Mission control for the food and drink industry
Pesto founders Kate Hofman, Sanjay Sood-Smith and Amish Ralhan knew there was a better way for challenger brands to run their ops, so they decided to create it. We've built food brands ourselves, and Pesto is the software we wish we'd had when we were scaling them. We met through Antler UK and work from London Bridge.
What are we here to do?
We're here to build a better food system.
The brands creating the most innovative products, the ones that are better for us and better for the planet, should be able to grow quickly and sustainably and reach more people. Our mission is to give them the superpowers they need to get there.
Challenger brands bring the foods we love to the places where we shop. You wouldn't believe how manually the industry still works behind the scenes.
Why does Pesto exist?
Because you don't get a second chance with a Tesco.
A challenger brand competes on the shelf with FMCG giants and in supply chains controlled by PLCs. When a delivery turns up short, the batch codes are missing or the invoice doesn't match the PO, you don't just lose margin. You can lose the listing.
The pressure keeps rising. NIC and EPR add about £1.5bn a year to the sector's costs, SME lending approvals have fallen by 60% in three years, and the Middle East crisis pushed SME costs up 6% in four months. Most brands meet all of that with a shared inbox, a spreadsheet and whoever's still awake at 11pm.
Pesto gives a challenger brand the operations of an established one. Challenger brand energy. Established brand operations.
Who built Pesto?
People who've sat in your seat.
Kate Hofman, CEO.
Sanjay Sood-Smith, COO.
Amish Ralhan, CTO.
"It's the software I wish I'd had when I was running my first business."
CEO and co-founder
We know what breaks first, because it broke for us.
What have we built?
The operating system for fast-growing food and drink brands, designed for the day-to-day realities of the industry and built for small teams.
Before Pesto, procurement and sales each ran across several channels with inconsistent data. Everything got typed into multiple spreadsheets, and none of the systems talked to each other.
Pesto has three layers:
A system of record.
A context layer.
Agentic workflows.
It's the only platform that gives challenger brands a food and drink data model out of the box, batch traceability, a purchase order read in any format, a price that works at £2m turnover, go-live in weeks rather than quarters, and AI that's native rather than bolted on. → See the platform
What do we believe?
1. Built for food, not adapted to it.
2. Small teams deserve big-company operations.
3. Live in weeks, not quarters.
4. We're a peer, not a vendor.
"Pesto was flexible enough to work the way we needed it to. If it had existed in any of my previous roles, I'd have been thrilled to implement it. It's supply chain built by people who actually understand supply chain."
Head of Supply Chain, Bold Bean Co
How far has Pesto come?
We're already supporting some of the UK's fastest growing food and drink brands. → Read the customer stories
What has that meant for the brands on Pesto?
They're getting further, faster.
Bold Bean Co
Well & Truly
The Curators
Jux Food
Punchy Drinks
"Pesto has dramatically improved our operations. We've seen a strong return on investment, with real time saved and far fewer errors. It's made Seed Revolution a much more professional service for our accounts and customers."
Founder, Seed Revolution
Who is Pesto for?
Brands with at least one major retail or foodservice listing and £1m to £10m in annual turnover. You've usually got an ops hire in place, but the work still bottlenecks on people. Your supply chain is B2B and omni-channel, and you make in-house, through a contract manufacturer, or both.
If that's you, we built Pesto for your week. → See which setup sounds like yours
Where is Pesto based?
We work from London Bridge. Kate, Sanjay and Amish met through Antler UK, and Pesto works with challenger food and drink brands across the UK.
Is Pesto hiring?
We're always keen to hear from people who like the unglamorous stuff: engineers, go-to-market and customer success people, and anyone who's run operations at a food or drink brand. Drop Kate a line at kate@heypesto.ai.
Frequently asked questions
Who founded Pesto?
Kate Hofman (CEO), who founded and ran the vertical farm GrowUp; Sanjay Sood-Smith (COO), who co-founded the Indian ready meal brand Tuk In and consulted at Bain; and Amish Ralhan (CTO), a software engineer with 10+ years building and scaling SaaS products. They met through Antler UK.
Where is Pesto based?
London Bridge, London. Pesto works with challenger food and drink brands across the UK.
What does Pesto do?
Pesto runs orders, stock, costs, suppliers and invoicing for food and drink brands in one AI-native platform: a system of record, a context layer and agentic workflows. → See the platform
Who is Pesto for?
Challenger food and drink brands with at least one major retail or foodservice listing, £1m to £10m in turnover, and a B2B or omni-channel supply chain, whether you make in-house or through a co-packer.
Why is Pesto built only for food and drink?
Food has rules a generic ERP doesn't know: batch codes, use-by dates, minimum shelf life per customer, cases vs units, retailer EDI and co-packers. We built Pesto around those rules from day one, because we ran food brands ourselves.
Does Pesto use AI to make decisions for me?
No. Pesto's AI reads orders, matches products and drafts payment reminders. You review the results in Pesto, and each reminder waits in your own inbox until you send it.
See Pesto running on your own orders.
Bring a real PO, your messiest one. We'll show you what Pesto does with it in 30 minutes.
Book a demo