Q&A: PerfectTed co-founder Marisa Poster
Here Glynn Davis speaks with Marisa Poster, the co-founder of matcha products brand PerfectTed.
What’s your favourite colour?
Pantone 2256C. I’m biased, but it’s the perfect green: deeply on-brand and slightly predictable, but I’m okay with that. Matcha has consumed my personality at this point. It’s on the cans, the office walls, my nails, [co-founder] Levi’s hair (at one point in time!), and every team member’s wardrobe.
What’s your second favourite colour?
Blue. My mum had blue eyes and passed them on to me. Since losing her in October 2025, they’ve become one of my favourite things about myself because they feel like a little reminder of her.
Do you see PerfectTed as primarily a wellness or CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) brand?
I see PerfectTed as a wellness brand built through a CPG lens, but it depends on how you define wellness.
My own journey with ADHD has heavily influenced how I think about the category. I started drinking matcha because I was looking for a better source of energy and focus. Coffee often left me feeling anxious and jittery, whereas matcha gave me a more balanced, sustained lift. That experience ultimately led to the idea for PerfectTed.
But wellness, to me, isn’t about perfection, restriction, or only catering to the most health-conscious consumers. We believe wellness looks different for different people, and that balance is far more sustainable than extremes.
That’s reflected in our product range. We have everything from 100% pure ceremonial-grade matcha for purists, through to flavoured blends, pods, and more indulgent products that make matcha accessible and enjoyable for a wider audience. We don’t believe people should have to choose between what tastes great and what makes them feel good.
From a business perspective, however, we operate very much as a CPG company. Our focus is on creating products that can reach people at scale through retail, foodservice, convenience, and hospitality channels. We don’t want healthier energy to be confined to specialist wellness stores; we want it to be as accessible as any other drink on the shelf.
In short, we’re a wellness brand in philosophy and a CPG company in execution. Our mission is to help people feel their best, but our ambition is to bring that to the mainstream.
What have been the major challenges you’ve faced creating and building the business so far?
The biggest challenge has been that every stage of the business has required us to learn something completely new. When we started PerfectTed, none of the founders came from the drinks industry. We had no manufacturing experience, no retail experience, and no roadmap for building a matcha business at scale. We were figuring everything out in real-time, from sourcing and production to retail, logistics, hiring, and fundraising.
On top of that, we weren’t entering an established category. We were helping create an entirely new one. Matcha was still relatively niche in the UK, so we weren’t just trying to convince people to buy PerfectTed; we were often introducing them to matcha for the first time.
There have been plenty of operational challenges along the way too. Production issues, supply chain disruptions, stock shortages, and then the surge in demand after we appeared on Dragons’ Den. The business grew faster than our infrastructure. We found ourselves packing orders in warehouses, constantly firefighting, and trying to stay ahead of the growth.
I’ve been open about my ADHD and experiences with depression, and there have been periods where the business looked incredibly successful from the outside while I was struggling behind the scenes. Learning how to lead through uncertainty, managing my own wellbeing, and supporting a growing team at the same time is something no one really prepares you for.
What do you see as the major opportunities for the business?
Despite all the growth we’ve had, the vast majority of consumers still drink coffee every day, and many have either never tried matcha or don’t drink it regularly. We see ourselves at the beginning of a much larger shift towards healthier, more functional sources of energy.
What’s exciting is that matcha isn’t just one product category. It’s an ingredient that can exist across drinks, powders, foodservice, ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages, supplements, and more. When you look at the size of the global coffee market, it’s clear how much room there is for matcha to grow.
We’re also seeing demand coming from multiple directions at once. Consumers are becoming more conscious of what they put into their bodies, retailers are actively looking for functional products, and younger generations are increasingly interested in energy, focus, and wellbeing.
Internationally, we’re only scratching the surface. We’ve built a presence across the UK, EMEA, and Australia and are already sold in 50-plus countries, but major markets like the US still represent a huge opportunity for growth.
Ultimately, our ambition is much bigger than selling matcha products. We want to build the world’s leading matcha brand, and I believe we’re still in the very early chapters of that journey.
What extra demands does it place on the business/you personally having you as the face of the business?
Ultimately, people buy from people, and I’m genuinely glad that [co-founders] Teddie, Levi, and I are such a visible part of PerfectTed. We drink our products every single day, multiple times a day, and genuinely believe in what we’re building. In fact, my story is printed on the side of every can, and that was a very intentional decision.
