Both/And Brand Strategy for Scaling Food Brands

Nikki Peyraud and Alexander Deleuse are the Co-founders of BOTH/AND, a systems change company that helps organizations radically transform by embracing the creative tension between divergent perspectives. Under their leadership, BOTH/AND has worked with top brands across industries, demonstrating impressive results in brand growth and organizational alignment. Nikki brings over 20 years of experience in brand strategy and a background in spiritual psychology, while Alexander combines 15-plus years in brand experience design with deep study in eastern philosophy.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[02:06] Alexander Deleuse discusses how embracing tension leads to breakthrough creative solutions
[03:39] Nikki Peyraud explains why “both/and” thinking beats “either/or” decision-making
[05:13] How AI is shifting value from output to relationships
[08:11] Why integrating psychology drives real brand alignment
[10:54] Ways personal growth influences innovative brand strategy
[32:04] Actionable steps for building compelling brands from deep discovery
[39:52] Why being open to challenge unlocks stronger brand partnerships

In this episode…

Creative breakthroughs rarely come from perfect alignment. More often, they emerge from friction — the kind that feels uncomfortable, unresolved, or inefficient in the moment. So what happens when you stop trying to resolve that tension too quickly and instead learn to work within it?

According to Nikki Peyraud, a leader in navigating complexity and human-centered strategy, and Alexander Deleuse, a brand strategist grounded in relational and philosophical thinking, the key lies in resisting the instinct to default to quick, either/or decisions. They explain that the best ideas don’t come from compromise, but from holding space for opposing perspectives long enough for something entirely new to emerge. By staying in that tension rather than escaping it, teams unlock more thoughtful, innovative solutions. The result is work that feels less like a trade-off and more like a breakthrough.

In this episode of The Missing Ingredient, CJ Bruce is joined by Nikki Peyraud and Alexander Deleuse, Co-founders of BOTH/AND, to discuss how embracing creative tension leads to stronger brand outcomes. They explore the shift from output-driven work to relational collaboration, how to balance performance and brand without compromise, and why staying in the unknown leads to better ideas. Nikki and Alexander also talk about building alignment across stakeholders to unlock deeper, more impactful solutions.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

“So if we want to get a full picture of reality, we have to look at it from two different sides.”
“So a lot of times when people are solving problems, they’re kind of even unknowingly in this either/or framework.”
“We don’t spend enough time anymore creating this space for new solutions to emerge.”
“So Both/And is kind of the antidote to either/or decision making.”
“We really get jazzed about, like more, brands adopting a regenerative level of practice.”

Action Steps:

Stay in the tension before making decisions: Allowing opposing ideas to coexist longer leads to more innovative, well-developed solutions instead of quick compromises.
Shift from outcome obsession to relational collaboration: Focusing on how teams work together improves alignment, creativity, and long-term value as execution becomes easier.
Look beyond the presenting problem: Digging deeper often reveals root issues like misalignment or unclear strategy, leading to more impactful and lasting solutions.
Balance brand and performance strategies: Integrating both ensures emotional connection with consumers while still driving measurable growth and market expansion.
Create space for multiple perspectives in decision-making: Bringing diverse viewpoints together fosters stronger ideas and prevents narrow, one-dimensional outcomes.

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is sponsored by The Missing Ingredient, a food and beverage marketing agency that believes a better future starts with food. They partner with purpose-driven brands to drive growth through smart, results-focused marketing — without the “set it and forget it” approach.

From brand awareness and paid media to content, influencer partnerships, and loyalty programs, they act as true strategic partners invested in your long-term success.

To learn more about how they help food and beverage brands grow with impact, visit themissingingredient.com today.

Powered by Rise25 Podcast Production Company

Full Transcript

Introduction and Guest Background

Intro: 00:01

Welcome to The Missing Ingredient podcast with CJ Bruce, where food and beverage founders, operators, and experts share the real strategies behind building successful brands. Let’s jump into today’s show.

CJ Bruce: 00:15

Hey, I’m CJ Bruce and welcome to the show. This is the podcast for founders and leaders of high impact food and beverage brands who are serious about scaling. Each episode, I sit down with the people who power the food and beverage industry brand operators, agencies, vendors, creators, and retailers to uncomplicate the strategies that take brands from early traction to serious scale. This episode is sponsored by The Missing Ingredient, a food and beverage marketing agency with over a decade in the industry. We take a different approach, starting with your business goals, looking at the full picture, and building a marketing strategy that actually ties back to growth from content and performance marketing to influencer partnerships and AI powered workflows.

We’re an extension of your team, not just another vendor. Learn more at themissingingredient.com. Today I’m speaking with Nikki Peyraud and Alexander Deleuse, Co-founders of BOTH/AND and a systems Change company, helping organizations radically transform through the practice of both. And Nikki is a managing director and a leader who believes the most powerful ideas emerge in the tension between perspectives. With over two decades of experience, she helps teams navigate complexity and build brands that drive connection, differentiation and long term growth.

