Ep 11: How did Ella Mills turn a blog into a global wellness EMPIRE?

0:12Today's guest started a blog after facing her own health challenges that have since transformed into a global empire. With best-selling cookbooks, products, a deli and a thriving app, she's inspired millions of us to embrace wellness and plant-based living. She is a trailblazer in making healthy eating accessible. Please welcome to the podcast, Ella Mills.

0:36I honestly, I love these conversations so much and I love that I'm sort of getting to hang out with people and talk to people that I feel like I've either spoke to a little bit on Instagram or seen their success from afar and really admired it and followed it so I'm so pleased you're here thank you thank you so much for coming I always start at the beginning because I feel like it's the beginning of everybody's life is such a real sort of shaper into the person that you then become and I think almost every woman that I've spoken to had a real significant influence really started from that early age.

1:13So I want to know a little bit about you, your upbringing, and I suppose your influence. Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I've been genuinely so looking forward to this. Love the show. I've been really enjoying being a listener so far. It's interesting. I often look back on anything in my childhood that potentially shaped the way I work today and when I hear other people's stories I feel like there are these obvious tangible motivations and I don't know if I have them and I only say that because I think so often when I've heard people talk I have thought oh well you were always top of the class or you were always stand out or you were always confident in yourself and obviously that can kind of manifest in lots of different ways but I was not I was not particularly confident I was distinctly average and and I don't mean it in a self-deprecating way I just mean I was like fine at everything right I wasn't particularly good at anything I didn't shine anywhere I wasn't really sociable nor did I have no friends I wasn't really good at school nor was I failing I wasn't really good at sport nor was I failing I just was distinctly average right and I came in my family that was were not the case for my brothers and my brother and my sisters and they were all had things that they were so so good at and so it always felt that I probably wouldn't achieve a huge amount in my life that's so interesting and did you find that when you were younger was that quite a sort of tough pill to swallow because you know if you could see your siblings already shining and you're okay but just okay distinctly average distinctly average how how was that then um it definitely I think and I've been reflecting on it because I definitely imposter syndrome has been a kind of massive blocker for me and a kind of interesting challenge to try and overcome or manage and I'm sure that fed into it a lot of always um feeling like you probably were never going to be good enough to do something um so I think at the time I didn't particularly noticed it in a way one of the blessings is that there weren't kind of huge expectations so I've always surprised everyone like I've just continuously been shocked exactly I'd rather be that because sometimes I pop up and everyone's like oh girl didn't see that from you well done exactly and so that was really nice especially in the early stages of Delicious Yellow it didn't feel like my family or friends were watching me and my brother had always been the star was always you know it just was so brilliant growing up and I felt everyone was watching him waiting to see him succeed and and he's he's absolutely fantastic but I didn't have that and in a way as you said it's kind of an absolute blessing and I found that quite helpful early in my career because everyone would be like that's amazing that you've done which is so it's a really kind of that's a sort of blessing and a curse because you kind of you don't you want to get out of that sort of mindset where you think you know I am average or I am okay or this isn't going to be me but equally at the same time you can be plotting away and nobody expects it exactly yeah is a blessing and a curse you're from a real entrepreneurial family your family name is Sainsbury and I think I want I want to touch on this because I I worry you are giving me all of the hope in the world because I worry I worry of my own children there's this real kind of divide on I want to work really hard so that you know I build a life for them that I my mum could only wish for for me right so that's one side of it and I don't want them to ever have to worry but I'm towing the line of striking the right balance of I really want them to graft and I really want them to have their own passion and I really want them to have that fire that I had and I wasn't I'm never sure if there was a fire because there was a certain lifestyle that there was you know I couldn't touch and I wanted so badly so um you've given me so much hope because I know that you you've you know you've had a privileged upbringing upbringing you're around you know a lot of entrepreneurs did that come with pressure to meet a standard or or did it feel a little bit easier that there might be a kind of common ground I think it's a great question.

5:44And I think it's probably a nuanced answer. I don't think it's a yes or a no. I think I certainly feel extraordinarily lucky to have had such a privileged background. And I think there was certainly a level of pressure to live up to the people that you met or the people that you were introduced to. and how could you do something stand out too um which I definitely struggled with as I said because I just didn't wasn't really good at anything right so I couldn't really see how I would pull that off but equally I think there was this and I didn't definitely didn't realize it at the time but there was also this quite just um subconscious belief that you could do something different yeah and that that was possible um so it was the last people to work in the sainsbury's business with my grandfather and his two brothers and and their cousin that was when it went public and and the family haven't worked in the business since so that was decades before i was born but obviously they had built one of the biggest companies in the country um you know one of the biggest brands that we've ever had in sainsbury's and so there was this belief like you could do that of course that's possible and even though we didn't talk about it which in retrospect now talking to my grandfather who's now in his early 90s I'm like desperate for information from him I didn't tap into you enough exactly your career you know the what you were brought up in like that's extraordinary and what they achieved is just absolutely mind-boggling and early in my career and I'm really in a way I'm quite ashamed of it now I really was so uncomfortable talking about it because well like my whole life there was this sense of like either as you know as a kid almost like being dismissed you know you must be a brat because you're privileged and that's your family um and I think in in my work it's always like well you must have been given it um that is so hard and it's a really interesting because it's not to do away with having a privileged upbringing and having you know when I started my career living with my parents there was it was a you know roof over my head in a very safe way um but they didn't build the business not in any shape or form and um and they didn't introduce us to anyone that built the business so there was the inspiration and the belief that you could do that certainly in that a bit of a pressure to achieve it yeah um but I found it really uncomfortable to talk about and I almost sort of wanted to disown myself from it because I so desperately didn't want anyone to think that the success of delicious siela was in any shape or form due to my grandfather and do you know what it's in and i can i can relate to that on a different scale but i remember when i first launched my little cocoa and we launched and we were number one at boots and there was a lot of feedback of oh well of course because she's got a following and i'm like this doesn't let me tell you i have been the front of and the face of something and we've had some flops you know it doesn't you you can't necessarily yes of course in some nights that you know put extra eyes on it but actually for those customers to keep buying it again that's that's the real challenge we had so of course the sort of first week month was great because we had those you know that initial influx but for us to keep a part of that customer's life that's a very different challenge and I kind of get that you that expectation that people think oh of course it must be nice or it's easy for her is hard because you you acknowledge and you appreciate the privilege but equally it's really separate in this in this instance and I think it's so interesting as well what you're saying about my little cocoa is ultimately it's success whilst I think there is so much power in the world today of brand where it's so saturated to have cut through having somebody who has some following or influence to be able to kick start as you said that awareness to be able to get that PR that conversation going that curiosity of what you've created but it won't succeed as you said past that first week month day even if the product isn't good and I think it's very interesting because obviously this much more person-centered brand is so common nowadays with the birth of social media right in particular not just celebrities now like big a-list celebrities like just big tiktok influences is ultimately it can create a lot of buzz there can be millions of people who find out about it in a second there can be weightless as long as your arm but if the product isn't good and it's not in the right store and it's not at the right price and the margins don't make sense and you don't have the right supply chain and all these boring things that exist underneath it it won't be a success and it's interesting last year so 2024 we sold our hundredth million product wow and I was like okay I think I can say it I think I've done this and it's not just me it took to that point we all see it which is so funny it's that kind of that's where that imposter syndrome kicks in a little right because we could all see it from the outside but it took you that mahusive milestone for that to sort of register yeah and look it's obviously the amazing team that we have at Delish Cellar and I work with my husband as well he's our CEO like it's a whole team effort obviously not it's not just me but I wish I look back on it and I'm like I wish I could have felt semblance of that when we hit five million products ten million products like what is wrong with me um to have had to get so far to feel like okay I think I've proved it now I think people like this now yeah exactly I think we proved a point um when I speak to our guests there has really been a common thread of products, brands, businesses, companies that take off and do well.

