Women In Wellness: Ashley Hocking of Big Little Bar On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Get Up and Move! — Even if it’s just a walk around the block, removing yourself from your computer screen and into a different physical and mental state, I find it helps to bring clarity to whatever situation I may be dealing with whether at home or work.
As a part of my series about women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ashley Hocking, President of Big Little Bar.
Ashley is an experienced leader in the DTC eCommerce space with a background in strategy, product, marketing, and insights. She is currently serving as President of Big Little Bar, a food company focused on developing daily wellness rituals for the modern-day consumer through essential nutrients and real ingredients. Prior to this recent role, Mrs. Hocking led the marketing, creative, and customer experience teams at Purple Carrot, a plant-based meal delivery company, for over five years and through their acquisition in 2019.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
I’m originally from the Midwest, moved out to the east coast after college where I fell in love with the world of consumer insights and brand building. I was fascinated by the blend of art and science required to build brands from nothing. I’ve moved around through various consumer tech and product companies leading growth, brand, and marketing. Prior to Big Little Bar, I was head of marketing for Purple Carrot, a plant-based meal delivery service, for about 5.5 years where and grew it from $5M to over $100M in revenue over that tenure. It was an amazing experience, with incredibly talented people and big bold ideas on how we can influence the plant-based movement. Purple Carrot is where I got to really experience what happens when you mix food science with creativity and flavor — and have taken that with me over to Big Little Bar. So now at Big Little Bar, I’ve been able to bring along some of my amazing colleagues from Purple Carrot and we’re diving head first into disrupting women’s nutrition.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
Back in 2017 when I was leading Marketing at Purple Carrot, we launched a partnership with Tom Brady his TB12 product line. We locked in the partnership and launched the co-branded product offering within 4 months. It was a massive amount of work, but we agreed to it because the timing just felt right. At launch, the response was unlike anything we could have ever imagined. The volume of customers and coverage that this partnership got was unprecedented. One of the best days in my career to date! The lesson here is about the importance of timing and following your gut. No one was really doing co-branded partnerships at this time, we were one of the first and while we knew it was risky, we also felt that it was the right fit at the right time. And it paid off!
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about a mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
One lesson that has come up many times in my career both early on and even now is what happens when you don’t listen to your customers. Especially for brands that have a somewhat established customer base looking to bump up AOV or LTV, making assumptions about what your customers want and need without asking them will almost never pan out. It’s a lot of wasted work and energy only to get a place of disappointment when the new offering/product goes live. Listen and learn as much as you can about your customers and their needs, wants, and desires, and let this be the guide to how you view innovation and growth.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
After uncovering the data around how many women are not getting all the essential nutrients through food alone (nutrients critical to protecting our mind and body as we age), we knew we wanted to create a solution that was able to give women these key nutrients in an effective, enjoyable and convenient way. We like to say, “We’re all superwomen, but not superhuman, and we deserve better.” We need a better way to get the nutrients we need to operate at 100%.
We wanted to create a wellness ritual that you look forward to doing vs. something you have to do. And with that Big Little Bar was born. Big Little Bar is on a mission to create foods that protect and support brain, heart, and beauty wellness. We aspire to develop wellness rituals for the modern-day consumer by focusing on essential nutrients our bodies need and nothing they don’t. We’re committed to showing how little changes can impact your overall health both now and in the future.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
- List 3–5 things you’re thankful for each day — Life can get a bit crazy sometimes as we all know so starting the day by reminding yourself what’s important I find really grounds me.
- Get Up and Move! — Even if it’s just a walk around the block, removing yourself from your computer screen and into a different physical and mental state, I find it helps to bring clarity to whatever situation I may be dealing with whether at home or work.
- Start your day with an 8oz glass of water — It’s the first thing I do every morning as I know that I, like most of us, wake up dehydrated which can often manifest into feeling tired and unmotivated.
- Eat a nutrient-dense breakfast- While I now have a Big Little Bar every day, prior to that I would make sure to have a nutrient-dense breakfast before heading out the door so that would have the energy I need to take on whatever the day would bring.
- Stay Connected — As we all realized in those early months of COVID, social connection is so important to our overall well-being. Even if it’s just a text, I prioritize connecting with family and friends every week.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I would have to bring it back to my Purple Carrot days, and would say simply getting consumers to swap out a few meals a week with a plant-based option. Science has continued to show the many health benefits of eating plant-based meals, and yet there is still such a stigma around these meals not being as tasty/flavorful as meals with meat/dairy. I believe if we can crack this code, we could really start to see the movement unfold.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
- Prioritize your daily schedule — There will never be enough time in the day to finish everything you need/want to do. The ability to quickly prioritize what needs to get done and what can wait is crucial.
- Delegate — Hire experts and let them do the work you hired them to do. Micromanaging is almost always a lose-lose situation.
- Never stop learning and listening — No matter your role, always have new learnings and insights you can bring the table
- Speak up — Everyone’s time is valuable and oftentimes we all don’t have the same background or context on the situation. It is your responsibility to give your opinion, perspective and feedback on a project, initiative, or whatever you are involved in, however difficult it may be.
- Build meaningful relationships — Most of us are not going to be in the same role/company for the next 20 years so not only will building meaningful relationships help when seeking that next opportunity, but it will also make work, in general, a bit more fun!
Sustainability, veganism, mental health, and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
Sustainability, veganism and environmental changes I feel are all interconnected and near and dear to my heart, however, veganism would take the lead again. Having worked in this space for a while, I know how widely impactful the health and environmental benefits of consuming more plant-based meals is to our overall well-being.
What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?
Go to www.biglittlebar.com or @biglittlebar on Instagram !
Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.