Alex brings over 15 years of experience designing brands and experiences. He sees BOTH/AND as a relational practice that brings brings divergent perspectives together to create work of lasting impact. Together, we’ve worked on the mainstream rise of sumo, citrus and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and BOTH/AND works with companies across industries from tech to manufacturing to food and beverage. Welcome to the show, Nikki and Alex.

Nikki Peyraud: 01:46

Thanks, CJ.

Alexander Deleuse: 01:47

CJ good to see you. Good to see you too. What a fantastic intro with clarity. Appreciate that.

CJ Bruce: 01:55

Thanks for the help. All right, so let’s start just from the basics. What is the BOTH/AND systems and practice. Who wants to start.

Defining “Both/And” Philosophy

Alexander Deleuse: 02:06

Well I’ll start. It’s an unanswerable question. BOTH/AND is a mystery and that’s what makes it so wonderful. Nikki and I like to be in the mystery as part of our creative practice. There’s a lot of ways to look at BOTH/AND.

And, Nikki, I want to hear your perspective, which might be totally different than mine, but essentially, you know, the way it’s held in culture. CJ is BOTH/AND means that multiple things can be true. So if we want to get a full picture of reality, we have to look at it from two different sides. A whole system or a team or an organization, or even yourself, is comprised of many things that we can perceive them in tension and opposition, or depending on how we’re kind of looking, we can perceive them as in this kind of creative relationship. So again, a lot of ways to, to think about BOTH/AND.

But in the context of our work, we always show up to a creative problem with the acknowledgement that there’s going to be multiple sides and multiple priorities, and a lot of them can feel divergent. And it’s not a selection of choosing one. It’s getting into a creative process that has these two divergent sides relate to each other, so something entirely new can take shape. So it’s mysterious. It’s a little bit paradoxical.

I relate it to like, if we think about the Dao, like kind of the flow, the yin yang, you know, there’s one side containing the other. And it’s always about a creative process to get to something new. What’s your definition? Nikki? We’ve never talked about it.

Nikki Peyraud: 03:39

I can, I can set up some background here. One thing we do talk a lot about is just how polarized our world is right now. And there’s such a drive for efficiency, especially with like the emergence of AI. And everyone wants to be efficient. So a lot of times when people are solving problems, they’re kind of even unknowingly in this either or framework of, okay, I need to make a decision quickly.

AM I going to do this? AM I going to do that? And we don’t spend enough time anymore creating this space for new solutions to emerge. So BOTH/AND is kind of the antidote to either or decision making, where we create a process where we can actually stay in the unknown for a little bit longer. And a big part of this learning for me, and like what I’ve seen with client relationships is being able to actually stay in tension for a while because we also have culturally this thing where when we get into tension, we want to eliminate that.

So how can we quickly move out of that tension space and into a solution area? But if we’re able to stay in a space of tension or just a little bit of misalignment long enough to not have a knee jerk reaction to choose something. Then what we find is often our clients are actually making much better solutions with us because it’s not a compromise or this or that decision, but it’s actually creating enough space to really look at both sides and to let something new emerge out of that.

AI, Creativity, and the Shift to Relational Work

Alexander Deleuse: 05:13

Just one thing I want to add is you mentioned Niki, and I was really well said. I feel that staying in attention, the the AI piece is really interesting. The way BOTH/AND is kind of our philosophy. CK is kind of meeting this moment of everyone being bullish on AI, specifically in the creative industry. So we’ve been talking a lot about, you know, the work we’ve been doing as people in the service industry and building brand strategies, building, you know, digital experiences, real experiences.

It’s oriented towards like the end result, right? Like what are you going to get at the end of this process? You’re going to get a website, you’re going to get a brand, you’re going to get a messaging strategy, a campaign, and it’s very outcome oriented. You know, we’re not quite there yet, but in the next 2 to 5 years, the outcome is going to be much easier. More and more easily produced, right to the point where you can probably create a website in a half day.

That’s pretty substantial, right? Where it used to take us a year and a half. So the question for us becomes like, what if that’s the case that the output is then going to be handled in some way? That’s very immediate. What becomes the work to do?

Like where does the work shift? Where does the value go? And for us, the value goes to the relational practice. So the value goes to like, first of all, what do we want to build together? You know, what’s the vision?

How do we collaborate and make those decisions if we have especially, you know, differing opinions on it? All these kind of skills that we, you know, you can call them soft skills, I call them relational skills that we’ve been underdeveloped on because we’ve been so oriented towards output that is going to be flipped, that is being flipped already. And I think that when people get comfortable with like things just happening, you know, real things just being made in real time, our attention is going to turn to like how we relate to each other more in that process. So we’re kind of like intuitively, I think meeting this moment in this AI boom.

