Renée Elliot: Founder of Planet Organic

0:00From GEICO Subconscious News, I'm Tammy Racing Thoughts. Tonight, you just left for work and had a non-specific feeling that something was happening to your place and it wasn't good. Dan? Exactly, Tammy. It could be smoke damage, theft, or just too much caffeine, but you can't stop thinking about it. But with renter's insurance through GEICO, your stuff is covered, so you don't have to worry. And that's great, because the weekend is coming up and it's chock full of social obligations that are ready to fill that void. Oh boy, will they, Dan? It feels good to worry less. It feels good to GEICO. Welcome to the Jazz Shapers podcast from Mishkondorea.

0:33What you're about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM. However, the music has been cut due to rights issues.

0:43This is Jazz Shapers with Elliot Moss on Jazz FM. In partnership with Mishkondorea. It's business, but it's personal.

0:56Listen in colour. Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with a musician shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guest today is Renee Elliott, founder of Planet Organic, the UK's first organic supermarket and one of my favourites. Inspired by the life-changing book Diet for a Small Planet about the environmental toll of meat production and spotting a gap in the UK market for the kind of organic food culture that was emerging in the US, Renee founded Planet Organic in 1995, I remember it well, believing supermarkets could be ethical, stylish and forward-thinking.

1:29Having expanded to multiple stores across London, Renée, initially retaining a stake in the company, was actually pushed out of the company and then went to raise her family in Tuscany and launched a coaching and training organisation as well focused on women entrepreneurs and leaders. But in 2023, with Planet Organics sales down 50 % from where they've been, Renée returned to rescue them from administration, restoring the brand's values and mission and describing it as, and I quote, the hardest I've ever worked, but the most fun I've ever had. Renee Elliott, my business shaper, the founder of Planet Organic.

2:02But it's drama from the moment we get going. You were pushed out. I want to start there. It's not the beginning of 1995. You were pushed out. What does it feel like to be pushed out as the founder of a business? I described it at the time. It felt like because Planet is me and I am Planet. It's a part of me. I birthed it in a different way than you birth children. I created every nuance of it. So it felt like my right arm was ripped off without anesthesia. How do you come back from that? It took a long time. And we left the country because, A, I couldn't talk about it. I had a gag order. And people may have thought that was because I got a huge payout.

2:47It wasn't. I got a year's salary. But I needed that because they pushed my husband and I out. So it was our only income. and I had three young children, seven, four, and one. So we needed to take a year's salary. And then I said, I can't even be here. You know, with someone else running the company and not a part of it. So we left and went to Italy for a year, which turned into three and a half years. But I did a lot of, like, my husband hadn't ever not worked. So we got there and he said, what do I do? And I said, chop wood, carry water. And I said, and build me a really big vegetable garden.

3:21and we had a tiny farm with an olive grove and an orchard and some grapes and he grew vegetables. But what I was saying was slow down, breathe, you know, meditate because it had been a very difficult and intense 10 years and he had taken the brunt of the difficulty from the shareholders. So I said, just slow it down. And I slowed down and was a mom and cooked and baked and did all those lovely things. And we were literally in the land, you know, it was get in the dirt, go for walks, pick the olives. And over time, I got over it, forgave the horror of what had happened, and moved on. But, and I believe about that in life.

4:03I believe that it's gripping anything, thoughts, emotion, the past that cause pain for people. And when you can let go, when you can drop, you're free. But anger and trauma are things, aren't they? They are, but under anger is sadness. And if you can get to the sadness and let that go and trust that, and this is, we're heading right into spirituality, but for me, it's a very spiritual framing that if you trust that your life is unfolding as it should, and everything that happens are lessons that you need to learn and move on, then there's no, oh, poor me, woe is me. And that's been my MO forever.

4:42I never throw a pity party, not then or right at the beginning when my partner tried to take Planet from me. Had you ever experienced that kind of pain in your life before? I had, because I actually say the worst thing that ever happened to me was two years after Planet started, my business partner, who I had been very close to, wanted Planet for himself. and we ended up in a 14-month trial. Sorry, a 14-month litigation and an 11-day trial in the high courts. And that was incredibly difficult. That was sustained amygdala, fight-flight-freeze, didn't know what was going to happen. If I had lost, I would have been bankrupted because my legal bill was enormous and I don't come from privilege.

