People’s Champion finalist 2016: Mindful Chef

Start-up name: Mindful Chef
Founders: Robert Grieg-Gran, Giles Humphries and Myles Hopper
Started in: April 2015
Based in: London
Business description: UK’s only gluten-free healthy recipe box company, also the only recipe box company to cater for vegans

Shortlisted category:

Crowdfunded Business of the Year

The Mindful Chef story:

There aren’t many start-ups that can say they deliver food to the Beckham family, have support from sporting legends including Andy Murray and Victoria Pendleton, and a two recipe-book deal with Penguin Random House in the pipeline. But for 18 month-year old business Mindful Chef, these early successes are just a few of many.

Launched by “health enthusiasts” Robert Grieg-Gran, Giles Humphries and Myles Hopper, Mindful Chef’s USP is that it is the only gluten-free, vegan-friendly recipe box company on the market. Every week, the start-up ships weekly boxes containing all the fresh ingredients a customer needs to make up to five meals.

With a promise to never send any refined carbohydrates – it focuses on innovative uses of vegetables to make things like courgetti and parsnip mash instead – over 250,000 meals have been delivered to date and customers keep coming back for more. The start-up claims an average customer makes 11 transactions; meaning it has “the best-in-class retention in the industry”.

Much like its growing customer base, investors have also been attracted to the Mindful Chef offering. In July 2016, the company secured £1,073,643 in an oversubscribed crowdfunding round on Seedrs. Over 200 investors backed the round including former Costcutter marketing director Angela Barber and Tossed founder Vincent McKevitt, alongside sports stars Murray, Pendleton and Will Greenwood.

While its first year has clearly been an exciting one, the start-up plans to “grow rapidly to dominate the healthy and premium end of the recipe box market”.

Why Mindful Chef made our shortlist:

From small beginnings where the founding trio started out by sending 10 recipe boxes to family and friends, Mindful Chef has already made its mark on the highly competitive food box delivery market.

Its £1m crowdfunding round – which overfunded by 250% from a £400,000 target and had to close in just 12 days – is testament to its early success. With such high-profile backers, it’s easy to buy into Mindful Chef’s mission to “bring healthy eating to thousands more households across the UK.”

Where to find out more about Mindful Chef:

Website: www.mindfulchef.com
Twitter: twitter.com/MindfulChefUK
Instagram: www.instagram.com/MindfulChefU/