CJ Bruce: 07:16

Yeah, I love that, I love that. I think it’s something we’re seeing and thinking about all the time as well, right? Like as the, as the execution becomes, you know, fast and cheap. And then what is the core human value? And that, yeah, that relationship piece I think is a, is really interesting, both inside companies, between brands and agencies and consumers and people in general. Yeah.

Really interesting digging into your backgrounds a little bit. So I want to touch on, you know, your interesting backgrounds coming into, you know, branding and agency world. So Nikki, the spiritual psychology background and then Alex, the practice in eastern philosophy. Ram Dass And so I’d love to just hear a little bit about how, you know, those backgrounds come out in, you know, in your work or if there’s any specifics within, you know, within client work that you’ve done or business decisions. So maybe, maybe Nikki and Alex went first the last time you pass it to you on this one.

Nikki’s Background in Advertising and Psychology

Nikki Peyraud: 08:11

Sure. So my background, basically work wise is that I started in advertising right out of school. So I worked for very large agencies on very large client businesses. And at the same time, I loved that work because I loved the strategic nature of it. But I felt, I don’t know, like a bit unfulfilled at that time.

So I got a master’s degree in spiritual psychology. And at one point in my career, I think I was thinking I needed to kind of make a choice. Either I’m going to do advertising or I’m going to do this psychology path. And what I’ve. The great thing about BOTH/AND is that it really allows me to bring all of this together because like Alex is saying, this is really a relational business, and a lot of what we do together is to create together, both within agencies, but also with clients.

And just to talk a little bit more about the skills that I’m using. We notice a lot of times when a client will come to us, there’s a presenting problem and then there’s a real problem. And so part of the work is actually trying to identify, they might say, oh, I need a website, but what they actually need is a stronger brand. And what they actually need under that is alignment within their organization with key stakeholders. So there’s layers that we end up kind of peeling back through conversations that we have.

And a lot of the work that we do, like the last number of projects I can remember, there is this issue of different stakeholders having different ideas of success and that internal rub. And so a lot of what we do is really bring people together. So back to this tension conversation we’re having, like, how do we create this container where all of these different perspectives can come together and we can actually satisfy all of these different needs and constraints in the actual process. So psychology, I do think, does come into it in many ways in terms of just like being able to work with people to hold the space and then to dynamically, I’ll also say, you know, it also creates this balance between, you know, the business problem and the logical solutions and the structure that we need to have. And then this kind of intuitive sense that a lot of times ideas are, it’s hard to like really say, where do these, where do these big, strong ideas come from?

And a lot of times it’s from this intuitive place. So it is like we were talking about before, kind of this yin yang balance of, of bringing these different things together. So that is kind of for me, what’s been interesting is not needing to choose between those two things and actually knowing that the work is stronger when I integrate both of them.

CJ Bruce: 10:51

That’s great. Thanks.

Alex’s Background: Entrepreneurship and Spiritual Exploration

Alexander Deleuse: 10:54

Yeah. I want to pick up on this idea of having two sides to us, which I think is I mean, it feels like such a personal thing, like in the way Nikki’s describing it. But I think we all experience that there’s usually two or more, but usually two, like big aspects of our personality that like want to come together and they don’t come together. Like in short order. It takes a long, long time.

I feel like maybe that’s just starting to happen for some of us. But for me, I’ve always I mean, I’ve always been entrepreneurial. I grew up in a family business and I started my first company when I was 15 years old making websites. So had a friend we he knew how to design. I knew how to like code HTML at the time, and we knocked on people’s doors.

And this was the time when like, you know, websites were hard to come by like late 90s. And we created like a cottage industry based on skill sets. It was all like, hey, we have these very specific skills. I’m also a writer. So that came in, you know, being able to like write website copy and like interview someone and then take that in and come up with some kind of message strategy.

So after college, I started my, my own little agency in San Francisco and like, you know, served small companies here around town. We all met together after that at a, an agency called Guru in which I was doing the same thing right, writing, thinking about how to design websites very skills based. And then along this track, there’s this other side of me that’s like, I don’t know what we want to call it, like a spiritual seeker or a person who wants to expand, a person who wants to know more about the world. And I find I learn a lot about the world through people, through relationships, through dynamics and situations that kind of force you to look back on yourself and say, oh, what’s going on with me? What’s going on with my system that I need to shift or adapt?

How can I expand into this relationship? I would say it’s a little different than like, you know, there’s a certain type of spirituality that’s maybe a little bit more about retreat, and it may be more a little bit more about inward qualities that’s there too. But for me, it’s always been like wanting to jump in and see how, see what I can learn from a situation. So like what Nikki was saying, like this where the skills based stuff meet the client relationship stuff that’s a collision of can you do the work? Yes, we can design, we can create brands, we can do all these things that you might need.

And what is the relationship going to look like? How is it set up? Are we triggered by something or are we like Nikki was saying, holding tension? Are we able to facilitate a dialogue that includes a lot of people? Or are we able to, you know, like we are we excluding certain perspectives that might be really crucial?