5:27I'm a small-town American girl. We've talked about immediately pain and trauma and you, you know, as you said, it's like the universe doing its thing. It's like you're very philosophical about it. Have you experienced that pain and trauma? You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but I hope you do, in personal life. And if so, how did that compare? Because I'm just interested in how you've dealt with different things because I see you and I see a very strong, I see a person who has dealt with stuff and I just wonder where that strength comes from. Interesting. Of course, nobody has asked that question before.

6:05And I don't think so. I mean, we have relationship, you know, we all have relationship issues, family, marriage, children. But I am very blessed. And I think the answer to that being no is because when I was 19, I had this epiphany about not wanting what I saw around me in terms of convention. I wanted better. I didn't want non-organic meat. You referenced the book. I didn't want to eat that. So I became a vegetarian. I wanted a better relationship than I saw on Hollywood films and in the relationships around me as a kid looking at adults. I wanted a better schooling system. So I started on an alternative path at 19, and I kind of framed what I now call your circle of well-being, and it has six spheres of well-being.

7:00And I teach that now as a year of transformational development. But the point of that is that I started on an alternative journey to find what better was. Because what I saw around me was not better. What was the trigger? What was the trigger? It was the book. It was the book, really? It was the book. It was Direct for a Small Planet. I read that book and it felt to me like the end of innocence. I had a beautiful childhood, very innocent in the countryside. You know, you grow up thinking that life is beautiful and people are kind. and then you realize that isn't necessarily the case. And for me, I read that book and thought, oh my God, no one's looking after my health, not the government when you look at the way meat is farmed in America, not the government, not the farmer, not the supermarket.

7:46And it was like being slapped in the face. And I thought, I don't want this. I want different and I want better. And better isn't what the masses are doing. Incredibly young to have that epiphany because often people read, even though I go, I cast my own back to when I was 19. I read stuff that was important, but I don't know if it changed my life. It shook me. And I actually believe that's where, when I started working on Planet Organic, after I read that book. So that led me on an alternative path. And what that led me to was personal development. Do you frame that when I say that? Personal development, self-awareness?

8:21Yeah. Understanding yourself, the discovery of self, and the learning, the learning in your life. So there's the doing line and the being line. And it's that discovery of self and who you are. And really importantly within that, like who are you? Then you can be yourself, but then really importantly, manage yourself. And that's learning how to break negative patterns of behavior and thinking and that inner critic. And so I started working on that really young. And that's been a parallel journey for me. And I've woven that into Planet and the work I do as a coach. so any personal mishap I've had along the way has been harnessed it has and my husband Brian we took that journey together and we've been together for 40 years yes and you still are together and we are better than ever it's magic and that is because we've taken that journey together which is about taking responsibility for yourself your actions your reactions and seeking better, you know, striving for harmony and understanding.

9:29And somewhere in that bridge between the personal and the business is this thought, which is yours, which is never bend your truth. Yes. Is that right? Do you think that's what links the two? Yes. I think that's a beautiful way to frame that. I'm going to steal that. Well, it's yours. But you put it together. I did. So beautifully. Yes. I believe in the truth. I think truth is really important. And there have been times in my life when I haven't been able to tell the truth, and that's crushing for me. And you know when people lie, someone will say, oh my God, he's a pathological liar. My best friend says, I am pathologically honest.

10:05It's like a disease. And that's just so important to me. And I believe that in life, that is incredibly important. Stay with me for much more pathological honesty from my business shaper. It's Renee Elliott. She'll be back in a couple of minutes. Right now, we're going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Innovation Series, which can be found on all the major podcast platforms. Lydia Kellett invites business founders to share their practical advice, industry insights for those of you thinking about starting your very own thing. In this clip, we hear from Bianca Rangecroft, founder and CEO of Wearing, a fashion app on a mission to upend the buy, use, dispose model.

