Inside the growth of The English Soap Company
We were joined by Susannah, Managing Director of The English Soap Company, and Kelsey, their Brand and Marketing Manager.
This is a family-run manufacturing business turning over £9 million, employing more than 100 people, and growing fast. They operate two brands, manufacture everything on-site in East Sussex, and have expanded from one barn to eight over 25 years.
We get into how they’ve scaled, what’s fuelling their growth, and the real challenges they’ve faced along the way.
A premium brand built on manufacturing strength
The English Soap Company positions itself in the premium gifting market. While soap is at the heart of the business, they’ve diversified into hand creams, hand washes, candles, body oils, sanitiser and EDTs (eau de toilette).
Their advantage is control.
Because they manufacture in-house, they’re not reliant on external suppliers. That allows them to stay agile, respond to trends quickly, and experiment with new product development without long external lead times.
That agility is becoming a serious competitive edge in a crowded health and beauty market.
Meta is fundamental to growth
When we talk marketing channels, Meta sits at the core of their strategy.
Facebook and Instagram drive the majority of their paid performance, with Meta currently their most profitable channel. Interestingly, Facebook is still performing strongly for them due to where their core audience spends time.
They’ve:
- Built a strong organic presence first
- Invested in brand awareness campaigns
- Run collaborative competitions to grow audiences
- Brought paid social in-house
- Become more aggressive and structured in their testing
One of the key takeaways is their two-pronged approach:
Organic social builds community and brand affinity.
Paid social drives revenue and scale.
Creative is handled entirely in-house, and they’re constantly testing. From short-form video to static “soap stack” imagery, they’re learning what captures attention and converts.
What this episode really highlights
This conversation reinforces something we see repeatedly with successful home, garden and lifestyle brands:
- Manufacturing control creates flexibility
- Organic brand building strengthens paid performance
- Culture drives output
- Transparency builds trust
- Growth requires operational discipline, not just marketing spend
The English Soap Company isn’t scaling because of one tactic. They’re scaling because operations, product, culture and marketing are aligned.
If you run a product-based brand and want to grow sustainably, this episode is full of practical insight.
And if nothing else, it’s proof that soap can be serious business.
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