11:35They all sort of stem and they're born from a problem that the founder was, I guess, trying to solve. I want to start with your why. And I know that you started as a blog, so I kind of want to go back to the kind of initial Deliciously Ella tell me about the blog and what were your reasons for starting it yeah absolutely and I think it's a really interesting point as well in terms of this show because so many men that I have listened to or heard speak when they've founded a company it's so often it's a gap in the market yes they have always been entrepreneurs they've always been ambitious they've always backed themselves and then they see this space and they go for it and so often with women it's actually they never thought they could be an entrepreneur they never thought they were going to have this career but they had a problem they solved it for themselves and in doing that realized they could solve it for other people um so I think that's extraordinarily common when it comes to female entrepreneurs but certainly yeah that was my case um and I never intended to start a business but back in 2011 so a long time ago now when I was in my second year of university I got very unwell um and I had a problem with my autosomic nervous system I spent about a year in that hospital um I saw every consultant neurologist endocrinologist gastroenterologist like the longest I spent in hospital any one time was was 10 days and I was having MRIs swallowing cameras having endoscopies colonoscopies cystoscopies like ultrasounds you name it i was tested for everything under the sun um and it took a long time to get the diagnosis but eventually this condition that affected the functioning of my autonomic nervous system so things that should be happening by themselves like controlling my heart rate digestion circulation um it wasn't working properly so when i stood up my heart rate be 180 190 your blood pressure can drop you feel like you're going to pass out if you don't actually pass out constantly dizzy it felt like my head was disconnected from my body wow um i looked more pregnant then than i did when i was about seven seven and a half months pregnant with my daughter um or both my daughters um had constant pain migraines um chronic fatigue i was sleeping like 16 18 hours a day oh my goodness um so basically nothing was working and no one was exactly sure what to do about it um it was relatively new relatively under studied illness so it was put on about 25 different medications a day they're all repurposed from other conditions so no one was promising that they would work um but i just assumed they would and um then maybe three or four months later it became really clear that they weren't working and i hit an absolute rock bottom with my mental health which at that up until that point I think I had just been in living in the belief that someone else could solve the problem for me and I was desperate for them too um and it became clearer and clearer that that wasn't going to happen in this case um and then for the next few months I just completely resigned myself to it I was extraordinarily apathetic um I couldn't do much but I didn't want to do anything I basically like just watched terrible tv on repeat um and was in a very very dark place um and i don't really know exactly what prompted it but then one day that i had this realization that i was very much hiding from reality and wasn't facing up to yeah the reality of the fact that without making any changes or something fundamentally shifting from where i was then that although as i said i wasn't really ambitious growing up I didn't have these massive hopes and dreams I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life or was capable of doing with my life um I was going to be living at home with my mum forever um and I was never going to be able to have a normal job I never thought you know get married have children these things I'd really taken for granted of things that I would be able to do in my life should I want to and I suppose when you when there's that fear of not being able to do any of that you start to live right you start to think okay there's a reason to mend this exactly um 100 and so so i turned to google um

16:02exactly um and i started reading stories of people all over the world who um had used facets of diet, lifestyle, nutrition to improve their health. And it's so conscious I'm saying that today, 14 years later, where health and wellness is such a obviously front and center topic, there's so much information out there. But at this point, talking about our lifestyle, what we eat and the link between that and our health felt very left field, quite alien. Yeah. And I was, but I was so inspired by these, all these different stories I was reading. And And I've thought, well, if it's worked for them, it might work for me.