10:39The Mishcon Innovation Series. Inspiration from founders of cutting-edge businesses. in association with Jazz Shapers with Mishkon Derea. And if you had to give a piece of advice to somebody looking to break into the fashion tech world, Bianca, what would that be? I'd say two things. The first, if you're a founder and you're starting this journey, I'd say really focus on your strengths. Solve for what you cannot do and be really, really honest with what that is. Because the ROI and you focusing on your strengths and building that out as potentially the face of the brand or the face of the technology or the face of the operations of the company is so crucial because time really is money.

11:21And this journey is a marathon and you really can't burn out because you are the MVP. And so solving for what you're not good at allows you to remain as much as possible in a percentage of enjoyment of the work that you do rather than in a percentage of, I've just got to get this done to keep things moving. So really picking that team, being honest with yourself about what you can and can't do is really important to just getting there faster and in a better mental health state. The Mishcon Innovation Series in association with Jazz Shapers with Mishcon Derea. Jazz Shapers on Jazz FM in partnership with Mishcon Derea.

12:01It's business, but it's personal. You can enjoy all our former business shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast and you can catch this very program again if you pop jazz and shapers, That was complicated, wasn't it? Into your favorite podcast platform. My guest today is the pathologically honest Renee. It's what we're going to call you now. Renee Elliott, founder of Planet Organic, the UK's first organic supermarket. I think we should go to 1995. So this is a, you're a woman at 19 who has begun her journey to self and self-awareness and this sense of, hold on a minute, the world ain't a great place.

12:35and then you are able to open your first new version of life, new version of how we should sell food, how we should eat food and all that. It's called Planet Organic. What was going on when you opened the doors for the first time? What was happening in 1995 for you? So I had come to, so I was 30 years old when I started working on Planet and I had come to England to date a guy I'd met on holiday. I'd been here the year before on holiday. so I'd moved over in 1986 and I had other jobs first which were great and fun but I knew very quickly it wasn't what I was going to do for the rest of my life I knew I had a vision and it just took me a little while to find it so in England at the time so I got married to Brian the guy you came over to yeah the guy I met on the bus on the bus yeah and we um lucky your due diligence wasn't important there, right?

13:35I mean, we could be in a whole world of pain, but no, 40 years of marriage, that's okay. It's okay. It worked out. So in England, there were really great little health food stores, but there wasn't a supermarket. There wasn't a one-stop shop and they were not, they were appealing to a very specific, say, hippie customer. And I wanted to take organic from that niche and health food because it is the best food and it's what everyone should be eating and it baffles me why people aren't, it doesn't really, but it's just insane and take that food into the mainstream and put it in a beautiful setting with excellent service and music and plants and displays and all that great stuff that I'd seen in America, which nobody had done.

14:26the other thing that was brewing around that time was genetic modification was obviously been happening for a long time and was brewing in the states and when that came to england early 2000 that impacted us but at the time that wasn't a thing and nobody really knew what organic was so when i opened when we were trying to raise money for the business people really had no idea what the concept was where was the first door westbourne grove that's the flagship yeah it was number 42. The answer to life, the universe and everything. Yes. Yes. Just for you, she's looking going, Elliot, it's okay. Chitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

15:03You know, because you're a man of a certain age. I am. You're absolutely right. It was number 42. Number 42. And that moment the doors open, that moment your vision comes to life, what did that feel like? So we turned 30 years old on November 4th. So it was around this time. And I was actually talking about that story this morning. I was so excited and so I had such a vision for changing. I said, I'm going to change food retailing in the UK. I'm going to bring organic into the mainstream. I had big statements. And I had no idea what I was doing. You know, like all first-time entrepreneurs, I wasn't a Harvard MBA.

15:42I knew how to write a business plan. That was about it. I'd worked in a health food store. But I believe in the power of the individual. And I believe that you can do anything. you set your mind to, that determination is the most important thing in entrepreneurship because you can learn anything. And my dad had told me that when I was a kid, and I'd believed that. So I thought, well, I'll figure it out. And my business partner at the time was similar. He had never run a business. So we were going to find our way together. And it started off slowly. We nearly went under in the first couple of months because nobody knew what we were doing or what it meant.

