Aaron Winsloe spent years helping to scale one of THG’s biggest brands, Myprotein UK, into an international business.
Now he’s channelling that same ambition into a very different venture of his own with Food Escapes, an interactive dining experience designed to get people exploring Manchester and discovering its independent restaurants.
First launched in Manchester back in April, the immersive dining concept combines a WhatsApp-led puzzle adventure game with visits to independent restaurants, sending hungry diners across the city to solve clues before unlocking their next foodie stop.
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While Food Escapes stems from Winsloe’s lifelong love of food, he says it was the lessons he learned at THG about “building for scale” that gave him the confidence to turn the idea into a business with ambitions beyond Manchester.
“I’ll tell you what gave me the confidence to do it. There was a part of me which thought: ‘If I can just build a great product, which is the food, the games and the puzzles, the rest of it is just ecommerce.’
“There is nothing substantially different in terms of selling the product versus what I’ve been doing this whole time. I think that gave me the confidence, maybe naive confidence, to try and do it. But we’re early days!”
A love of food – and puzzles
The idea behind Food Escapes had been brewing long before he joined THG.
“My mother was born in Indonesia. And food, as any Asian culture will tell you, is an enormous part of the culture. Food is everything, so that’s definitely where my love of food comes from,” he explains.
“I’m probably the biggest foodie any of my friends know. I’ve spent years trying to work out how I could merge food with the ecommerce career I’d built.”
Another key ingredient behind Food Escapes came from a completely different hobby: geocaching.
For those unfamiliar with geocaching, it’s essentially a ‘real-world’ treasure hunt game where participants navigate to specific sets of coordinates to find “millions of things hidden around the world”.
“I’ve been doing geocaching for the last 15 years or so, in nearly 30 countries. There are around four million geocaches hidden around the world. All you do is find them, sign your name on them and put them back where you found them.
“I’ve found hundreds around the world – I’ve even hidden my own. So I really enjoy outdoor puzzling.”
But Food Escapes isn’t the first time he has tried to fuse his love of food with business. Shortly after university, he launched a street food market business in London.
“It went fine but it wasn’t very scalable. I ran it for about two years and I wasn’t cooking myself – I was organising markets. It was me trying to get into food in some way.”
That search eventually led him north, where he relocated from London to Manchester to join THG as the ecommerce giant entered a period of ‘rapid’ growth.
He was soon rising through the ranks at Myprotein, leading the nutrition brand’s expansion into Asia before becoming UK managing director. Later, he moved to New York to head up ecommerce across THG’s beauty division in the US.
“The Hut Group [since rebranded to THG] was incredible as a learning ground for anybody. I don’t think I would have learned as much as I did in such a short space of time anywhere else. I’m incredibly grateful for it.”
He describes THG as “like a race car”, showing him every moving part of a fast-growing global business.
“There are so many moving parts and I got to learn the ecosystem of how everything works, and understand the international scaling part of the business as THG was looking to launch into China at the time. I can speak Mandarin, so my background lent itself to a lot of the right place, right time moments.”
Building for scale
Just a few months into launching Food Escapes in Manchester, Winsloe is already planning the next stage of expansion with Liverpool expected to be the next city he launches in before the end of the summer.
“If Manchester works as an ecosystem, then we know we’ve got a model that can work elsewhere,” he explains.
“The intention is to scale the business past this point. If Manchester can work, understanding the population, what it looks like from a revenue perspective, it creates a model to say: ‘Hey, we can do this in Brighton, Southampton or wherever else it might be’.”
But those big ambitions stretch beyond the UK. “I want this to be in every city in the world,” he says.
Even now, he says many of those decisions, particularly his mindset around scaling, are still shaped by some of the lessons he learned during his years at THG.
“If anything was drilled into me at The Hut Group, it’s to not do anything that isn’t scalable. Everything you’re planning needs to be planned not just for now, but for the future you’re going to have,” he explains.
“We’re building platforms and systems that can support any scale and every step of growth that we want to get to.”
“If we want to scale it to another 100 cities, we will. It’s set up to be able to do that. I’m always thinking about building systems and processes that are flexible enough to adapt to that scale. That’s something I believe The Hut Group is really, really good at, and still is today.”
How Food Escapes works
So how does Food Escapes work? From dumpling trails and comfort food routes to craft beer experiences, customers can currently choose from one of eight themed dining adventures with each game featuring three independent restaurants or bars.
Players are then guided across Manchester via a WhatsApp chatbot as they solve timed clues hidden around streets, landmarks and buildings. Each correct answer unlocks the next foodie stop, with the timer pausing while diners eat before they head on to their next destination.
“You’re taking a chance that the food is going to be delicious and you’re playing a game at the same time.”
And working with independent restaurants and vendors was always central to the concept he first visualised.
“As an example, at one of our independent restaurants you wouldn’t be able to tell it was one unless you knew it was there. This place makes their steamed buns filled with prawns, chives and beef, fresh every morning.
“These are these real hidden gems that you wouldn’t know about otherwise – and every single dish is tested by me. If it isn’t, it won’t be added on Food Escapes.”
Although it’s still relatively early days, customer reviews suggest the concept is already a hit. One customer described it as ‘being let in on a local secret list while playing a game’, while another praised it for introducing them to restaurants they’d never noticed before.
Beyond customers, he adds feedback has been “really positive” from restaurants so far, with the concept bringing new customers through their doors.
“I would love for more activities and more experiences to be everywhere. I’d love people to take away that they not only get to enjoy the city, but the food as part of a social experience too.”
With the difficult task of having to taste test every dish that features on Food Escapes, he’s also hands-on when it comes to selecting restaurant partners.
“It’s important operationally that it works for them as well, and that we’re picking a dish that isn’t too complex if somebody walks in at 7pm on a Saturday night.
“Logistically, somebody could get ‘lost’ on the way. They might arrive half an hour later than expected, so restaurants understand there’s flexibility built into the experience.”
As Food Escapes gears up for expansion with Liverpool next on the menu, Winsloe still credits his years at THG with shaping the business he’s building today.
“There’s so much to say about being in the right place at the right time. It’s almost a recipe for success.”
And he hopes that recipe can deliver a second success story in Food Escapes.