16:40And I have absolutely nothing to lose. And at the same time, I spoke to my godmother, who at a similar age in her mid-twenties had had Emmy. And when she, she was, I think, housebound for about six years while she had Emmy. And she said the thing that saved her was a hobby. And obviously the hobby had to be plausible for her reality, which was not really being able to do anything. but it had become photography and she'd become obsessed with photography and she was learning how to use camera and taking photos of everything around where she was and I thought okay no that's that's really good advice I am rotting here in I the lack of kind of get up and go and productivity and just being in bed all day like eating sweets and refreshing a new tv show or watching it's like a cycle isn't it and one it's it's a hard one to break a hundred percent I was refreshing Facebook book and like watching what my friends were doing and the fun they were having and the world that I wasn't a part of and feeling lonelier and more disconnected and just extraordinarily as they said apathetic and so I thought you know this is actually this is what I need I need some semblance of focus in my life I need to feel like I can tick something off a to-do list um and so I thought okay I'm going to learn to cook I'm going to see if what you know be inspired by those people's stories I'm going to teach myself to cook I'm going to make natural food filled with fruits and vegetables delicious something that I want to eat but I'm going to force myself to do it by creating a blog so I'm going to take photos of it and I'm going to learn about blogging and I'm going to record this online and that will be my hobby almost the blog was holding you accountable exactly to kind of try and snap out of this cycle 100 % I am so all or nothing in everything that I do drives my husband mad this is me yeah it's like 300 or minus 50 um and um and so i've yeah you i'm all in or or i'm not at all and i think that that sense of being held account was really important and the aim was to make it delicious so delicious yellow was born and i didn't want to show anyone it wasn't as you said it was a personal project to hold myself accountable um but I started doing it and I said if I get 10 ,000 hits on it because the world of blogging was sort of starting and people were finding things but organically online then I'll show my friends and family um okay because I'd been really embarrassed of it and I thought because I remember telling someone and they were like but why would you write about food like you don't cook you don't really like food you don't really like fruits and vegetables this feels a little disconnect um I don't think people are going to want advice from you on this topic you weren't the go-to Fred Natri that you would say how do I cook this or give us the recipe for this oh my gosh no like I didn't it wasn't really interesting yeah it's so ironic it said it was like deeply unambitious would have been voted least likely person to ever start a company and didn't really like fruits and vegetables so it's like yeah it's a real 360 in my life um but 180 sorry but um anyway and so that's how it came about and then it exploded and it wasn't really meant to explode that wasn't wasn't my goal but suddenly in the next two years the site had about 150 million hits and I had people all over the world writing in and they were literally yeah and I think there was like a hundred and something countries and people were sharing their stories of how it helped them and it was really helping me with with with my well-being and by two years later after completely changing my lifestyle i'd come off all my medication and really stabilized my health and built this enormous community of people who were so interested in a natural lifestyle and plant-based cooking and simple everyday recipes and um and again this was when this wasn't common no one else was really doing this you couldn't get those recipes and everywhere and you can not so accessible exactly and on the back of that it was all about responding to this community um and so initially they went to cooking classes and workshops and supper clubs and really bringing offline sorry online offline and meeting people in real life who shared those interests so we rented a community kitchen up in old street um and then we did 10 to 12 people cooking classes um and i just like again i was thinking about it on my way here because as i said like imposter syndrome is still kind of my my enemy for sure and I was like I'm really proud of like it's like carrying all these ingredients and printing off these recipes and teaching these like 10 lovely people how to massage kale and

21:20but it was just this amazing sense and it's always been the drive it's never been I want to create a company that meets x metric or y metric the guest of this revenue or sells this many products it's always been how can we do something that feels useful to people and it felt useful for people and as a result I had this kind of extraordinary hunger and motivation as I said I'm so all in when I'm in and I remember when my husband and I then met he was like do you reply to people on Instagram all night like two in the morning and she'd be playing to like Sharon and York about whether she could swap cashews for peanuts she's a really nice lady I'm sorry I'm busy she's cooking right now she needs to know it's it's so interesting because like you say you're coming with the idea that you're going to show your family once you get 10 ,000 views and then it snowballs and two years in you're 100 million plus which is just wild.

