Mumpreneur of the Year 2014

Start-up name: Rebel Kitchen
Founder: Tamara Arbib
Started in: 2014
Based in: London
Business description: Health drinks and nourishing snacks

Tamara Arbib’s is the kind of rebellion you wouldn’t mind your teenage daughter having. She has created a brand that seizes on the zeitgeist for healthy ‘free-from’ products.

And when she took to the stage to accept her Mumpreneur of the Year award, Rebel Kitchen received the recognition her endeavours richly deserved, having fought off competition from fast-rising tech and investment PR agency Fieldhouse Associates and eclectic online gift and homewares store Lime Lace.

Her coconut milk and spring water-based mylks are as natural as they come – lactose-free, suitable for vegans and anyone on a dairy-free diet, and delicious to boot.

It’s noteworthy her business followed the creation of The A Team Foundation, the charity she formed with her husband four years ago to “revolutionise the nation’s approach to food, health and sustainability”.

Rebel Kitchen was subsequently conceived to demonstrate that their message could reach the mainstream and be as commercially popular with consumers as other new brand launches. The evidence so far suggests Arbib’s assertion was well-founded.

According to Arbib, the ‘free-from’ category is set to explode with 15% of the population already adhering to a dairy-free diet. Waitrose, Tesco, Wholefoods, Fortnum & Mason, and Selfridges already stock Rebel Kitchen cartons.

The business grew at a rate of 400% in its first six months, smashing the targets Arbib set. And with professed interest from the US and a five-year plan to make Rebel Kitchen an international success story in the wholesome food & drinks category, the company is undoubtedly one to watch. If the business has the impact Arbib desires, we’ll certainly drink to that!