16:18And we didn't advertise because I didn't believe in advertising. And this was pre the internet. Yes, my children say I started it in the olden days before the internet was just starting in 95. So getting the word out without advertising was tricky. But then there was a BSE scare in February. So we opened in November. Christmas, I thought, we're going down. And then in February a BSE scare hit, and it just gave what we needed, people to suddenly think about the food they were eating, be jolted out of their complacency around, I'm trusting the government and the farmers and whoever to give me food that is good for me and the environment.

16:56And suddenly it was, well, actually, no, this is not. And when Gummer, I don't know if you remember this, John Gummer, had fed his daughter that hamburger on TV in 1988, that was for me, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so on the right path. But so this reared its head again in 96. And we took off and we did 1.2 million our first year out of one store. I'm going to go across time for a moment, but I'm going to talk about your style as a leader. There was a conversation you had with your mom about what kind of, you know, the femininity piece, and it's important to be feminine in who you are. I can't imagine you would have been anything other than exactly who you are.

17:38But what are your observations now with more experience and looking back on feminine traits in business and how well those have been received over time? Not well. Very good. Very nice question. Thank you for that. Yes, my mom asked me if I was afraid of heading into an industry that was very male-dominated, very powerful personalities. and I hadn't been until she said that. Then I thought, okay, yeah, maybe. And she said, and interestingly, she wasn't a business person. She said, Renee, use your femininity as your strength. Don't think you have to act differently. Be yourself, really, which is everything to be yourself in life.

18:26So I took that and it was as if it was okay because my mom said it was okay to do that. and I then created Planet exactly the way I wanted to, which was as a caring business. You know, I started Planet because I care deeply about everything, about people, about planet, and I wanted to channel that into a business that would do good in the world so that my life on this earth had made a positive difference. That was my motivator. and so I made it a feminine business which is a caring nurturing business and I led with values and I wove values through the business in three very distinct ways which I won't go into two ways in terms of our doing and one in terms of our being and that informed not only what we were doing but who we were while we were doing all the doing just humor me though just really quickly because you said it and I'm intrigued I call it the sacred triangle of relationships and that triangle is trust and respect underpinned by good communication.

19:27And I use that, I teach that, I have raised my children with that and it's been a game changer. I've done a million things differently for my parents who did a great job and I love them forever. But the sacred triangle of relationships was the key difference in my parenting. And the way you ran the business. And the way around the business. And that meant I care about people, I was looking after their well-being. It was that whole well-being thing that I had framed when I was 19. And what were those six? Just to remind me, because I read it. So it's physical, occupational, psychological, economic, social, and spiritual.

20:03And because people think well-being, they think mental, physical. Well, well-being is anything that affects anything in your world. So it's everything in your world. And that's everything. So I led with Values. It was a very caring, nurturing company. And for me, business and my life has been the weaving of those two things, that well-being plan and that business plan. And within that, personal development and self-awareness. So you're in awareness about who you are and what you do. It's know yourself, be yourself, manage yourself, and take care of people because why would you not? And I knew that conventional business didn't run that way, but I wasn't interested in that.

20:41I never want to do what anyone else is doing. it didn't go down well with shareholders and other people in my well also the journey would say it's been a bit of a roller coaster right i mean that's the word i use yeah the role of it's up and it's down and in a way i guess the answer to the question about the femininity piece is if only the world understood yes and now i talk about vulnerability because that is for men and women and i went in in my vulnerability and femininity and then my partner came at me for planet, as I said, and I picked up my sword and shield, and I fought the good fight.

21:18And I read Sun Tzu's Art of War, and I read the Bhagavad Gita, which is about the righteous war, and I fought because I can do that too. And then over the years, I thought, yeah, I really don't want to now. And when I went back into planet two years ago, I thought I have to go in, in my softness, in my vulnerability and in where I am now, which is no stress. And I was thinking, I want to ask you as we have our final chat, which will in a minute, about, yeah, what's more fun, vulnerability and no stress or conflict. Final chat, as I promise, will come up shortly with Renee. And we've also got some music from Candy Stath, and that's in just a moment.

