Kate Hofman
Pesto is the AI operating system for SME food & drink brands, giving them the operational superpower previously reserved for FMCG giants.
Project
Pesto
URL
Year founded
2024
Business stage
Pre-Seed
High-growth sectors
Digital and Technologies
Sector
Digital
Location
London
Funding
Highly Commended Applicant
The problem and opportunity
Food and drink manufacturing is the UK’s largest manufacturing sector, worth £104bn, yet 97% of firms are SMEs, still running operations on spreadsheets and email. As they scale into multiple retailers, manual order entry, mispriced stock and slow invoicing cause chargebacks, cashflow strain and food waste. Legacy Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP) are too rigid and costly for this segment, leaving a real gap between spreadsheets and enterprise software.
The solution and innovation
Pesto is an AI-native operations platform built specifically for food and drink brands, automating the back office, including order-to-invoice, inventory and analytics. We’re now live with paying customers seeing around 75% time saved on order processing, and giving brands real-time stock visibility across multiple locations. Our platform AI Agent “Erbe” turns hours of reporting into analytics driven by a single question.
Market and ambition
Pesto is built for fast-growing brands turning over £1m – £10m, an addressable market of £4.2 billion. We have been steadily increasing our paying customer base since August 2025. Over the next 2-3 years we’ll expand into other EU markets, and develop the platform to include forecasting, payments and embedded finance.
Founder perspective
Before starting Pesto, Kate founded GrowUp Farms, one of the UK’s first vertical farms – and Pesto is the software she wished she had when she was scaling that business. She’s experienced the challenges building a food brand, and built Pesto to support other brands in creating resilient and sustainable operations.
Women in Innovation Award
Highly commended applicant of the Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award 2025/26, receiving tailored business support, and access to specialist training and networks. View all winners and highly commended applicants from the Women in Innovation cohort 2025/2026.