22:17At that point are you outsourcing people to help you? Because there's only, like you say, you're replying to Sharon who needs to know about cashes but there's actually only one of you and I can imagine there's lots of questions and lots of people that you want to help and be a part of but it's kind of impossible to reach that many people right definitely um but I really gave it a good go it was you know completely 24 7 365 days a year and then and then I met my now husband so that was the start of 2015 so my first cookbook came out so I built this community to rewind um and I was everything I was doing wasn't sitting down with a business plan it was responding to what they wanted okay and they wanted a cookbook and so I wrote a book proposal I sent it out to lots of literary agents um and one person gave me a really enthusiastic reply um she's still my agent today we've been working together since yeah 2014 she's amazing um and she took it out to several publishers and one of them bid on it bought it and so that was beginning of 2014 I wrote the cookbook that year it came out the start 2015 um and again it was just this really unexpected success um and I was 23 at this point I mean I was a complete baby had no idea what I was doing but this community that we that I had built was really really engaged yeah and so we sold our cookbooks before it was published can I just ask a question here because I it's so interesting hearing you say that so there was kind of like you say no expectation or no idea of how this book would do or if anybody would want it is that Ella or is that the publisher or like were you all blown away or is that you or was that a you thing blown away I remember when I was sending out the book prose my mum was like if you sold 500 copies that would be so cool we've now done like 1.5 million so which is amazing but no I think it was a kind of group effort but also it was really early days Instagram which yeah nobody really knew how to navigate no or what it what it meant so that was January 2015 and we had a couple of hundred thousand followers on the Delicious Yellow page then then we had this massive blog that had millions of people reading it um and so it was that community that sold us out of books and I think they'd done a print run of say 20 ,000 books assuming we could hopefully sell those to our instagram community right but it was that it was such an early stage where you didn't have kind of influences it wasn't you didn't have that model at that point yeah and i don't think anyone had completely ascertained the commercial value of a community and that amazing conversation that you can have directly with people yes and so there was an assumption that really for like a cookbook to go massive you would need an accompanying tv show and all these much more traditional like the promo route exactly let's go into a radio show 100 % you know media magazine exactly and yes you'd want a cooking show that was accompanying the book and that was how you had a mega success right and there just wasn't a lot of case studies of what social media really meant um which is obviously again fast forward today it's so fundamentally different um so no we were all really really really surprised and on the back of that the kind of media really picked up on it and there was just this explosion and suddenly as I said I was 23 had spent most of the last few years on my own with my mom in bed and suddenly it was like on every radio show you know broadcast print media and it was extraordinary um but so so unexpected became the fastest selling debut cookbook of all time at that point like it was just what does this mean it means you're on to something um and so then and then three weeks later I got an email from my dad and um he said I've got had an email from someone I work with son he's read an interview about what you do in the times and he thinks it's really interesting and is curious to hear more about it for something that he's working on do you mind if I put you guys in touch okay and I was like that's a bit weird um and he was like p.s he's really handsome okay dad um and I'd just broken up with a long-term boyfriend and anyway I met him and we moved in together a week later got a dog like three weeks after that and then a couple of weeks later he quit his job and we started working together and really worked to stop just being responsive as in being responsive and being community focused was a course was and will always be a core part of the business but actually sat down we're like what should we do with this a bit yeah like so hang on well this is just blowing my mind so you your dad's got this email and I suppose you'd only really take that seriously if the email come by your dad you know there's lots of emails that people get that say oh I've seen this and somebody thinks you're interesting yeah and he and my dad had worked with my husband's mom for I don't know how many years but a long time they'd worked together and so he was like kind of also not as a favorite but like it would be polite to meet him as well because that's my colleague of course and um so this is I love this this is great so so originally you met with the idea of perhaps doing something together and seeing where this could go and that was kind of a networking exactly so and then you fancied the pants off it but it all went wrong a week later and then I was like saying to my family I was like cool so uh we're gonna work together we're gonna live together we'll be married within the year we've got it all I told you I go all in it's all in or nothing at all um so but yeah so we were introduced to work together so so obviously like you know your whole life began then like you say you're in a relationship but when you were you know pairing to work together what was the idea what was he going to bring to the table that you weren't already doing a hundred percent and I think I'm I think it's so important to acknowledge where your strengths lie and your weaknesses and I think that the temptation is and I think also maybe as women as well we want to prove that we can kind of do it all be it all nobody can do it all be it all um we're still finding for that we're still finding that woman we're looking for her I know exactly it's Barbie even she had a mount dad in the movie i'm not sure and she has many clones of herself so no no one is i think it's just kind of can't say that loud enough and i think it was so clear to me what i was good at and what i loved was building the brand the mission the community trying to change the food industry trying to show people a different way to cook trying to get people obsessed with eating more plants um to show people you could eat 100 naturally and it still tastes good I wanted to change the way that people ate I wanted to have an impact on the food landscape I wasn't very interested in spreadsheets exactly and ultimately like you you you also you cannot put all your energy into all of it but I had been approached to license the delicious yellow nay right I've got you and I did not want to do that I wanted control and what was your reservation because I think that's interesting because we discussed this because I sort of got approached in the baby realm and that was also never for me what was your reservations about because I have had lots of license license in propositions but this felt a little different there were a few I think there were a few reasons um I think the first off is that I had done a little bit of influencer work right um as people were kind of catching on to like can we monetize these platforms and and I did one with by the way a brand I still buy and I still really like but it was recipes inspired by cleaning products which already is like it's slightly it's a tenuous thing and I had to do this recipe inspired by floor cleaner and I still remember it and I was like the script said this almond soup was inspired by the fragrances of the almond in the floor cleaner and I was just like I can't do this like this is just not me um and so i actually loved the brand hard for anybody to get across the line by the way fair play like that's hard and i say like i literally still buy the brand i love it but i was like this doesn't make sense to me and i want control of the creative and i want control of how the comes across and as i said i've had this like almost i think naive at times obsession with being useful to people changing the way that I ate completely changed my life and I didn't I wanted to do that for other people and I didn't want to commercialize that in a way that kind of lost the integrity of what that mission was and what that message was in an authentic way to you exactly and so I just felt so obsessive about getting that mission to people and I felt that that slightly diluted it and at that point you've already built such a brand and people trust you and you've got that community so i suppose that will always weigh heavy on you because you're like no no no these i want to deliver for them people here exactly and then equally there was i mean i remember going into supermarkets when i changed my diet and looking at products and being like why are there so many additives in this product surely you could make this without 25 extra ingredients like why do we why do we have to use flavorings why can't we use food to flavor it and i was so passionate about changing that and again I felt that was such an interesting opportunity I didn't want to give it to someone else but it also was so clear that that was so different to the status quo at the time right yeah believing that someone else would actually kind of follow through with like no when I say no no additives I mean no flavorings not natural flavorings none of it um and so I wanted I wanted it to be ours yeah and my husband was he is so much more entrepreneurial than me I am like mission obsessed delivering to that community and he is someone who could like make a business out of a toilet roll holder like a dream combination I remember when we met exactly he was like he had literally read me this list of like 47 things he could do from like landfill ideas to a food and farming group he was working with in Sierra Leone I mean it was like anything you can think of and it's just how his brain works and he loves numbers he like loves it spreadsheet i'm in awe of those people that love numbers but i suppose it's you have your strength right then he i'm sure is in in our review and how the creative and the branding and the mission so i think like you say we do all have our strengths exactly and it was such an obvious bit and he had he hated his job i was so miserable there and was desperate to get out of it and start his own thing and was why he had his list of 47 ideas and i remember coming home and like he was like was just show me the numbers of say that cooking class and I was like yeah here's like the back of a piece of paper and again I don't say this to be like overly self-deprecating I'm so proud of what I've built yeah but I think it's also important to say like I wasn't good at that part of delicious yellow like the business so much opportunity was coming in we were making money but not because I had a really really good track of it not in any shape or form and and also I think it was really clear that it wasn't going to live forever no one is relevant forever unless you're brad pit you know you've got to be such a mega a-lister with such extraordinary kind of body of work taylor swift will be relevant forever i don't think there's many people you can say that about and delicious yellow was having this moment it was very relevant it was very topical it was very kind of felt culturally of 2015 yeah and it's making hay where the sun shines 100 % like I need I want to say yes this opportunity but also I want to be really considered and exactly really want to build something without compromise and it needs longevity and I wasn't going to personally be interesting for the rest of time and so I think what was so clear was there was this amazing opportunity on the back of the book and all the press it had created on this community who were hungry for goods and services that delivered on this promise of creating natural plant-based food which didn't exist at that point but also creating something that would go so far past me and continue to service that community but in a way that had longevity it could go for a hundred years you can't as i said i think unless you're brad pitt or taylor swift your relevancy will not last a hundred years yeah um and so it was hot but at that point but it can easily flip and we wanted to take it but then really really eke it out and that was where turning into you You know, how do we actually change the food landscape by changing what's on shelf in supermarkets as our core, obviously continuing to provide those recipes and inspiration every day for people as well.

35:10And so that's really where it came from. And it was so obvious that together we would be able to take advantage of that, that separately we never could. It's like yin and yang, isn't it? Put it together and you're flying. So then the product idea is born, although I'm sure it's been an idea for a very long time. What was your first step? What was your first route into that? because like you say you are really bridging a gap that currently isn't filled you don't want to compromise by partnering or licensing with a pre-existing brand because the fear of not having control and them sort of sneaking in things and ideas and you having to sort of go with that because it might meet certain margins so how do you what is the first product that you feel so passionate to release and how did you go about it so our most popular recipe at this point um had been an energy ball and it was five ingredients almonds almond butter dates cacao and a pinch of salt right it's really simple it was one of the first things that i made it's been in the first cookbook we had um our first version of our app at that point it was by far our community's like number one thing you see on social the whole time and there was a product on market from brand called bounce and that had 20 plus ingredients right and i was thinking i was saying but i make these at home and they last for ages and they're made of five ingredients and they have no additives in why can't, why can't we put this on, on shelf?

