Sanjay Sood-Smith

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT SANJAY SOOD-SMITH

The fastest-scaling food & drink brands aren\'t choosing between AI tools and purpose-built software. They\'re using both deliberately.I know this because I\'ve been on the other side of the table.I co-founded Tuk In in 2014 - an Indian food brand now in UK retail and food service. For three years I did everything an early-stage F&B founder does. Product development. Brand. Supply chain. Manufacturing. Retailer negotiations. Airline partnerships. Two funding rounds. The full chaos of getting a food business off the ground and into stores.That experience gave me something no amount of consulting ever could. I understand exactly how complex the operations of a challenger F&B brand really are - and how much founder time gets swallowed by the wrong things.I went on to lead a directorate of 80 people at Stonewall, and then spent four years at Bain & Company working on growth strategy, commercial due diligence, and operational transformation across multiple industries including food.Those experiences are why I co-founded Pesto.Pesto is purpose-built AI for UK food & drink manufacturers. It automates the operational complexity that slows challenger brands down.I speak to F&B founders and ops leads every day. The ones winning right now aren\'t the ones who\'ve handed everything to AI. They\'re the ones who\'ve worked out exactly where AI augments their team - and where purpose-built tools need to do the heavy lifting.That distinction is what I write about on LinkedIn. If you\'re building or scaling a food & drink brand and thinking about where AI fits in your operation, follow along.And if you want to see what Pesto can do for your business, drop me a line.