21:57Don't go anywhere. Jazz Shapers on Jazz FM. In partnership with Mishkondorea. It's business, but it's personal. Candy Stanton with the brilliant nights on Broadway. If you could see us, we were dancing here on Jazz Shapers. It's Renee Elliott. She's my business shaper. She's the founder of Planet Organic. You broke the rules. You smashed convention. It's exactly why we created this program, to have people like you talk about what they've done. There's a cost to that, right? I mean, you talk about meditation, and you talk about all these fabulous things which are frameworks for thinking and for managing emotions.

22:34but if we went back to a Hobbesian time when the spirit was let loose and you were just this wild creature the wild creature has a lot going on and my sense is that the meditation and the management is to harness that because otherwise, you know, who knows what would happen do you feel like you're managing the hurricane the whole time in your own head? I feel like a force of nature and the meditation creates the stillness that is necessary in that high activity, high desire to do good in the world and creates, and it's in that stillness that you're in touch with your true self. That's where you hear your small still voice or your intuition, whatever you call that, and you're in touch, I believe, with the flow of the universe, But you can only get that in stillness.

23:32So that stillness is where I tap into knowing and peace. And then I take that into the world. But you're like a moth to the flame, Renee, because you're drawn to this thing called changing the world. And you're doing it through a commercial endeavor, which is to get people to eat healthfully and to have part of their well-being sustained. That's really hard. And the journey of ups and downs of Planet Organic, in a way are a manifestation of exactly that, which is you're buttressing up against the world that says, don't be silly, sell it cheap, make it cheaply, have chickens living in little cages, forget all this organic stuff.

24:11The business went away from organic. I mean, that is the ultimate insult to you, the person who is focusing on organic. How do you find your peace now with where you're at, with everything that's happened? Well, going back in, so the previous management team put Planet into administration. at the end of April, 2023. And I was very happily being a coach and a mentor doing my thing. And I got a phone call saying, 30 minutes and it's all over. And I thought, okay, we'll rescue planet. I had no intention of going back. My husband, I put the phone down and he said, do you want it back? And I said, absolutely not, which I now can't believe I couldn't see.

24:54But I was like, nope, been in that pain, done that, moved on, healed. And long story short, we realized we were probably the only people who had the understanding, knowledge, connections to pull Planet out of the mud that it was in. As you said, sales were down 50%. So we had a tiny pot of money. We led a bid. We put the deal together. It was accepted by the administrator. We bought Planet out of administration. And going back in for me was glorious because I said, I'm going back in my femininity. I'm going back without stress. I now have to live what I've been learning and teaching all these decades.

25:33The hurricane has to now be calm. Yes, and lead an amazing team who stayed to feeling loved and cared for again because it was awful for them to lift the business out of the mud, to gain customers' trust again, to go back to organic and bring us back in our lane of organic and healthy food, and to rebrand in a way that reflected planet as a haven in the world. So for me, professionally, personally, spiritually, it's been such a gift and such a success. And the going back, people often say it's like that cinema Paradiso thing, never come back. You know, the bit at the end where Little Man, I loved it.

26:16I mean, that's one of my favorite films. You had to. I had to. My husband said, he was just saying this morning, he said, you stood up. He said, you went back in and you rescued it, even though you were really happy where you were. And it was a huge risk because I couldn't let it die. You don't look stressed. No, no, I'm not stressed. It's the meditation. It's everything. It's self-awareness and wanting joy and peace and living a beautiful life. It's been fabulous talking to you, fabulous meeting you. Thank you for your time. Just before I let you go and lead your beautiful life with, of course, the parenthesis saying, yeah sometimes it gets a bit bumpy apart from the bumps go have fun but before you go what's your song choice and why have you chosen it oh well harry connick jr was was my frank sinatra who was my mom's favorite singer and harry was gorgeous and loved that voice and the lyrics of this song really are me this is my life and my belief system wrapped up in a song that is fabulous to listen to and dance to.