We’re delighted to welcome ManíLife craft peanut butter to our growing list of clients here at Jellybean. In case you’ve not already heard of ManíLife or been lucky enough to try their amazing peanut butters (you really must!); we thought we’d tell you a little bit about the brand and what we’re doing to help explode their sales and growth potential in retail and foodservice.

What is ManĂ­Life?

ManíLife is a multi-award winning, single estate peanut butter brand made in the UK. This entrepreneurial new brand is applying the same level of craft seen in coffee, chocolate and beer to make the tastiest peanut butter in the UK and possibly on the planet (well at least that’s according to hundreds of its consumers appropriately dubbed ManíLifers)!

Right now there’s three variants; Smooth, Original Crunchy and Deep Roast Crunchy. All made with the same ingredients, high oleic peanuts and a pinch of salt, yet surprisingly different in texture and taste..! The end result has no palm oil and no added sugar as the peanuts they source are naturally sweeter and with a fat profile akin to olive oil, it’s better for you too – an all-round winner, they think you’ll agree. So the phrase “It’s not what we don’t add, it’s what we do (to the peanuts) that makes us different” really does holds true.

Who’s behind it?

ManĂ­Life is the brain child of founder and entrepreneur Stuart MacDonald. The brand was inspired by a year he spent in Argentina where he was working for a peanut butter social enterprise and basically fell in love with the stuff. It was on visiting its partner farm in Cordoba, Argentina, that he realised he needed to pursue this. He looked at the boom in authentic single origin coffee and thought why not apply that same rigorous sourcing and roasting to peanut butter? The result is life changing peanut butter made by fantastic people with a real story behind it. The ManĂ­Life team is quite small, but masterful. They roast, blitz and blend beautiful peanuts, fresh each week in their ManĂ­Factory.

Manilife Peanut Butter

When did ManĂ­Life first launch?

The ManíLife story started in 2015 when a ton of peanuts arrived in the UK. A day later ManílIfe’s manufacturing partner went MIA. 45 friends, 2 blenders, a rugby club kitchen and a ton of peanuts in a bedroom came together to form the foundations. Stu spent an agonising year as an accountant until the dream kick-started again in October 2016.

How is the brand performing?

ManĂ­Life has grown rapidly and is now sold in over 1,200 stores including most recently Marks & Spencer and Holland & Barrett, as well as experiencing a seven fold increase in online sales. The pace of growth for ManĂ­Life is expected to continue (especially now that Jellybean is on board to support) and the peanut butter and craft boom continues.

Where is ManĂ­Life currently being sold?

It’s available across 100s of independents and a few big names too including Selfridges, CrossTown Doughnuts, Booths, Gousto, Pod, Mindful, M&S, Holland & Barrett, Amazon, Farmdrop, Sourced Market, Google and is imminently launching in Ocado.
Minis (30g pots) retail from 75p, jars (295g) retail from ÂŁ3.75 and 1kg tubs retail from ÂŁ9.99.

What are we doing for ManĂ­Life?

Jellybean is delivering a wide range of sales and marketing activity including customer-sell presentations, shopper marketing and point of sale, trade and consumer PR, social video production and experiential sampling activity. 2018 is huge year for the brand, with some exciting new listings and many more in the pipeline. The Jellybean team is led by Group Account Director for Retail, Neil Brenson who says: “Before we started working with ManíLife earlier this year, it was certainly a brand we admired and had on our watch list. We all loved the taste and were super impressed with how it had quickly progressed from start-up to award-winning brand. We’re absolutely delighted to be working with the ManíLife team in what is an extremely important and exciting period of growth. With the brand’s big ambition and our expertise in growing leading food and drink brands in retail and foodservice, we are certainly in for one hell of an exhilarating ride with ManíLife.”

How has it been going so far?

Well, this is what Stu says: “Working with Neil and the rest of Jellybean has been eye-opening to say the least. ‘Extension of the team’ gets overused but it 100% rings true here. They’ve helped us with major pitches, activation campaigns , and we’re beginning to see the fruits of Natalie’s labour coming through on PR front too. All of this without the need to be on top of them 5 days a week.”