So BOTH/AND to end the long way around to answering your question, CJ is BOTH/AND is kind of using our relational practice to one create really authentic and great work. But for me, it’s a, it’s a deeper integration of this side of me that wants to get better in certain dynamics in situations and learn about myself and learn about other people and also offer what I can in terms of ideas and leading a process. And like Nikki was saying, emerging ideas from, you know, a dialogue from an intuitive space, all this cool, like intangible creative stuff that we don’t really know where it comes from. And then the last thing I’ll say is I have a mentor who’s very important specifically into this thinking of BOTH/AND I’ve been working with him for about 12 years now.

His name’s Doctor Howard Teich, and he wrote a book that in my late 20s was like transformative. And it’s called Solar Lunar. And basically. Which means BOTH/AND basically, he makes the case that we have these qualities that are very solar, which are skills based qualities.

They’re linear qualities. Maybe they’re traditionally associated with like masculine qualities, although that’s like a little out of date. And we have these lunar qualities that are more intuitive and visionary and non-linear, and they are not in tension. They work together at best, like the best things, the most innovative partnerships, like the most creative stuff, comes from a place where these two things are working together and not in, in complementarity and not in opposition. So his work changed my life.

And then ultimately, you know, is an integral. The integration of his work is what BOTH/AND is which is a, a container, a company, a practice that holds, holds the multiple sides that we have together in a creative way.

Integrating Opposing Personal and Professional Forces

CJ Bruce: 15:32

Awesome. Yeah. There’s a we’ve definitely already achieved the, the deepest podcast that we’ve done. So appreciate both the back on the both of that. That’s really, really great, I love it. And I’m glad you mentioned Guru too, because I meant to give a shout out because that is how we all knew each other and connected way back in the day, working on some shared projects together.

Alexander Deleuse: 15:54

The origin story, that’s the origin story. And it should be said, like we have our our one of our employees at Guru at BOTH/AND is from Guru and like multiple people that we’ve hired and worked with in the past have come from that. So it’s like all that origin story seems to be like just still playing out in all of our lives in a really positive way.

CJ Bruce: 16:17

It’s a, it’s a continuous thing for sure. And I just, I just wanted to add on that just as a, you know, because we worked together so much, I think I’ve experienced some of this with, you know, with that healthy tension and especially when we’ve got into things around like performance marketing and brand and that I think the best work has come out and we’ve really talked it through and it’s like, this is what we need for performance, this is what we need for brand. And going back and forth to then come up with something that’s, you know, better than either of us would have, would have come up with on our own. So just to say, I’ve experienced that firsthand, I think that’s been great.

Alexander Deleuse: 16:49

And just so you know, CJ, like we are actively in these dialogues just to go there for a second in which there is tension because there often is. I mean, we’ve been working together now for five, six years on, on one project. And there’s moments in which we’re like, oh, that’s like at odds with what our main priority is. We, we genuinely do. This is more of a confessional talk to you than anything maybe helpful with others, but we generally try to like because we know you so well, we know you’re coming from a good place.

We try to imagine your priorities and kind of sit in that and see how, like, we can show up to the dialogue in a way that’s not like trying to fit our thing in or create a hierarchy. But hear from you and yeah, see what see what happens from there.

Sumo Citrus: Balancing Brand and Performance

CJ Bruce: 17:36

Yeah. That’s great.

Nikki Peyraud: 17:36

And, and I’ll also say the performance and brand thing has been so interesting in that evolution over time. And I think sumo citrus, for example, which is the, a project we’re all working on right now.

CJ Bruce: 17:47

Go next.

Nikki Peyraud: 17:48

Okay, perfect. I think it’s so successful because we do both. If we were just performance, it wouldn’t have this brand feel that everybody gets so excited about. And if we were just brand, we wouldn’t be able to have the exposure that we have. So I think it’s because we’ve been able to like walk this tightrope of being able to really accomplish both that it is a brand that consumers can really see themselves in, participate in, and we’ve had the success that we have.

CJ Bruce: 18:16

I love it. Yeah. So that’s where I was going next. So thanks for the tee up, Nikki. So yeah, sumo citrus.

We’ve been deep on sumo citrus for over five years and, you know, really integrated from the very beginning. And so it’s, you know, available through April. So go buy yourself some sumo citrus. I think just taking the big picture on the, on the project, I’d love to hear, you know, a little bit about how you think about building a brand like that. You know, like when we first started, we came in and there was, you know, there was some foundation and things had been there, there was some branding, but it wasn’t totally defined.

And so just thinking about that, that kind of longer term brand building, right? Getting us outside of just like the campaign approach, like how do you think about that? And, you know, strategic unlocks that kind of made it possible to get to where we are today.

