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.