Launching a gourmet yoghurt range at the height of an economic downturn sounds like a recipe for disaster. But that’s exactly what former Gü colleagues Amelia Harvey and Mike Hodgson did when they struck an agreement with New Zealand brand The Collective in April 2011 to launch its products in the UK.

Hodgson and Harvey had both worked at Gü for five years - Hodgson as MD and Harvey as commercial director - overseeing the brand’s growth from a £5m to a £35m turnover business. As in the dessert category beforehand, they spied an opportunity to introduce a gourmet product with interesting flavour combinations to a tired yoghurt category.

Their gamble paid off, with the brand’s first batch of products gaining listings in Sainsbury’s and Waitrose in July 2011. Industry recognition soon followed. Last September, the company scooped the best new yoghurt launch category at The Grocer New Product Awards for its Passionfruit pot. Now the brand, which tours the country in its sampling van, is revving up for the next stage of its journey with a raft of new NPD and perhaps even its first foray beyond yoghurt.

“We’ve got lots of ideas. The challenge is finding the time to develop them all”

Amelia Harvey

First out of the blocks is a new limited-edition pot that it hopes will build on the success of the Christmas Pud and Mighty Mango variants, launched in 2011 and 2012 respectively. On shelves this month, the Papaya & Coconut-flavoured yoghurt marks a major departure for The Collective as it’s the first time the company has put ‘bits’ through its yoghurt base in the form of desiccated coconut. Although it seems counterintuitive to launch a summery yoghurt in winter, Hodgson argues that the flavour fits perfectly with the brand’s pioneering ethos.

“We’re trying to be authentic and challenging,” he says. “Part of our role is to do different things and be daring. Everything in this pot is expensive. But we’re a premium brand and we’re trying to push the edge on taste. Are we making a lower margin on this as a result? Yes, but the limited edition range is our chance to put out something that’s amazing. That’s our whole raison d’être so we can’t afford to compromise.”

The Collective has continued this ‘no compromise’ theme with the launch next month of what it believes is an industry first: a yoghurt with two layers sandwiching the yoghurt. There will be two variants: Banoffi, with a layer of toffee on top and banana at the base, and White Peach + Raspberry - which owes its inspiration to a surprising source. “The Wolseley restaurant does a Greek yoghurt and white peach as one of the breakfast options and I always wanted to do something with white peach because it tastes so good,” says Hodgson.

The Collective is also launching Plain Jane - a naturally sweetened version of its base yoghurt in March - with further NPD and limited-edition pots to follow later in the year. All of it will be groundbreaking, promises Harvey. “The buyers don’t just want something with a hint of elderflower,” she says. “They want something that’s really bold and that makes them say ‘I never thought of that before’. We’ve got lots of ideas. The challenge is finding the time to develop them all.”

She also hints that 2013 may be the year The Collective ventures beyond yoghurt. “We want to be seen as the modern face of gourmet yoghurt, but we’re also about producing great-tasting dairy products so we’re working on quite a few projects outside of yoghurt at the moment. Hopefully you’ll see us launch something this year.” A brand “on the moove” indeed.

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