were ready, they approached large premium retailers rather than smaller convenience stores. “Most said, ‘no,’” says Williams. But Selfridges took a punt, and Waitrose followed.
Laing credits his business partner with keeping him on track by being “very honest”. It was Williams who would say, “‘You’re not being reliable.’ Agents weren’t telling me that. I was out drinking with Made in Chelsea friends. Ed was that constant. He was always like, ‘We’re building something here, let’s focus on that.’”
Tough love was difficult for Laing at first. “I prefer to make everything quite happy and nice the whole time.” His partner’s approach has taught him that “the best way to lead people is to actually say what’s going wrong rather than what’s going right. We all know what’s going right, but what’s wrong is harder to deliver.”
Laing admits he never wanted to “get a real job”. Before joining Made in Chelsea, he had another option of going to work in a wealth management company. “I went for this interview at 22 years old . . . and every part of my being didn’t want to do it.”
He insists that while fame provides opportunities, it can also carry repercussions. “When you take a shortcut, there’s always a long road at some point.”