What do functional mushrooms, CBD, Holland & Barrett, international expansion and Michael Caine have in common? They’re all part of the rather unconventional journey of Ben Grass, founder of wellness brand Grass & Co.
What started with CBD has evolved into a much broader wellness business built around functional mushrooms, supplements and drinks. Today, Grass & Co. has products designed around needs including focus, energy, relaxation and sleep, with functional mushrooms playing a major role in the brand’s current range.
But the interesting part isn’t simply what Grass & Co. sells. It’s how Ben got the brand from an emerging CBD business to national retail, how he approached markets like China and Germany, and what happened when the realities of large-scale retail started to bite. We sat down with Ben on the eCom@One Podcast to find out.
So, who is Ben Grass?
Ben Grass isn’t your typical wellness brand founder. Before Grass & Co., Ben worked in the film industry, working with some seriously big names. So, going from the world of film production to building a wellness brand might seem like a fairly dramatic career change.
In reality, Ben sees more similarities between the two worlds than you might expect. Both involve taking an idea, bringing it to life, finding an audience and convincing people that the idea is worth their attention.
The difference?
With a film, you can spend years getting everything aligned before you know whether you’ve got something people actually want to watch. With eCommerce, you can launch something, test it and learn far more quickly. That entrepreneurial ability to experiment has played a big role in Grass & Co.’s journey.
What is Grass & Co.?
Grass & Co. was originally built around CBD and the idea that natural ingredients could help support specific health and wellness needs. Rather than simply putting an ingredient on the front of a packet and expecting customers to understand what it means, the brand focused on the problem it was trying to address.
That meant products such as Ease, Calm and Rest were produced, communicating the intended purpose in a way that was much easier for consumers to understand. Over time, the business moved into functional mushrooms.
Today, mushrooms are a major part of the Grass & Co. proposition, with products featuring ingredients such as lion’s mane, cordyceps, reishi and maitake alongside other ingredients.
The brand’s current philosophy is summed up by its “Roots Not Wings” positioning, moving away from the idea that wellness is about constantly optimising yourself and towards something more grounded and sustainable and that brings us to one of the most interesting parts of Ben’s story.
Why functional mushrooms?
Ben’s interest in mushrooms wasn’t simply a case of spotting the next wellness trend. His curiosity started after reading Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind, which introduced him to research around psychedelic mushrooms. That led him down another rabbit hole: functional and medicinal mushrooms and their long history of use in Asian herbal medicine.
That got him thinking. If CBD could be used as a hero ingredient to build products around particular consumer needs, could functional mushrooms do the same? For Grass & Co., the answer was yes.
Lion’s mane became particularly interesting for the brand because of its association with focus and cognitive function, while other mushrooms opened up different product possibilities. It’s a good example of how product innovation doesn’t necessarily have to mean inventing something completely new.
Sometimes it’s about looking at an existing ingredient, understanding what consumers are looking for and finding a better way to package that opportunity.
Getting onto the retail shelf is only the beginning
For eCommerce brands, getting a listing with a major retailer can feel like the ultimate goal. But Ben’s experience suggests it’s really just the beginning. Grass & Co. started with independent health food stores before landing opportunities with larger retailers. Eventually, Holland & Barrett became a particularly important relationship for the business.
Getting there wasn’t about sending one perfect email. It involved introductions, relationships, persistence and, importantly, figuring out what would actually make the products work once they were in stores. One of the things Grass & Co. did was create simple cheat sheets for store staff, helping them understand the products and what they could say about them within the restrictions surrounding CBD and mushrooms.
They also invested time in supplier events, getting in front of the people working across retail rather than assuming that securing the listing meant the job was done.
It’s a simple lesson, but an important one:
Your retailer’s staff can become an extension of your sales team. Make their job easier.
The operational reality of scaling into retail
As Grass & Co. grew its retail presence, the business had to become much more disciplined around forecasting, stock management, supply chain and cash flow. Because when you’re supplying a large retailer, running out of stock isn’t just an inconvenience. It can become a business-critical problem.
There is also the less glamorous side of retail finance. Payment terms, promotional deductions and the gap between paying suppliers and receiving money from retailers can put significant pressure on a growing business.
For Grass & Co., this eventually meant bringing in a factoring partner to help manage cash flow.It’s a useful reminder for ambitious eCommerce brands: a big retail order can create as many operational questions as it answers.
China, Germany and knowing when to walk away
Grass & Co. also tested its products internationally, launching into China and Germany around the same time. On paper, both markets offered huge potential. In practice, things weren’t quite so straightforward.
China presented an enormous opportunity, but also a completely different eCommerce environment, intense competition and a new challenge around how consumers understood and used functional mushrooms.
The interesting thing is that Ben doesn’t present his China venture as a failure. It was an experiment. Grass & Co. tested the opportunities, learned from them and ultimately pulled back rather than continuing to throw money at a market that wasn’t delivering.
For any founder looking at international expansion, that’s perhaps one of the most valuable lessons of all. Not every opportunity needs to become a full-scale expansion. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is test the water, learn quickly and know when to come back to the UK and focus on what is already working.
So, why do customers keep coming back?
For Ben, it comes down to two things: product and brand. It sounds obvious, but it’s easy to forget. You can have a great paid media strategy, an impressive website, a strong retail network and a clever campaign.
But if the product doesn’t deliver a good experience, customers aren’t going to recommend it and they’re unlikely to come back. Grass & Co. has therefore put a lot of emphasis on the quality and sourcing of its ingredients, working with experts and suppliers to develop its formulations. The brand also emphasises transparency and testing as part of its approach to product development.
Then there’s the brand itself. Its current “Touch Grass” messaging taps into a very modern problem: our attention is constantly being pulled towards screens, notifications and social media.
The idea is simple. Sometimes we could all do with putting the phone down and touching some actual grass and given the founder’s surname, it’s a pretty good bit of branding too.
There’s a lot more to this story
Ben’s journey from film producer to wellness founder is anything but conventional. There’s the story of discovering CBD, the move into functional mushrooms, the reality of getting onto national retail shelves, the lessons from international expansion and the challenge of navigating regulation in a category where what you can say and how you can market products isn’t always straightforward.
And then there’s the small matter of working in the film industry. We haven’t included all of those stories here because, frankly, you’ll have to listen to Ben tell them himself.
🎧 Listen to the full episode
Want to hear the full conversation?
In this episode of the eCom@One Podcast, Richard Hill sits down with Ben Grass to talk about building Grass & Co., moving from CBD into functional mushrooms, breaking into major retailers, international expansion, regulation, product innovation and the unexpected lessons Ben brought with him from the film industry.
You’ll also hear the story behind working with Michael Caine, why China surprised Ben, what nearly kills a retail listing and the book he believes every entrepreneur should read.
Listen to the full episode of the eCom@One Podcast with Ben Grass now.
