Founder Spotlight: Marleen Basart

"Founder Spotlight" is KiCo's series where we welcome one successful founder to share the full story behind their brand: the wins, the pivots and the lessons learned along the way. This edition goes behind the snack aisle with a founder who knew it from the inside and decided it wasn't working. Drawing on years as a category manager for crisps and snacks at Albert Heijn, Marleen watched the "healthy" snack aisle from the inside and decided it wasn't working. In 2015 she co-founded BitesWeLove with Liesbeth Gouwens. What started as a subscription box is now a B Corp-certified brand sold in 2,400+ retail locations and 2,000+ foodservice venues in the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK and Scandinavia: the product the snacking category didn't know it was missing.Founder, category insider, B Corp brand builder. Marleen and Liesbeth built BitesWeLove on a simple belief: the fix for "unhealthy snacking" was never less. It was more. More taste, more nourishment, more satisfaction, made from whole ingredients instead of empty ones.This one's for you if: you're building a food or CPG brand and looking for real differentiation in a crowded category you're a woman building a consumer brand and want a peer's playbook instead of theory you're curious what it actually takes to go from subscription box to international retail shelves Join us to hear Marleen on spotting the gap, building around it, and scaling a female-founded brand without losing the thing that made it work.