Planet Organic founder Renee Elliott: Taking care of yourself is key to a successful career and family life

The entrepreneur tells Zlata Rodionova explains how kickstarting the UK’s organic food scene in the Nineties was inevitable – but the bumps along the way weren’t

‘In business, life or relationships it’s about trusting and respecting yourself and your body’, the founder says (Secret Leaders)

Organic food sales are setting records as more and more UK households stock up on everything from free-range eggs to gummy fruit snacks... but just a decade ago, terms such as sustainability were hardly used. Serial entrepreneur Renee Elliott was the woman who kickstarted the UK’s organic food scene back in the Nineties – way before kale made its way on to the menus of fashionable London restaurants.

To Elliott, health is the foundation of a person’s wellbeing. “Taking care of yourself is key,” she tells The Independent. “For some women it’s a little uncomfortable, for others it can even be agonising, it depends on how you’re built. But I know that if I go out of balance then I go into stress.

“In business, life or relationships it’s about trusting and respecting yourself and your body. Essentially trust your gut, not your brain. If it tells you to do it, you should respect that, whether it’s an important business decision or sleeping more.”

Elliott is as passionate about this mantra today as she was in 1995 when she opened the UK’s first organic supermarket, Planet Organic – the company that was to change not just her career but also the way that organic retailing developed in the UK.

Over the last 10 years, what began as a shop on Westbourne Grove became a multi-million pound business. Planet Organic raked in £30.6m in sales last year on operating profit of £590,000 over seven stores. This year the firm is on track to book revenues of £36m.

Although Elliott stepped down from her role as director in 2018 after Planet Organic was sold in a deal thought to be worth around £15m, she remains the brand spokesperson and kept shares in the business.

Her desire to help people lead healthier and happier lives prompted her to launch her second venture, Beluga Bean – an academy that runs courses to empower women with business and life skills including how to save for your pension, deal with postpartum depression or find the right balance between your children and your business.

Turning her aspirations from fantasy to reality was far from easy but working in the food industry was inevitable for Elliott.

She was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi, in a home where her mother was always cooking. Her father kept a large vegetable garden, which she helped out with. “It’s funny I didn’t really see this until I got older, but when I look back, food was always a big part of my family,” Elliott says.

“My mum was an incredible cook and baker. Every holiday, every birthday, every graduation, it was all about the food.”

As a student, Elliott went travelling in Europe and met her future husband on a night bus in London in 1985. After realising it was more than a summer fling, she settled in the UK the following year.

Her eureka moment came when she stepped into an organic supermarket called Bread & Circus – now a part of Whole Foods – on a visit to the US. Disheartened by the lack of organic presence in the UK, she decided to take matters into her own hands and bring the concept to London.

“For a long time I had this theme running in my head about food not being what it should be and no one looking after my health in terms of what was available on supermarket shelves,” she explains.

“America is usually ahead of the UK, so I thought nobody is doing this back home and I am going to recreate this.”

At the time, Elliott was a writer for a wine magazine, so this first step towards her professional goals started with a career U-turn.

‘Having fun every week and finding time for myself is key, Elliott says (Secret Leaders)

“I managed a health store for two years but other than that I had no prior business experience, I was an English major at university,” she says.

“It was almost easier because I was naive. My dad once said, ‘There’s no reason you can’t do anything, anyone else can do,’ and I believed him.”

It took her a year to write up the business plan, find the funding and come up with a logo before opening the first Planet Organic store on Westbourne Grove in November 1995.

“Today I spend a lot of time telling my clients don’t worry about the ‘how’, paint the ‘what’ first,” she says. “A thousand little steps will lead you to success but if you start focusing on the ‘how’ from the beginning you will be paralysed.”

By 1996, stories about mad cow disease, BSE, hit headlines in the UK and Elliott was poised to reap the rewards.

The business doubled its turnover from £1.2m to £2.4m, so the founder knew she was heading in the right direction. “It was like chasing a galloping horse, it took up so fast we could barely keep up,” she adds.

But just as business was booming, her business partner, who put in the initial equity investment, took her to court.

“My business partner, who was a man from a privileged background, decided I should leave the business,” she says. “When I refused to abandon what I essentially saw as my baby, he took me to court. It was the hardest thing I ever faced, it was awful and it lasted 14 months.”

To get through that period, Elliott practised self-care and read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War – an ancient Chinese military text – the core message of which is know your enemy.

“I slept, I stopped drinking and I meditated – essentially I prepared,” she says. “I was a very good student at school, so I prepared ferociously and I won.”

After a decade running the business, she felt like it was time to step down. “I had three kids, which I thought I’ll never do because the responsibility freaked me out,” she explains. “I knew I would either have to hire a nanny or hire a CEO to run the business. It was an awful choice to make and I didn’t see it coming.

“A girlfriend of mine told me, ‘Planet is more than 20 years old, it’s grown up now, it has your values,’ and that helped to step away.

“But having children does slow you down. Women need to know, they need to have their eyes open, no matter how supportive your partner might be, we often end up being the caretakers. What you give your attention to ultimately thrives. And you can’t give your attention to everything, so often as women we have to make choices.”

In 2017, she launched Beluga Bean to help other women learn from her experience of building a business from scratch, being an entrepreneur and a mother, and taking care of yourself.

Courses include “Launch”, which works with business concepts, and “Nourish”, which teaches baking and cooking to improve your health. Soon she will also be launching “Body Talk” aimed at teenagers struggling with self-esteem and self-harming due to constant social media exposure.

“We’re growing slowly but I have a big vision and I’ve committed to these for the next 10 years,” Elliott says. “The academy is 50 per cent business planning and it’s 50 per cent self discovery. So it covers everything and is meant to answer questions like, ‘I want to launch this business but I also want to have kids in five years’ to ‘I want to start my company but my partner is a bit unsure’ or help younger women to budget and save after they’ve graduated and are living on their own for the first time.”

A sought-after speaker on nutrition and wellness, Elliott also teaches healthy baking at the College of Naturopathic Medicine in London and frequently lectures to budding entrepreneurs on podcasts such as Secret Leaders, which features interviews and tips from key figures within the UK tech and creative industries.

“My motto in life is learn, earn, return and there’s a part of me that’s about giving back now and supporting others on this journey, because I’ve been there and done that.

“These tools weren’t available when I started Planet, and it’s so nice to walk that journey with someone supporting you – because it’s scary and you’re alone a lot of the time, self-esteem can be a problem.

“When I launched Planet, my inspiration was The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick – but it’s not like there were many other examples of successful female entrepreneurs out there.”

How does she balance it all? “Having fun every week and finding time for myself is key,” she says. “I dance and I walk every day.

“That balance for me is critical. We often talk about destination but your goal point is always moving. This was my error with Planet – it was always about the next step. But you need to have fun and take care of yourself today because you don’t always know what the future will bring.”

Renée Elliot features in series 2 of the UK’s leading business podcast, Secret Leaders – founded by Dan Murray-Serter and Rich Martell. Listeners can subscribe on iTunes and Spotify. For more information visit: www.secretleaders.com