36:32And so obviously it's, you kind of go into all this with this like blind, naive optimism, which is easy, right? I'm just doing it in my kitchen. And you desperately need that. I think when you start, when you start, um, because it's all so much harder than you could ever imagine. So the first thing that we did, and again, we were very, very lucky because we had this brand, we had no product, but we had a brand. Yes. Um, was we, again, acknowledge your strengths, acknowledge your weaknesses. What are you good at? I, understood the brand and the community Matt understood the business and the finances but neither of us had ever sold a product into retail like had no idea how to go about the margin structure how do you find a manufacturer etc so we said we we've got to hire someone who's absolutely brilliant at this um and so we went out again like Matt's straight on LinkedIn just found as many people as possibly could and we hired um still a friend today a great guy who was the head of innovation at innocent drinks at that time and he was he came to work with us um and was absolutely amazing learned so much from him um but we then went out to find a manufacturer and in the food industry it's really difficult to find a manufacturer if you don't have a listing so it's a bit of a kind of chicken egg situation you need a big retail listing to promise them a volume um of course of course because they want that commitment but the retailer obviously needs you to have a way to make it to service that money so yeah that's a really kind of hard it's similar in toiletries but not so I think it's one of the most the biggest barriers into it is you can kind of start on a smaller scale and get into smaller stores but to get into the big supermarkets you need the read the manufacturer but the manufacturer needs the retailer because they need that volume and I suppose to bring that kind of to make it viable to make it in a into kind of in a in a manufacturing facility like that but also no one would work with us because everybody said you have to add flavorings you have to add this stabilizer you have to add this emulsifier and so basically no one would work with us um because the argument was basically like it's impossible it can't be done it's too difficult it's too expensive it's too time consuming it's just not efficient for us um and just not what any just not what people were doing exactly and so it was a hard no from basically anyone we approached and then we found this very small very entrepreneurial teeny teeny teeny factory um up near milton keynes and the guy who owned it at the time was just fantastic and he was like i'll give it a go when you when you find that one that one person yeah change everything changes everything yeah um and um and a year ago we bought the business and so that's our factory now and so we still make the same product there just in much larger volumes how special is that that's incredible which is amazing but um but so that's how we started and then again matt who's my husband it was he's just he's a lot it was a lot bolder than me which said okay well if the aim has to change the way that people eat obviously where we really need to be to start with is places that are on the go and um you know we don't want to be at the back of store to start with we want to be where you're buying a coffee and you immediately have that option to have something more natural something healthier genius and so he was like i think i'll just find who runs starbucks uk and i was like love this okay sure um it's like straight on linkedin emailed you know eight different versions of the guy's name you know different dots in different places at starbucks.co.uk.com whatever it was and anyway and the guy replied within like an hour and said I've seen this brand everywhere um this is really exciting like come and meet us this week and our colleague excitement levels go through the roof completely buzzing and our colleague who'd worked at Innocent was like Starbucks are really tough like they're super tough negotiators like be ready so we kind of really prepped and we went in they were like we've got gift bags for you all the warmest reception of all time and they were like this is amazing we've got nothing like this we want to list it now but we want it in a say i think it was in a month's time we were like obviously we can do that of course we had no product no packaging um why do we do this to ourselves say yes now and figure out everything else will be loose but it's what you have to do like i know it's so cliche to say opportunities don't grow on trees but they don't know like every now and again you know so much of success in life, in business is luck.

40:59It's being in the right place at the right time. And Delicious Cielo was in the right place at the right time. It was a moment in which people's attitudes towards food were shifting, but they weren't catered for. Yes. There weren't the recipes, there weren't the products, there wasn't the conversation. And people want things easy. Exactly. You want to be able to, you want to make the help. We all like to think we're making the right choices and we want to make those healthy choices. But if there isn't anything there to say, you know, there's the big pack sandwich or there's the ball that actually I just want a quick snack or the packet of crisps versus the energy ball you need to you need you know you can't be what you can't see you need that visibility so you've got to meet people where they are and so and so obviously we just we ran with it and it was it was an extraordinary experience and we've we've kind of built everything from that point on these these first three four or five ingredient energy balls that we launched so there's a cashew and ginger cacao and almonds and hazelnut and radon it's just i mean it's genius so at this point that they're kind of i suppose that's just a bit of a domino effect right when you've got starbucks in and they understand and they're in you know you must feel at that point that the world is your oyster right 100 i mean it was so exciting and we launched into waitrose the next month and then hollandabarra whole foods um and kind of kept kept going from then I mean don't get me wrong we've had lots of failures along the way but that was that was the start and I think it was to me it's the ultimate example of like what we were saying a minute ago is you can use your influence or your profile to get something started but you don't it doesn't continue if the product isn't right if it's not the right price it was not in the right place on shelf and I I think I think Jalice Shedella has been a really good example of that you know I see it now like our biggest range is our oat bars and in Sainsbury's for example they sit in the big cereal bar category there's about 90 products in there most of which are absolutely enormous brands with you know huge spend behind them and like we have something which for us is super exciting like the number one repeat rate which means the product that people buy the most often in that whole category of all of that we sit right at the top of rate of sale of the most popular products and that's not because it has my name on it no like it's absolutely not um that's because it's the right product at the right place, in the right place at the right price.

43:18And I think it's really important because I think it's easy to see things and be like, oh, we just need X person to front it or we just need more Instagram followers. We just need this and feel like that will be the magic ticket. But we have got things right like that. And we have other products that have gone in and they have had a rate of sale of zero. Yeah. Nobody has bought them. And that's the thing, like you say, and it sounds like it was really fast growth. Like you say, Starbucks next month, Retro, so on and so forth. and that kind of just keeps spinning but it is keeping consistent so how what was the okay the energy balls are doing really well we've got different flavors we've got different offerings then what how do you decide what's coming next because you can get so passionate and so excited about one products and then people just the retailers will be on the phone and be like what else have we got okay we need something else exactly what's next um and that level of innovation was such a big part of the business, particularly at the beginning, which I loved and really, but the next big thing was actually the first iteration of the oat bowl, which is now a kind of mega success.

