David Milner, Executive Chairman of pizza titan Crosta Mollica, discusses his journey to success in the food and beverage industry and how aspiring entrepreneurs can utilise their niche skillset to their advantage.
WHY BUSINESS LEADERS SHOULD FEEL NO SHAME IN BEING A ONE TRICK PONY
I am unashamedly a one-trick pony. Early in my career, I recognised where my strengths lay and have made it a rule not to stray, however tempting, into new territory. Boring, maybe, but this has served me well in both my executive and non-executive career.
I started out by cutting my teeth with established branded businesses such as Procter & Gamble, Mars, Campbell’s, and Young’s Seafood.
When I left the latter, I had my first taste of working with food and drink challenger brands, helping them build and maximise their market opportunity to become mainstream businesses.
My first foray into this new territory was with Tyrrells crisps. Over seven years we took the business from a value of £30 million to £300 million through two exits. During that time, I was invited to invest as a non-executive director in the premium pet food company Lily’s Kitchen. Afterwards, I took over as CEO, leading the company to a sale in 2020 to Nestle in excess of £100 million.
Following this, I went to the bakery business St Pierre Groupe, building it for sale in 2022 to Grupo Bimbo, the world’s largest bakery conglomerate, in a deal worth£300 million based on revenues which exceeded £100 million.
NAVIGATING THE RIGHT OPPORTUNITIES
My most recent appointment is as Executive Chairman of Crosta Mollica, a UK-based authentic Italian foods brand focused on pizza. I joined the team in January 2024, working in partnership with private equity firm Perwyn to acquire the business.
Over the years, I have been approached with some extraordinary opportunities. Once you have proved your worth by growing and successfully exiting a challenger brand, there is a queue of others wanting to entice you to do the same for them. But how do you navigate the opportunities to ensure you pick the right one?
It starts with identifying the three vital components which excite you enough to warrant your time, talent, and capital. It all begins with the product. Does it stand out and have a demonstrable market advantage over its competitors? Is it in a category big enough to have space for it to grow to its full potential? I see no point in brands – however unique – if their category is niche.
Secondly, it’s about finding brands which have the scope to disrupt the status quo in categories historically dominated by giant companies or their own label.
Thirdly, I love brands with international potential because that opens the door to global markets, and with it, stellar valuations for the business.
PREMIUM PIZZA MARKET
Crosta Mollica is a prime example of all of these things. There is incredible potential in the premium retail pizza market. The largest brands in this sector haven’t innovated or evolved hugely since they first came into the sector 30 or 40 years ago.
This presents an opportunity for a brand to reach today’s consumer who has different values and expectations than several decades ago. Someone searching for superior product quality, authentically Italian, and premium in provenance.
As it happened, when I joined Crosta Mollica, it had only just started on the road to international success, a journey we have been able to prioritise over the last year, leading to significant growth already.
For any business leader looking to make their next move, the approach must be to unequivocally know the answer to the questions “What am I good at?” and “Where do I feel I can contribute the most?”. I find it almost impossible to be passive, which is why I need to be certain both in terms of the clarity of the vision for the business and the scale of the prize. I like getting to know companies at a deep level before committing.
I can’t get involved in businesses I don’t wholeheartedly believe in. Some might say I’ve made life easy by only working with companies with premium products. For example, I enjoyed Crosta Mollica pizzas long before deciding to get involved with the business. When it became clear there was an opportunity to invest alongside Perwyn, it was an easy decision.
PLAYING TO YOUR STRENGTHS
There will always be people with large portfolios of non-executive roles, and it is becoming an increasingly common practice for directors to join multiple boards. This might work for some, but I never want to just skim the surface. I would caution others to recognise the commitment of being a director, from attending necessary meetings to sharing your own expertise and being integral to the growth of a company.
This means that most business opportunities are not for me. With such a narrow skill set, I know when I’m treading in unknown territory, which is not to anyone’s advantage. Given that most entrepreneurial ventures fail, if you are lucky enough to have succeeded, it makes no sense to imagine that you can simply replicate the formula in other businesses.
In recent years, new opportunities have flowed in. There’s still a wealth of scope for British brands to grow and prosper, both in the UK and internationally. The UK is right at the top of food and drink innovation.
This is exemplified by brands like Crosta Mollica, which enjoys compound annual growth of over 36 percent by focusing on delivering the most authentic, premium Italian pizzas, or Dash, which has elevated seltzers as a vibrant new soft drinks category in the UK. I often wish there were more days in the week, but this is even more reason to stick with my own rules when choosing which ones to accept.
The final rule I never break is that I do not revisit my past successes. Not just in terms of company but sector as well. I believe that would be wrong and disloyal.
