Earlier this month, Deliciously Ella was snapped up by Swiss food manufacturer Hero Group for an undisclosed sum to steer the plant-based brand’s next stage of growth.
The acquisition comes after 12 years after Deliciously Ella was founded in 2012 by Ella Mills, then Woodward, as a recipe blog after she adopted a plant-based diet after being diagnosed with a health condition in university and started experimenting with dishes.
It launched food products including energy balls in stores such as Whole Foods and Waitrose in 2016 and its range now spans trail mix bars, breakfast cereals, chocolate-covered nuts, energy balls, and granola and is now sold in every major UK supermarket chain.
With a new parent company gunning for growth, we catch up with Deliciously Ella CEO Mathew Mills to find out just what is next for the plant-based brand.
A Hero move
Deliciously Ella founder Ella Mills with chief executive Matt Mills
The Hero Group takeover came at the “perfect” time for Deliciously Ella, says Mills, as it offered an opportunity to work with a trade partner to accelerate growth.
“The company was started because Ella had a personal problem and found that the ways that were improving her health could impact a lot of other people’s health at the same time. And as a result, it gave us a wide brief on the types of activities that we could do as a business.”
Mills says it has been “very experimental” over the past nine and half years as it focused on growing the business. “Now we know what works, it’s time to scale those things.”
Already the acquisition has opened doors for new growth opportunities for international expansion, with Deliciously Ella gearing up to launch a range in Whole Foods in the US this November.
The debut is its first physical step into international waters, having previously been available in US only through ecommerce service Thrive Market.
However, more expansion is on the card under Hero as Mills says he is eager to “work with them… and grow our European distribution”.
It also plans to invest in the UK. Mills says it will ramp up UK distribution and make investments in manufacturing.
“There’s a huge amount of distribution that we’re not in at the moment, and we would really like to be in.”
Mills and Ella will remain at the helm, him as CEO and her as founder and champion of the brand, with all but seven staff – which are moving over to its Plants restaurant business that also sells grocery products – staying with the business.
He says that Plants, which is listed on Ocado, is not part of the deal as “it’s not a category that Hero plays in, and with Plants range of pesto sauces, dried pasta and savoury plant-based food – basically meal components – it wouldn’t fit under their umbrella”.
“There’s a lot we’ve had to do. There’s quite a lot of detangling to pull those two businesses apart. So we’re in the midst of that at the moment, but that will all be completed by Christmas.”
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Standing out from the market
Deliciously Ella sits in the fast-growing but increasingly competitive health and wellness category and Mills says the key to the brand carving out its own space has been building the brand ahead of the product.
However, he says now it is growing its distribution through “the strong category data we have from existing customers”.
“We can see in our major customers, we’re either the number one brand in the category or we’re the number one brand leading growth in the category. And so as a result, it becomes much more easy to unlock further distribution with additional retailers.”
Placing emphasis on ingredient credentials has also propelled the brand forward, with Mills pointing out Deliciously Ella’s plant-based, natural and health-centric approach is what makes it popular compared to ultra-processed foods (UPFs), a trend that is prevalent even in the health and nutrition category.
“What we’ve tried to do as a brand is to focus on the long term, focus on the things that we really believe create depth and longevity. And so if you look at our product mix, they’re slow and stable products, and that will be the focus for the future as well.
Since launching in 2012, Deliciously Ella has continued to advocate for healthy eating on its website, alongside its grocery push.
“I think we’ve seen so many brands making crazy claims around keto or new food trends, but ultimately we think all of these things are short-lived. The future is around natural plant-based foods, and that’s what we’ve been doing for the last 12 years.”
For Deliciously Ella, being an advocate for improved general health by encouraging people to adopt a healthier diet is intrinsic to the brand message.
Since it first launched as a blog, the brand has published over 3,000 plant-based recipes, and sold over 100 million products, while positioning itself as an advocate for healthier foods and “slow and stable products”.
It is no longer the only voice in the industry calling for such change. Earlier this week, food giants including Tesco, Iceland and Nomad Foods joined forces to call upon the government to introduce mandatory reporting on the percentage of sales that companies make from high in fat salt and sugar (HFSS) products. Major players in the industry are beginning to demand change from the inside to improve UK consumers’ health, which Mills describes as being in a “dire place”.
Mills says the company has played an “important role” in this and will continue to do so”.
The future of Deliciously Ella
Deliciously Ella has set its sights on further growth, aside from its US launch. It will debut a new baked on-the-go breakfast product next month.
Deliciously Ella has debuted a new range, Breakfast Bakes, currently available in Ocado.
Breakfast Bakes will initially be available in two flavours; Apple and Almond, and Roasted Peanut. The brand’s introduction to the ‘on-the-go’ category comes from a desire to become a disruptor and a provide natural alternative to some of the more dominant brands.
Other future opportunities for Deliciously Ella include potential brand collaborations and expanding its distribution further.
Mills is certainly excited about what the future holds under Hero Group.
“Our message to our customers and partners is to come and join us on this next chapter. We’ve had such an amazing time building the business over the last nine and a half years together, we really believe the next nine and a half years are the most exciting to come.”
“We’ll keep trying to provide the best natural plant-based alternatives on the shelf.”