44:21I think we made 20 million of them last year. And Tesco asked for that and it was a specific request from Tesco and it didn't work. And it went in and it was out within the year and it was complete failure. And the product just wasn't good enough. We rushed it. it just didn't taste quite right it was too dry and so we when when we found out it was coming out of tesco i remember still we were in a really little office at that point and we we went into a meeting room and matt and i my husband got people to come in like one by one from the team we were like please try this and tell us what you actually think of it and people giving it like a one out of ten oh as in it was just like it was too dry mostly it was just too dry okay and the packaging was awful um just didn't really understand what it was anyway so we kind of went back to the drawing board started it again reformulated it revisited the recipe made it much more delicious redid the packaging etc and now it's like an absolute bestseller we made 20 million of and I think again those stories are so important because you don't get everything right first time nobody does like we all fail so many times along the way and I think it's that relentless ability to pick yourself up that's the biggest challenge yeah and it's hard isn't it when you're being reactive too because you want to keep your finger on the post and you've got a huge retailer that's asking for something it's a no-brainer let's make this work but putting you know everything comes from that place of you feeling so passionate about it but having then a note bar fail as it were yeah and we talk about this a lot is actually failing are just sort of building a series of lessons that you kind of know what you're not going to do next time right and that is like proof is in the pudding literally in that case because it continues to be up there with bestseller for you totally and I think it's that idea of failing forwards isn't it where you're you're learning as you fail and I think that's one of the other things that I would always say to people is I think it's so easy especially as a founder if the kind of mission of the company is so personal to you and it's so emotional and meaningful to be entrenched in things and say like, no, no, no, no, no.