Building a Brand in a Commodity Category

Alexander Deleuse: 19:04

Yeah, it’s a, it’s a such a vast question, which I like, but I want to enter into it in some helpful way, hopefully. I think the first thing to say is like when, when we started talking to sumo, citrus like produce was new to us, right? A lot of experience in food and beverage. And we’ve all worked on food and Bev brands together and packaged goods and, you know, all this kind of stuff that we. We even direct to consumer that we kind of know how it works.

And a lot of people know how that stuff works to produce is a different beast. And so I would say there was a, a little bit of learning and adjustment and still learning and acknowledgement that the timelines of produce are, are really long. It takes a long time to get awareness in a category that essentially is like a commodity category, right? Agriculture and produce like is a traditionally commodity space. So the investment at the brand level is very minimal.

You might buy a different blueberry every time you go into the store based on a number of factors that are maybe yours alone, like feel and perception and maybe an instant, oh, those look fresh, you know, some kind of sense of that that looks fresh, but you’re not necessarily or historically being driven by brand. I like what’s the story? What’s the color? You know, what’s the. So you know.

And Nikki, I want to pass it to you in a second, but I think the, the main thing I’ll say is like, there’s a lot of learning and adjustment. And certainly we applied a lot of our experience from these food and beverage and packaged goods to produce and specifically to sumo, citrus. I think that’s why it has a compelling brand. And we’re always in relationship to a category that is just has its own kind of physics to it, right? It takes longer.

You can do way, way, way less in terms of storytelling. You have to like, say the thing that’s obvious about the fruit, whether it’s super sweet or it’s easy to peel, like it’s, it’s a very like fundamentally driven. And I know as like creative people, we want to like get to the, a lot of like interesting stories really quick and we want to go deep and all that kind of stuff. Like especially in store, there’s limitations with how much you can say. So it’s this cool relationship of us, I think, imparting our experience and like pushing the category.

And we’ve done that subsequent to sumo citrus with other clients as well, and really trying to create a compelling brand and being in this category that’s, that’s fundamentally different and has its own, I would say, its own world that we’re, we’re still learning about and find very interesting. Nikki, what do you think?

The Power of Product Experience and Superfans

Nikki Peyraud: 21:48

Well, I agree with what Alex is saying that, you know, playing by a produce playbook is just not going to work in the space for what we wanted to do with sumo citrus. And I think it really helps that sumo citrus is just a product that people absolutely love. And we have a, a little, you know, I know we’ve joked about this between our teams and but it is an insight. It’s like when we go on these tours or we see people experiencing sumo citrus for the first time, there is either people who are absolutely obsessed. So we just to qualify that, we want to.

We did a 25 day ski resort tour this year, and I went to one of those stops in Palisades at Tahoe. And yes, there are either people who are so excited that sumo citrus is there that they come up and they can’t wait to tell you all about why they love sumo citrus, or it’s people who have never heard of sumo citrus before, but once they try it, they’re immediately hooked. So I will say it helps that we have this great product. And then I think that very the what I’m talking about with like just those super fans that once they try it, they love it. We’ve really been able to capture that and authentically share the experience of sumo citrus in a way that I think really resonates with people because it is real.

We’re not using actors, we’re using real people who just are so excited about sumo citrus that they want to share about the brand. So I think thinking about it long term. It’s like we started out kind of knowing that there were there was this cult group of superfans. And then, you know, the three of us, we worked together across our teams to determine like, how do you take that love of a cult favorite and actually expand that? And how do you keep that specialness?

As we scale and get mass distribution across the country because, you know, it’s, it’s tricky, it’s tricky. Once something goes mainstream to still have that love. But that’s been something that we’ve all been very aware of keeping. I think we, I think it’s worked over time and people still feel like they’re becoming part of the club when they try it. And it is such a great fruit and a great experience that we’ve been able to hold that over time, which I think is really important.

Joy as the Core Brand Driver

Alexander Deleuse: 24:09

Yeah, I want to I want to add something quickly, which is, you know, Nikki’s bringing in this, this really important thing, which is this is very simple, like sumo Citrus is a joyous thing. It’s about joy. Our work, as far as brand builders is bringing that joy into the story, into the visual presentation, into the activations we create. So, you know, our jobs in, in a lot of ways, our job is really easy because there’s so much of a connection and a joyous thing around this fruit. And it’s not a packaged good that goes in the waste bin.

You know, it’s not there’s something like inherently good about it and like good feeling about it. And I think people understand that. So I, I’m like, oh yeah, we have this, we’ve done all this work, but also it has its own life, has its own life force that we’ve helped, you know, shape. And also to Nikki’s point, like been authentic about, we’re not trying to create some, you know, odd story and layered on top. It’s like, no, this is about joy.

This is about good feelings. This is about enjoying the season once a year. Yeah.

CJ Bruce: 25:14

That’s great. I think good points in there. And you know, the category and the, you know, maintaining that kind of core story. And I think a lot of a lot of brands can relate to that, that are scaling, right? You start small and friends and family and it’s farmers markets and the local community.

