You've seen the products. You might even have some in your fridge right now. But how much do you actually know about the story behind them?
Charlie and Dan, co-founders of EXALT, recently sat down with FEBE, the UK's community built by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, to tell it straight. No PR polish. No carefully edited highlight reel. Just two founders, a genuinely good conversation, and roughly an hour of everything they wish someone had told them before they started.
FEBE exists to celebrate the people rewriting the rules of British business, and frankly, Charlie and Dan fit that brief pretty well. The full episode is on YouTube now, and if you've ever been curious about what it actually takes to build something from the ground up, this one's worth your time.
From a shed to the Premier League. Yes, really.
It started, as so many good things do, with a frustration. Genuinely fresh, genuinely healthy food on the go simply didn't exist. Everything was either ultra-processed and dressed up in wellness branding, or it required a meal prep routine most people don't have. So Charlie and Dan built their own solution. Literally...by hand, with zero shortcuts.
The conversation covers the whole arc: leaving stable jobs in 2019 to go all in, navigating the early chaos of manual production, figuring out HPP technology to preserve freshness without preservatives, and working with Cambridge University on what could be a genuine breakthrough in food science. It also gets into the moment Tottenham Hotspur became EXALT's first major breakthrough, and how that opened the door to supplying bespoke nutrition to elite athletes across the Premier League and beyond.
The stuff nobody usually talks about.
This isn't a podcast episode about how great everything turned out. Charlie and Dan are honest about the early mistakes, the packaging fails, the moments of overcomplication, and the sheer relentlessness that entrepreneurship demands. They talk about building a team and a culture where people actually want to show up. About the 80/20 philosophy that underpins everything EXALT stands for. And yes, about what it's really like to build a business with your partner.
Spoiler: it can actually be a superpower. If you're both wired for it.
Whether you're into the nutrition science, the pro sport side of the business, or just a sucker for a proper founder story told without the fluff, this episode has something for you.