46:33I believe this is the right product or I believe this is the right price or I believe this is the right approach. But sometimes it's just not. And I think the quicker you're able to accept you've got things wrong. I remember very, very early on, just when we launched the first products, I remember talking to someone who'd worked in this space for 10, 12 years. And he said, you know, I bet you anything a decade from now, your core products won't be any of these you might not even have any of them on shelf and I remember on the day like being quite offended because sorry I think they're great this is a launch day thank you I was like Starbucks love them no and I was you know you obviously you're really proud of them you put so much of yourself in it but he was right he was absolutely right like we've got better and better and better and better as we've gone along and one of those products we is still in market um but the other two aren't and lots of the first things that we did aren't or it's a different version of the packaging's been through five stages of evolution you know I look at it now kind of and those different iterations and it's so bad to start with compared to where it is today of course but it's what you learn as you go and I think um I just think it's so important to acknowledge that like you you don't start with the perfect product you don't start with the perfect way of communicating it like it's all learning and i think it's so easy to want to wait for the perfect time for the perfect moment and it doesn't exist you've just got to start and you've got to be willing when you start to keep failing but hopefully fail forward but pivot really quickly just park your ego from it you will get so much stuff wrong and it's fine to admit that you got it wrong and change it absolutely that and i think at the time you look back and you see like you say branding and things can change slightly and things move on but at the time you did the best with the tools and their experience which was zero at that point exactly and the information that you had at that time and of course as everything evolves and time goes on you've got more experience you've got more resources you've got you know and I think that's it's always it should always improve totally in theory totally and I think you should always be striving for that like you can always be better and I think if you're not going forward you're going backwards when it comes to business like I don't think you can ever stand still no I feel like that realization was almost and it really came for me after my first daughter was born um and then I had my second daughter 14 months later so we're like all in all in oh she is all in all in busy house oh my god it was a busy house I mean it's still a busy house but two babies in a business through covid this was it was it was yeah it was it was difficult did that to us but we couldn't just run for the off to the office for a little break yeah for a little break exactly you're like trying to change to all the yeah varying um kind of things going on at that time and then you've got two tiny babies it was it was yeah you can get through that you can get through anything character building is what that is exactly but it was this realization that like you have to keep reinventing yourself and you have to keep finding ways for the brand to stay interesting and stay relevant and keep going forwards and so you have to have that like relentless pursuit of going forwards and you really can't stop you can never stop and I think that was as I said that was probably like seven years in with two small children and realizing that as soon as you stop you go backwards yeah was one of the most difficult realizations it's hard and like you say you can't when you do have a family or something else that's what happens in life right there's always going to be some sort of you know amazing moment like having children or a curveball that can happen but it's so hard to pursue one side of your life when you actually can't stop the business so that's where the team come in right and that's where you've got to have an incredible team the energy balls launched 2015 2016 and then last year at the end of 2024 before you and your husband decided to sell Delishly Ella to the Hero Group and I'm so interested to know because we speak to I've spoke to lots of different women and sometimes selling is the goal sometimes that's something they find really hard to do what sparked the decision for the sale yeah it was certainly never the goal um I think we kind of when we started we thought oh we'll have this forever and ever and ever i think it was twofold really um the first is is that we had just reached a moment where scale was what it was all about it's like how do you spread that mission how do you keep making it so that it's easier to choose a natural product over an ultra processed one how do we get into more hands to more places in more places how do we reach the masses more and make that natural swap so much easier um and as i said we you know like with the stats on oat bars they were just doing so well and it's all about scale and but a lot of that international opportunity and as a family-owned business where you know you've got to kind of live off the earnings of course it's it's really difficult to compete and you know it's really difficult to kind of do international launches you just don't have quite enough resources team experience knowledge of the market in germany you know we don't have we don't have an intricate knowledge of the cereal bar market in germany um for example um and so it was so obvious that for the business to really really get to the next stage and truly be a big brand that is competing against the like mega ultra process brands that we want to replace and we want to be an alternative to we we really needed a partner um and so but it was something that we kind of obviously thought very long and hard about because it was so deeply personal and it had to be the right people um and people who really believed in the mission and really backed it and like because for you that's exactly what it comes down to the mission that you know and that's the place that it started out and that you kind of you sort of have to hold the mirror up I suppose at a certain point and say can I continue yeah to sort of continue the mission and for that to flourish and you know break all glass ceiling and this was the moment where actually for the first time it it was like for it to flourish and to achieve that mission we need it yes and we had had approaches from all sorts of groups along the year across the years um and they just you know they just clearly weren't the right fit and that and this this really was and they'd owned another brand in the UK organics yes for a lot of your kids which I which I love and I love what it stands for and the quality and the ingredients and and they'd had that for over 10 years and and that created a lot of trust in the belief of um and it's another family-owned business and a very very long-term business that had that viewpoint of us but also would allow us to reach the masses more so so it was a huge decision and and really kind of an emotional one but six months in it was like undoubtedly wow the right thing but we then kept and bought out of the um partnership um our smaller brand which is called plants okay um which was initially an exclusive brand for waitrose and so that's quite nice because we've got that now and that is feels like a startup that we took five team members from delicious yellow to plants the office is like 10 minutes down the road um so it's a really interesting experience at the moment splitting time between a startup and implants and then this brand that feels like it's now a scale-up and it's really about these kind of big bets and big opportunities which i mean is so brilliant you're sort of living the best of both for us I'm sure they both come with equal amounts of stress but you're getting the best of both of us I can imagine how personal and emotional that is and how long that takes to sort of come up with the decision that yes this is right and I'm taking myself out of it for a second to do what is best for the brand what have been the kind of fundamental changes since selling for you do you think it's really nice to feel like the business has broader shoulders and I think that was the other reason that we did it was it was almost like let's do it now when the kids are young to because my girls are four and five and a half to where it just that kind of all-consuming pressure and the relentlessness of it and the working all hours of every day 365 days a year and never feeling like you can breathe it was like let's do that forever where this really is a kind of very very long-term business and we don't mind that it takes us ages to reach the masses and reach that scale because this we're going to have this for 80 years or actually let's capitalize on this really exciting opportunity where we can go bigger quicker and we can reach more people and we can also as i said have feel like we have broader shoulders we've got people to lean on for advice we've got great people to talk to who have all sorts of different companies within the group who have all sorts of different bits of experience that we don't have yes and being able to have that slightly more shared sense of responsibility and knowledge and expertise I did it did feel like kind of releasing a pressure valve 100 % yeah I can I can only imagine that's how it would feel particularly when that is your mission like you say let's not forget this is what you want to do you want to you know reach more mouths as it were and you know get it in more homes and now you have more knowledge to do it but then equally still having plants feels like a really nice kind of creative because it is a baby and it's in its infancy it's 18 months old um but it sold five million products which again I was like that's so cool I should I should feel more yeah I mean it's not a baby girl it's not a baby it's young it's a toddler um but we've kind of been doing a big rebrand on it so it just feels like there's a really interesting like startup creativity but also bringing all the learnings as you said like you can only do the best job you can do with the knowledge and experience that you have but now with which when we started delicious yellow was zero whereas with this it's 10 years of experience that can go into it and put that into exactly yeah that's I mean that's like what what an honor to be able to do so it's really exciting um I want to talk about wellness beyond business yeah you know because obviously wellness is such a big part of what you do but how do you take time for yourself what are your go-to because you're you know you've got a busy house you've still got a five and a four-year-old you know that is their kind of crucial years to be able to sort of step back and have that time for you you've got the businesses how do you switch off what's that thing that kind of makes you feel out of your mind um I think it's two things first of all it is waking up before the kids which is I'm with you there yeah with you there it's easier said than done it's really hard to get that isn't it it takes really hard a while because my friends go oh my gosh of course oh you get up early I'm like no I thought some days I force myself to because I but I know the reward now so I kind of understand the gain it's worth it yeah yeah and I will wake up and have like 45 minutes or so of quiet time and I'll do 10 minutes of meditation we've got a delicious yellow has an amazing app and we just use all the breath work and meditation practices on there I'll just silently drink a coffee read the news do some like face massage you know have a shower and that 45 minutes the meditation or the breath work which varies which i do i find incredibly helpful my brain is like oh my gosh it moves a million miles an hour all in all in but it's um i'm a chronic overthinker and i think starting my day with silence and trying to calm my brain i find incredibly helpful and definitely i find almost essential now to setting the tone of not becoming like overly overwhelmed as the day goes on and then exercise i really i find it's like the one thing that really really quietens my mind and I notice on the weeks where I'm like I don't have time to exercise between kind of kids commitments and work and them being like but why aren't you dropping me off at school today I'm coming I'm coming um oh my gosh I'm just such a worst version of myself yeah it does and you kind of it's the the push to get yourself there to sort of understand the benefits I think is the hardest bit and that's what I say to my friends I'm like just do it for a bit do it with me I'll hold you accountable and then you'll be so into it that you're so thankful for that kind of alone time and I really find to sort of when you have a business and you have a busy lifestyle and you also have a busy family to wake up because I used to literally just wake up when the kids I heard the monitor and I'd be like okay exactly but actually to wake up before that and not be needed as soon as your eyes open because you're needed by a human a small human you're then needed when you get into work so it's really when do you take that time so doing it at the start of the day just sets the tone exactly and the days are so busy you know and you don't I mean you go into the office and you're like what's today got in store you know particularly in your early stages like it's all sorts of problems erupt from nowhere yeah and so you've kind of just got to be in the right mindset to deal with it and I think it's very interesting I always used to say well I don't have time to try meditation I don't have time to exercise I don't have time to do this and I would say I now say to myself I don't really have time not to do it because when I don't do it I'm more frantic my overthinking it's too chronic I'm just like not a nice version of me no I feel like I'm snappier I feel like I'm much less inspired um and much less creative and I don't mean when I say exercise I don't mean like two hours a day I mean like three times a week for an hour just or 15 minutes a day like relatively small but so powerful yeah as women we're taught to kind of everybody has to come before us but actually nobody gets that right version of you unless you've had time to kind of be with yourself a little bit i really i really believe that a hundred percent and i think it's so easy to think you have to be all things to all people all the time but you can't even attempt that a you'll never no one can ever achieve it but b you can't even try your best to do your best at all of it if you feel so depleted and so burnt out before you've even woken up exactly exactly it's not a place to start the 100 percent um i want to do a rocket round now so these are our quick fire questions um and the first one is what are the non-negotiables do you believe for launching a business i think you have to know why it matters to you because you have to keep picking yourself up after knock after knock after knock and so you have to know why you're getting up again and it will take over your life you think you have to be ready for that you have to be ready for it to come above and beyond everything else but for it to do that and for you to say no I'm not going to see my friend here I'm going to let you down there because there's been a crisis and so at the last minute I can't come I can't join you you've got to know why it matters to you yes and I think for there aren't that many people in the world where the why is financial I think it's so often I want to solve this problem and I desperately need to get that into people's hands but I think really identifying that why and getting so ready for it to take over your life I think it's really important and it sounds silly because of course you also need to make sure that there's the right product and the packaging is right and the margin structure is right and you have great team and in that you've acknowledged where are your strengths and where do you need support absolutely the basics are foundational you cannot succeed without them but on top of that it is you that will have to continue to inspire people and it is you that will have to keep getting up and it is you that can't leave and get another job so you have to know why you are willing to keep going relentlessly even when it feels impossible yeah and you've got to constantly tap into that exactly when did you first realize that you truly launched that's a great question i think starbucks that was the first moment we saw the little blue packaging that was in starbucks on the high street that was that's a big moment and i think getting that kind of i suppose acknowledgement from such a massive brand and that love from them is kind of 100 okay well they starbucks think we're good well yeah especially when it was very different to what what was available at that point and so exactly it's easy to question yourself like am i doing it right because i am doing it so differently and then to have that backing from someone so much bigger felt it was an amazing confidence boost for us yeah i can only imagine what do people usually seek your advice or help for all things wellness but particularly cooking it's been there for a long time when you tell us the start of your story is so ironic so brilliant what brand do you wish that you'd found it oh I love this question it's such a good one I mean there's so many one of the brands that I most admire is the white company I think it is extraordinary the sense of brand that um they've created and that has continued through the stores it really has and as we said at the beginning I think being relevant for a very long time is one of the most difficult things you can do being relevant today is achievable but I think being relevant for decades and continuing that evolution but while staying true to your integrity and what the brand is originally I think that's extraordinarily difficult and I think as an english example i think they are one of the absolute best such clear brand identity totally and they've evolved but never lost sight of that if you could choose one female figure as a mentor past or present who would it be it's a great question do you know what i listened to your first episode with emma greed and i thought she was amazing but you know what she has she had that confidence that was just absolutely extraordinary honestly if i could have her on speed dial I would I feel like I do now because I'll message her certain things and she's so helpful and so supportive of women which all of our guests are but it's so nice she's got that real belief in everyone and I love that you could have half an hour of her and feel like you could you know take on the world yeah honestly you really could um if you could trade one of your current skills for a superpower that would help your business what would it be and why I would 100 % be like clicking your fingers or clapping your hands and being able to be anywhere in an instant.