And then, okay, how do you take it nationally and, you know, keep that core with all the, the things that come with scale. So I think that’s, I think that’s great. I think I want to go to another project that we, we worked on together, which is better for blueberries. And so this one, you know, you, you all created, you created the brand from scratch. And I think, you know, we’d love to hear about that.

And then also hear a little bit about the, you know, the regenerative organic certified aspect, which is not, you know, not the simplest thing to communicate to consumers. And so a little bit about that, the branding process there, but also how do you take something that’s complex like that or not well known and come up with the communication points around it?

Alexander Deleuse: 26:08

Yeah. Another big question. I’m thinking back to to Guru days now because when regenerative Organic Certified certified, which is a very specific certification. There are others, but that’s one that, you know, has some real traction. And I think it’s backed by Doctor Bronner’s and Patagonia’s involved as well.

We were working on that a little bit at Guru. So going back a ways when it was just kind of taking shape and now kind of like full circle moment brands like Better full are, you know, regenerative organic certified. And you know what that means for those who aren’t aware, it’s, it’s beyond sustainability. So it’s actually thinking about how do we give back to the land or the environment that we’re growing in. And specific to agriculture, there’s dimensions to it, right?

So there’s a soil dimension. Soil health is a big part of it. Is the soil holding carbon actually sequestering carbon that helps with, you know, overall emissions and air quality. Is there a habitat protection aspect of it? So like creating a place for pollinators like bees to be.

You know, in the habitat not excluding them. And other animals as well. There’s a social welfare aspect to it. Are we paying people a good wage? You know, are there programs in place where there’s like, you know, positive work environment?

So all these dimensions related to agriculture. I think the, the thing that I want to say is like, that’s a very exciting thing for us, I think. You know, I’ll speak for Nikki as well. We really get jazzed about like more brands adopting a regenerative level of practice. And, and your question teed this up.

CJ it’s hard to communicate that because there’s a lot of information there. And I think still a question is, you know, is this a value to the consumer? Will this drive a purchase or am I still just, you know, oh, I see the fresh blueberry. I’ll grab it. Will the regenerative story, you know, give me enough value in the moment to make a different decision?

That’s, I think, what we’re all hoping, hoping from the people who are going to the like takes a lot of time and money and energy to get the certification. To, you know, the certifiers themselves to the brand builders, to hopefully everyone else down the line. The goal and the hope is that when we know more about it, it’ll inform a new decision. And I think the, the job and the, the, the process that we have to be engaged in is like, how do you tell that? How do you tell that story in a way that is easy enough right in the beginning?

And then there’s more to it. And again, it’s there’s a tension between what you can do in the produce, in the produce world in terms of limitations of how much space you have and all that. So it’s, it’s a, it’s an unanswered question, I would say.

Differentiation in a Commodity Category

Nikki Peyraud: 28:56

Yeah, I can, I can jump. Into and I’ll say blueberries is a total, totally different category. You know, it’s fresh produce, but it’s very different than what we do on summer citrus, right? Because with sumo, you have the obvious, distinct look. And with blueberries it is still very much a commodity purchase where even if you have branding on the labels, it’s a purchase that people make in the moment in store. So that was one of the big challenges we had.

And I will shout out our client, Sonia Gul, who did see this white space opportunity because we because there are so many different blueberries brands. And really right now the only Distinguishers are like jumbo size or pretty much regular or organic versus conventional. There was this opportunity to have more impact. And I’ll also say just the way that blueberries traditionally are sourced, a lot of times they source from so many different growers that they don’t have the ability to have the full chain to be able to have a regenerative regen, organic certification. So that was an advantage for better flow because AC foods, who owns the better brand, does have full integration across from distribution, all the way from growing all the way to distribution.

We’re able to source the berries and know exactly that you know how they’re grown. Be able to control all of the pieces across the supply chain. So that is a difference. It’s not easy for other large brands like Driscoll’s and other brands to be able to accomplish because they’re sourcing from so many different growers. So that was a real advantage for butterfly.

And then the challenge to Alex’s point is, how do you tell the story in a compelling way? How do you create a brand that when people are looking on shelf, it’s going to stand out, it’s going to make a difference. It’s going to allow them to take that extra second to read the package and to understand why this is different. So it’s been a great project. We worked on it a few years ago, and then we also did a campaign around it.

But yeah, just continuing to create these brands that can make a commodity category like we’ve been talking about just a little bit more meaningful and a little bit more interesting.

CJ Bruce: 31:18

Awesome. Yeah. That’s great. I think there’s so much, so much in there. I think it can apply to a lot of a lot of different brands trying to figure out how do you, how do you communicate these benefits?

There’s so many things to talk about and how do you focus that in? And some of the things you talked about on those, those core differentiators, like at the business level that make it different, that then you can build from that. There’s a lot of, a lot of interesting nuggets to, to dig into there. I wanted to expand a little bit too. I know we’ve been talking about the kind of sumo and beautiful both in produce and just maybe, you know, taking a step back more broadly, like how do you, how do you think about, you know, building compelling brands and products?

