A week in the life of The Collective UK

Ever wondered what a typical week (there are no typical weeks) in world of yoghurt is like?

Here's just a little bit of what we got up to last week...

MONDAY: is all about number crunching, we can download all of our sales from the supermarket's portals, great to see how we're selling and how our sampling campaign is affecting our sales. We also have to pull together a weekly forecast to send to the factory that makes our yoghurts. By 3pm our eyes are getting a bit cross eyed so we have a quick game of table tennis downstairs, Mike always wins!!

TUESDAY: Samples arrived of our new Cherry + Pomegranate yoghurt, it's yummmy, we can't wait to launch it in October, we think you'll lurve it too! In the afternoon we go to Waitrose HQ to see our buyer - we chat about some new flavours and brainstorm ways we can bring them alive in store.

WEDNESDAY: Jack and Tolly start with us to work on our sampling until they go back to Uni at end of September. In the afternoon we go to a secret supermarket's HQ, more news to follow soon!

THURSDAY: We have an early morning Skype call, for those of you who don't know, our yoghurt originates from the lush green fields of New Zealand and now we make them here in the UK using West Country Milk. We catch up weekly to hear each other's news, New Zealand have a very exciting new product launch coming up. There's going to be lots of Rugby World Cup banter coming soon we think!

FRIDAY: Start the day with a Social Media brainstorm with a Digital consultant, learnt so many new ways we can interact with our consumers, going to try a few of them out, so watch this space. In the afternoon we make sure our van's ready for the weekend of sampling activity ahead, this weekend we went to Beaconsfield and St Albans.

A day of non stop food!

There was a Collective birthday today so we started the day in the only way you should, by having Cake for brekkie. Kathy and Polly the lovely girls from The Fold London who we share an office with made Brownies, we dolloped Russian Fudge and berries on top (got to get our 5 a day in somehow!). Collective Bethan made Edd Kimber's Lemon and Cherry Cake, both the cake and the frosting are made using our Lusious Lemon yoghurt.

At lunchtime we popped next door to see our friends at Charlie Bighams where they forced us (took a lot of persuasion!) to try their new yummy scrummy dishes including Lasagne, Moussaka and Chicken and Leek Pie. How lucky are we to have neighbours like them next door - if we're ever invited to a dinner party together we've got Starter, Main Course and Pudding sorted!

Sunny Saturday at Waitrose Ealing

At last the sun's back!

Today we took our little van to Waitrose in Ealing, had a great day sampling the peeps of West London with our yoghurt.

Here are some picks of the Waitrose team and shoppers trying out the yoghurt.

Tomorrow we're heading to Waitrose on the Finchley Road, if you're in the area swing by and say hi!

The Collective lands in Waitrose

We launched our range of yoghurts in Waitrose yesterday, they have a new flavour along with Ocado called Luscious Lemon - it makes a great smoothie, here's a recipe Anna Hansen from the Modern Pantry created for us using our yoghurt.

http://www.thecollectivedairy.com/uk/pdf/recipe_lemon.pdf

Send us a pic of your smoothie or cake making (see blog post below) and if you want to know where your nearest store is, give us a call on 0208 896 3788

Sampling in Soho Square

Yesterday we parked our van up in Soho Square, lots of people were chilling in the square trying out our yoghurt in the lovely sunshine - off to Waterloo Station and London Bridge today, bracing ourselves for some more yoghurt madness!

Our pots have arrived in store

After 4 months of perfecting our Kiwi recipe with West Country Milk, our pots are now ready to hit the shelves.

Russian Fudge, Passionfruit and Apple + Spice are now in a Sainsbury's near you and Ocado are stocking our range including our new Luscious Lemon.

Waitrose will have our yoghurts from 11th July.

Want to know where your nearest store is, give us a call 0208 8963788

Give them a try and let us know what you think - no bull!!

Zest Magazine Girls Big Adventure

The lovely people at Zest Magazine invited us to be part of their Girls Big Adventure Day in Lea Valley Park, Hertfordshire. The girls ran, biked, kayaked and climbed their way over a 10km course, rather them than us today in the blazing heat.

When they finished the race we were on hand to re-engergise them with our yoghurt.

Mike's family came all the way down from the Lake District to help out their Dad, thank you team Hodgson!

We left Collective HQ with a van full of yoghurt and came back cleaned out! Great to meet all the competitors today, these sporty girls are massively passionate about their yoghurt and are going to try out some of our Anna Hansen recipies when they get home (after long soaks in a bath no doubt!)

Collective on the Moove hits Wimbledon

And we're off.... we've started our Collective on the Moove tour and landed in Wimbledon. We're keeping the officals and the fans happy with our yoghurt. Back again tomorrow so if you're in the area swing by and say hi!

Launching our little beauties at the Modern Pantry...

Today we took our yoghurts to Anna Hansen's Modern Pantry to launch them to UK Food Press and Bloggers.

Addicted to the brunches on offer in Auckland, Mike and I have found the best brunch spot in London, Anna's prawn omlette is amazing! Having grown up in New Zealand, we thought it only right we show one of London's hottest chefs our yoghurts before they hit the shelves.

We were delighted when Anna offered to create some recipies using our yoghurts, all the recipies are on our website so check them out. Here's the Passionfruit Smoothie, so easy to make and yum yum yummy!

http://www.thecollectivedairy.com/uk/pdf/recipe_passionfruit.pdf

Welcome Bethan!!

It's launch week and Mike and I need another pair of hands. We're delighted to welcome Bethan to our team, she got to work straight away in amoungst boxes and bags and of course our yoghurt - cor blimey!

She's back fully clothed...

Today our lovely van came back to us with a brand new outfit ready for her Collective on the Moove summer sampling tour.

Here we are inside the van getting to grips with all her lovely fridges ready to house our lurvely yoghurts.

Watch this space to find out where we're about to take her - No Bull!

oh agnes, you're a wee beauty... no bull!

Meet the newest member of our UK herd, our 1979 Citroen HY van, and best thing?, she's already got dairy in her pistons.

Agnes spent her earlier life running between French towns delivering baguettes and cheese before joining The Collective. Now she's off for a bit of a makeover... we can't wait to reveal her transformation… no bull!