Matcha genuinely changed my life, and PerfectTed was built from a personal need. That’s a story people can connect with because it’s real. It can’t be manufactured, and I think that authenticity is one of the reasons the brand has resonated with so many people.
That said, there are definitely trade-offs. When you’re the face of a business, there’s less separation between the company and you as a person. The highs feel higher, but the lows can feel more personal too.
There’s also an expectation to always be on-brand: energetic, positive, articulate, and inspiring… even on the days when you’re running on empty. I also feel a responsibility to be honest about the reality behind entrepreneurship, not just the highlight reel.
But overall, I see it as a privilege rather than a burden. Consumers are incredibly good at spotting when something feels manufactured. In a world where people are increasingly sceptical of brands, having founders who genuinely live and breathe the mission creates a level of trust that’s very difficult to replicate. For us, that’s been one of our greatest strengths.
Who are your core customers?
Our core customers started out as health-conscious Gen Z and Millennial consumers looking for a better source of energy, particularly women. Something we noticed early on was that so much of the caffeine and energy category felt designed for men, and as a woman navigating ADHD and anxiety, nothing really felt like it was speaking to me. That gap is a big part of what PerfectTed was built to address.
Over time, though, our customer base has become much broader. What unites them isn’t age or gender, but a desire for sustained energy and focus without the jitters and crashes often associated with coffee or traditional energy drinks.
What’s the split of sales DTC and wholesale (including the major grocers?
We’ve always been a retail and wholesale-led business. Today, only around 15% of our sales come through e-commerce, with the vast majority coming from retail, foodservice, and wholesale channels.
From the beginning, we’ve believed the best marketing is being where your consumer already is. Whether someone’s looking for an afternoon pick-me-up in Tesco, grabbing breakfast at Joe & The Juice, or flying with Virgin Atlantic, we want PerfectTed to be there as the easy choice.
DTC has been valuable for building community, gathering feedback, and launching new products. But our ambition has always been bigger: to make matcha as accessible as possible. That means meeting consumers where they already shop, work, travel, and spend their time.
What NPD (New Product Development) are you most excited about?Honestly, the launches that excite me most are the ones that come from genuine consumer obsession. Our NPD philosophy is simple: copy what customers are already hacking themselves. They were buying our matcha, syrups, and milk separately to recreate café-style drinks at home, so we created products that made that experience easier. The best ideas often come directly from your community if you’re paying attention.
Right now, I’m particularly excited about our revamped Matcha Energy range. We’ve completely repositioned it around what makes us unique: ceremonial-grade matcha. The range features four sparkling, fruity, no-added-sugar flavours— Very Cherry, Juicy Peach, Strawberry, and Lemon Lime—each powered by 80mg of natural caffeine and 80mg of L-theanine from matcha for a smoother energy experience.
It’s a deliberate move towards a matcha-first energy platform and reflects our belief that the energy category can be bigger than extreme sports, black cans, and products designed almost exclusively for men.
More broadly, I’m always excited by formats that remove friction. The biggest opportunity for matcha isn’t convincing people of the benefits—it’s making it easier to incorporate into their daily lives. Whether that’s RTD products, pods, sticks, or entirely new formats, I’m most excited by innovations that make matcha feel effortless, accessible, and enjoyable for everyday consumers.
Where do you see the business in three, five years?
Three years from now, I want PerfectTed to be undeniably mainstream—the brand people instinctively think of when they think of matcha or healthier energy. I want matcha to be as normal as ordering a coffee, and for PerfectTed to have played a meaningful role in making that happen.
When you look at where we are today, having built the world’s largest matcha brand, created an entirely new category, reached over 40,000 distribution points across 50-plus countries, it’s easy to feel proud of how far we’ve come. But what excites me most is how much opportunity still lies ahead. We haven’t even entered the US in a meaningful way yet, and that’s one of the largest and most exciting growth opportunities in front of us.
That said, I try not to think only in terms of revenue or valuation. What matters most to me is building a brand that genuinely improves people’s lives. Matcha changed my life, which is why PerfectTed exists in the first place. If we can help millions of people feel more focused, calmer, healthier, and more energised — while building an incredible team and company along the way — that’s what success looks like to me.