I know that you’ve, you’ve worked in other produce brands as well. So yeah, I would love to hear a little bit about, about that more broadly.

Alexander Deleuse: 32:04

Yeah, I can, I can jump in. I think and this goes for other, you know, other industries as well. For us, it always starts with like listening and like, you know, I want to say interviews, but we call this the discovery phase, you know, where we’re really going deep with folks. And I think what’s unique about produce is that, you know, most of these brands have been around a long time, and certainly the farms have been around a long time, even if they’ve been kind of adopted by larger companies. So there’s this level of like institutional land based awareness and practice that just is there, you know, with folks who work in these organizations.

And it’s incredible. Like when, when we started working for sumo, you know, within the first year we were on the farm and we met, you know, one of the lead growers who also manages the nursery and like, you know, bringing the seedlings in and, and, you know, again, like with any other industry, but because it’s land based, it’s so, it’s so connected to sort of a lineage of how you grow and how you, you know, grow at scale is even even more. So for us, I think it starts with like really listening to who’s doing the work and what interesting stories are there inside the organization. And we’re coming in as people who know next to nothing about the industry we’re coming into. So we’re absorbing all of that and being curious and being really excited by it.

I know I get excited by, you know, learning all this kind of stuff. And then another front on the listening side is listening for culture, right? So Nikki mentioned like sumo was already a cult, right? It already had these kind of there were tons of signals, like the small, maybe growing fan base of people who are like super, super passionate. So for us, it’s like, oh, that’s great.

Let’s tap into that. What’s already there? What can we, you know, dial into that’s already existing and bring it in? And where those two things meet, I think is really, at least from a starting place, is a really good place to start to generate some ideas. Yeah.

Where our company meets culture.

Bridging Legacy Systems with Modern Consumer Culture

Nikki Peyraud: 34:06

Yeah. And I’ll just quickly build on that because totally aligned with everything Alex said. Sometimes, especially in produce, because it’s such a legacy industry, a lot of times there is just a gap in being able to kind of cross that bridge over into culture. And how do I make this legacy, this story, this way of growing these things we’re doing actually matter to consumers. And so that’s a lot of the work we do is bridging, bridging those elements.

And to Alex’s point, our discovery period is really robust. So we do a lot of interviews, we do a lot of workshops to unearth these different nuggets and to figure out ways to make them meaningful to consumers.

CJ Bruce: 34:52

Yeah. That’s great. Okay. Expanding beyond, you know, existing clients or past work, I’d love to hear We keep expanding. It’s endless expansion where we are the universe on this this podcast episode. I’m curious, any brands that come to mind in the in the food and beverage space specifically, we talked, you know, on like a lot on produce, but kind of expanding beyond food and beverage brands you think are doing great work that, you know, come up for, for both of you and in whatever way it could be branding, packaging, strategy. Curious if any names come to mind?

Alexander Deleuse: 35:31

Why is that such a tough question? I had an experience with a there’s an olive oil I really like and it’s called p r o p I r o. It’s out of I think it’s Italian and it’s phenomenal. Olive oil, it’s very high, like polyphenol. That’s the new thing.

You know, how many polyphenols can you fit in an olive oil? They fit a lot. And the question can go so many different ways. But what came up for me was I had like a customer service loop with them. And, you know, one of the products was like kind of not up to the standard and I, and it’s a pretty expensive product.

So I contacted them and they very quickly responded. And more than kind of accommodated like a, you know, more than a return. They sent me new products and more than I needed. And it was a lot of companies do that, but there was some kind of real connection at the other end that I could feel. And that felt really good, especially in these days where medium to large sized brands can vary, can vary, can feel like template y, you know, even on the customer service loops, there’s like this pattern to it.

And when the pattern is broken in anything, especially in a relationship, I, I’m like, oh, that’s cool. This was, this was like a real experience. It wasn’t someone putting on the customer service hat and saying, hey, you know, in this kind of voice that’s again patterned. So I really look out for that where things feel. Yeah, I’m talking to some person and they have their own world, and they want to learn about what’s right or wrong and let’s work out.

Let’s work it out together. So that was cool. So shout out to olive oil from from maybe Italy.

Design-Driven Category Transformation

Nikki Peyraud: 37:15

You know. We look at a lot of examples with just this idea of how do you turn a commodity category into something premium. So I’ll share like Fishwife is, is a category, a product in a category that I think historically has been something people have kind of not really paid attention to. And of course, Tinfish is like having a moment over the last number of years, but like the bringing a design and a bespoke design kind of illustrated beautiful packaging to a category that was like pretty underserved and stale. It’s always it’s a signal and it’s fun to see that when you can see a full kind of category changing just based on design. Really creating excitement around it and, and really just changing the entire feeling for, for the product.

