“It’s all about balance”, says this plant-based pioneer
for Trouw
Ella Mills started with a simple veggie recipe blog, a decade later she's spearheading a plant-based empire targeting a £25 million revenue this year. Her personal journey into the plant-based world is pretty much in sync with the industry behind it.
“When I started out, there were hardly any recipes or products for plant-based eating. It was super niche and weird, there was maybe one specific store you could go to. Now you see it everywhere. The speed with which that has changed is very special.”
Mills started plant-based eating in 2012, as a 20-year-old university student, out of medical desperation. A year prior, she was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). After months of hospitalizations and prescription drugs that barely worked, she was looking for ways to improve her health. She found an unprocessed, plant-based diet worked well for her. She started her blog Deliciously Ella sharing her experiences and recipes, and shortly it was attracting more than a million views per month.
Long lines were forming all day long during Mill’s first ever event in The Netherlands: a pop-up store in Amsterdam.
Her first cookbook was published under the same name in 2015 and became the fastest-selling cookbook debut in the UK ever. At a time when plant-based food options were scarce in the UK, demand clearly outstripped supply. The timing for Mills couldn't have been better. That same year she successfully launched her first line of natural, plant-based products.
During the pop-up store, fans could taste and purchase products that are not yet available in Dutch supermarkets.
Despite the impressive growth of the market, the share of meat eaters in Europe remains high. In the Netherlands, only 1.7 percent of the population is vegetarian and 0.4 percent of people opt for a completely plant-based diet. However, more and more people are flexitarian.
"And that's totally okay," says Mills. “It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Everyone can eat more plants. More vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts and seeds. As humans, we like quick and extreme solutions, but these often don't work. I know it's boring and unsexy, but it's all about balance. You don't have to say today is the last day I eat this or do that. It can also be: yes, today I eat plant-based. And tomorrow? I'll see how I feel."