Grenade co-founder to support entrepreneurship at Exeter following Honorary Professorship   

The University of Exeter Business School’s new Honorary Professor is an expert when it comes to making business ideas stand out.  

As the co-founder of the sports nutrition brand Grenade, Juliet Barratt once arranged for a tank to be driven down London’s Oxford Street to build brand awareness. 

She now aims to bring her front-footed approach to business to Exeter by mentoring a new generation of entrepreneurial talent.   

“It’s great to hear about what the University of Exeter offers student entrepreneurs through the Student Startup Team, the Centre for Entrepreneurship and spaces such as the Creative Quadrant and Skydeck and I’m really looking forward to spending more time there,” she says.   

“It’s such an encouraging environment for those students that do want to start their own business, whether they’re studying history, computer studies or whatever else.” 

Juliet and her husband and partner Alan started Grenade back in 2010 after experiencing some of the generic sports food offerings in gyms and health clubs and thinking they could easily make something more distinctive.  

“We wanted to be the Red Bull of sports nutrition and make products that did what they said on the tin. Our first product was a fat-burner, packaged in a grenade-shaped container, which really stood out on the shelves. A lot of the other products at the time had scientific names and were sold in sensible white tubs.”  

Grenade became synonymous with bold marketing, including one stunt when they drove a tank down London’s Oxford Street. “People recognised the tank and knew it was to do with Grenade,” Juliet recalls.  

In the early days, Juliet remembers, “it was just me, Alan and our four cats”, but the timing was right. “Social media was growing, the protein market was getting bigger. People wanted to look good and were going to the gym so it was a great time for sports nutrition.” 

Hard work and attention to detail also played a key role in the brand’s success. “When we launched our protein bar in 2015 we’d gone through 27 different varieties to get to the product that we were happy with,” she says.  

“So we never launched anything just for the sake of it. We cared about what we were doing and I think because we were really genuine, that helped, because people don’t like being sold to.” 

A first round of private equity in 2014 valued the business at £18 million. Then in 2017 investment from Lion Capital valued the business at £72 million. It was bought by Mondelēz International in 2021 for £200 million, with Juliet selling her remaining stake.  

“I know it sounds cheesy, but it was never about money,” Juliet insists. “We genuinely loved what we were doing and focused on the business, having fun and building the brand, and we knew the numbers would come.” 

Becoming the University of Exeter Business School’s newest Honorary Professor takes Juliet full circle, as it was at Exeter where she completed her teacher training in the 1990s. 

“I quickly found that school teaching was not my calling in life, but I’ve always been interested in education and something that’s really important to me now is mentorship and supporting people that want to start their own businesses, or have businesses in their early stages.” 

Juliet remembers as a child selling things to her sister and the thrill it gave her to feel in control of her life. She says she always wanted to start her own business and sees entrepreneurship as a quality that needs to be nurtured and encouraged.  

She’ll get plenty of opportunities to do that at Exeter, which has a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem spanning all faculties, campuses and departments, from SETsquared and the Student Startup programme to the Centre for Entrepreneurship and With Industrial Experience (WIE) degree pathways. 

“I’m really looking forward to spending more time there and thinking about entrepreneurship and how it’s evolving, and how we can future-proof Exeter to become the university that people want to come to as business changes,” Juliet adds.