So that’s an example.

Alexander Deleuse: 38:10

There are recipes too, like they do innovative things with like flavor profiles and recipes and stuff.

CJ Bruce: 38:16

Awesome. All right, gang, let’s start to wind us down here. This has been this has been really great. I have one more question before I ask. I want to just point people to your website.

So both-and.com. Is there anywhere else that you’d recommend people go to learn about the work you’re doing?

Alexander Deleuse: 38:36

We’re on Instagram and I think, you know, BOTH/AND is a great place to sign up for our newsletter because we’re writing a lot about the practice of BOTH/AND so that’s something we really want to devote more time to this year. So we want to build a little bit of a just an awareness around this practice and this type of collaboration. And we think it has such application, you know, within the creative industry. Of course, like we all know what it’s like to be in dysfunctional projects or have really a lot of tension with clients.

So for those of us who have that experience, you know, hopefully some of the BOTH/AND material will be helpful. And then outside of the creative industry too, like this is just, this is just life, you know? So go to our website and yeah, sign up now.

Preparing to Work with a Branding & Strategy Firm

CJ Bruce: 39:21

Cool. All right. So last question is, you know, for, for brands considering hiring, branding and strategy firm like BOTH/AND what are, you know, what are the things that they should kind of come prepared or that they should, they should do ahead of time? You know, if anything that’s like to get the most out of the work, you know, any, any pre work they could do or like a stage, you know, that they should be in when they’re thinking about this. You know, what, what should they be thinking about.

Alexander Deleuse: 39:52

I would say come with a be okay with being challenged. Nikki made a very, very good point earlier that when you think you need a website, you usually need more something to do with your brand or your messaging. And then you usually need to be talking better with different departments within your own organization. It just keeps tracking back and coming into a new project. Having the awareness that at least with us, because we’re going to go deep, it’s going to hit other stuff.

It’s not just like we need this thing and you’re going to do it and there it is. It’s we’re going to invite exploration beyond this project that might hit, you know, things within your organization. So be be open and able to do that and then also be okay with being challenged a little bit. Maybe the thing you came for isn’t quite the thing you need. And we will very quickly tell you that.

CJ Bruce: 40:48

Okay? Make anything you add there.

Nikki Peyraud: 40:51

You know, I was going to say a very similar thing, but maybe what I’ll add to it is being open to being in a space of not knowing, which is uncomfortable for many people and especially many leaders. I think a lot of leaders want to know the direction and guide their teams there. So what does it look like to sit with a problem and not exactly know how that solution is going to come forward? So I think that willingness, like we talked about before, to be in that that’s a tension in itself. To be in that space of not knowing really is where the best work comes from.

So just kind of having an inner inner questioning of, am I ready to, to really go there? If I want to create something that’s really going to change my business?

Alexander Deleuse: 41:36

CJ, can I ask you a question just in terms of the BOTH/AND what are these, if any, what are these aspects of your Total self that have been maybe historically or currently, maybe in tension or maybe working together in a creative new way, but curious to hear how BOTH/AND hits you.

CJ’s Reflection on Analytical vs Creative Tension

CJ Bruce: 42:00

So many ways. Yeah. I think that the, there’s a, there’s like a core just touch on one core one here, which would be the analytical and the creative. For me, which is like, I’m both, I think of myself as BOTH/AND there’s definitely tension in that where like, you know, I like to get in the numbers, but I also like to brainstorm ideas and I like to write.

And, you know, I a background in creating video content and all of that. So there’s, there’s that, that’s, that’s a big one for me. I think it applies every day in the work. And then maybe more personal. One is the, the tension of the, the night owl in the morning person.

It’s like, I feel like I’m kind of both of those sometimes. You know, I like to stay up late. I like to get up early. Obviously you can’t do both. It’s a great Seinfeld skit about that, I think.

Anyway, so yeah, those are a couple that come to mind. But this this comes up for me a lot. You know, I think about it and I see it and and now having kids too. I can see things in them. You know, that tension.

And I think it’s one of those where, you know, once you’re aware of it, you kind of see it everywhere.

Alexander Deleuse: 43:01

Yeah. That’s beautiful. And to know that the tension is usually cultural. It’s not like nature doesn’t do this. Nature doesn’t pit things against each other necessarily.

It’s our own construction on top of it.

CJ Bruce: 43:13

So love it.

Alexander Deleuse: 43:16

All right

Closing Remarks and Outro

CJ Bruce: 43:17

Yeah. Thanks for the thanks for the ask. So we’ve been talking to Nikki Peyraud and Alexander Deleuse, Co-founders of BOTH/AND. And be sure to check them out at both-and.com. Nikki, Alex, thanks so much for being on the show.

Alexander Deleuse: 43:30

Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Outro: 43:33

Thanks for listening to The Missing Ingredient podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.

Navigating Creative Tension To Build Iconic Brands With Nikki Peyraud and Alexander Deleuse