1:04:41Oh yes, yeah. Because you're split in too many different places between work and home in particular. And that would be extraordinary. Wouldn't really be compromising. You're so right because there's always a fire to put out somewhere. Exactly. Like just quickly, okay I'm here, I'm there. Yeah, that would be amazing. Yeah, I often think that when travelling. Yes. If I could just get there now that would be great. Exactly, like drop the kids at school, in the office, ready to go. Get home, dinner's done. That would be great. Each guest that comes on, I really like to get kind of a tangible piece of advice that our listeners could take away from this episode.

1:05:20So what do you think is one piece of advice that you would give to ladies looking to launch? I would sit down and I would write a mission statement. And it doesn't need to be perfect. It will evolve. Ours has certainly evolved. but it's still the same essence it was on day one but sit down to that point of know your why and write out write yourself a paragraph why does your idea your business whatever it is that you're going to sell people why do they need it why does it matter and why does it matter to you that's so that is so I mean it's it's like simple but I think a lot of we overlook that don't we and I think you've got it in your head but to actually sit there and be very clear about it and go through every part of it and I suppose have little pointers.

1:06:06Totally. This is why we do what we do. Your first hire, explain it to them. This is why we do what we do. Your community that you want to build, this is why we do what we do. This is why we're different. And this is our absolute laser focus. And I think it can evolve in the way you iterate it and the way you say it. But I think that is quite set in stone to begin with. And it's, as I said, keep pivoting, keep changing, as I said earlier, when it comes to what the actual products are, but the core of what the brand stands for. I think you need to cement that and I think you need to know why that matters to you the mission remains the same exactly yeah I am quite excited about this next bit because I ask everybody how they spend their lunch hour but I feel I'm very interested to hear how you spend yours if you are sort of taking a break for lunch you're in the office would you have your lunch at your desk do you make a conscious effort to stop I can imagine that you're tasting food all day so I'm not i'm trying to figure out when you would actually have lunch but what would you eat and where are you okay great question yeah some days are exactly you eat all day food testing all day which is amazing it's a great part of the job but also it's a bit odd sometimes because you're like especially if it's something sweet you might be trying like 87 different versions at the end of the day you're like that was weird but if it's like cookbook testing you get to the end of the day you're like cool i've had nine dinners yes i'm actually really full exactly and i'll get home the kids be like what's for dinner or matt my husband be like what's for dinner I'm like nothing I can't look at the phone anymore um but I am very guilty of eating at my desk um 100 % but I really am trying every day now round about midway through the day to get outside and go for a quick walk nice because I think it's so easy to sit there all day and then by the end of the day feel really drained and I really believe that wellness doesn't have to be big it doesn't have to be complicated it doesn't have to be overly time consuming just going for a walk for 15 minutes listening to nice music listening to a bit of podcasts that you enjoy call your mum you know just something to just get you out of your heads and get you out the busyness of the day and just get some fresh air I think it is so so so valuable and I think it's taken me too long to realize that being burnt out being completely depleted saying you don't have time for stuff that actually we can all it's more beneficial to make time for the small things that keep you feeling energized than it is to just squeeze in an extra 15 minutes of work yeah and I always think like you think at the time that you also lose in doing something that you don't really care about like before you've actually got up you've scrolled on your phone for a little bit too long and you could be out on a walk or you know even I even just sometimes I call my mom and I have a bath and that is like that will take me out of any situation i'm like this is just the kids are in bed i've had that bath and sometimes that's all the meditation i need but it's those little moments that just take you away from the stress of it exactly what's your favorite thing to order or make at lunch um some kind of salad-y thing yeah there's a company called salad project that's funny i see one in the bags but they've opened opposite our office and that's good yeah they're literally opposite we we actually did some some recipes for them they're on their menu last year which became obsessed with it and then they opened up at our office so it is a kind of perfect on repeat do you know what this is the kind of common thread we all like a a kind of well we call them sexy salads a real kind of tailor they doesn't have to be like dry kale and dry lettuce no like something with a bit of pizzazz but that was sort of not too heavy so you get that sort of you know when you have a jacket potato at lunchtime and it's downhill from there because you don't want that you want something to keep you going energize yes exactly that okay a sexy salad for you too a sexy salad there we go oh thank you i love this it's been so interesting to talk to you you've been a dream guest so thanks for coming on thank you

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