Bored of organic, think it’s too expensive? Let Planet Organic founder Renée Elliott re-inspire you to take care of your health and body and advise you on a cheap and easy way to do baby food!

What brought you to the UK from the States?
I came to England in 1986. I met my husband on a bus in London! I decided to move here to be with him. My first job was as a journalist in the wine industry. I was so enthusiastic and excited on my first day at work. I’ll never forget a guy in the office moaning ‘I can’t wait until Friday…”. It dawned on me then how crucial it was to love and be passionate about what you do.

How did you get into organic supermarkets?
I worked in the wine industry until 1990. After six months spent doing a leadership course in the US, I decided I would go back to the UK and do something! Something that had to be my own business and something I loved, that I wanted to do for the rest of my live. But I had no idea what that was! Then in Boston I saw an organic supermarket which had been going for 15 years. When I saw it I realised that’s what I was going to do. Back in the UK I got a job with a health food store so I could learn about nutrition, retailing and to make sure I loved it.

What was the most important thing you learnt while doing this research?
I realised that I wanted my business to be a force in the community for information. I wanted to tell people about the difference between organic and normal food, vegetarianism and natural therapies. I wanted to give people information so they could make an informed decision. And that’s still our mission today – to promote health in the community. We give free in-store lectures to help inform the community.

How did you make the move to setting up your own business?
I was made manager of the health store in three months. When I started the owner asked me if I had any retail or health product experience, or any experience managing people. I said no, but that I did have huge amounts of common sense, and surely that what was needed to be a store manager as well as ambition and determination. After two years of learning the business I left. After some more research in the States and a course on starting your own business, I then found lawyers, architects, the site and we opened the first Planet Organic store in Westbourne Grove in 1996.

How did you promote your business?
I decided not to advertise. I had just read Anita Roddick’s book Body and Soul and she hadn’t advertised at all. We thought that with such a great concept people would be turning up in droves. But no one knew we were there. The first three months were really scary. I’d borrowed money and raised investment, we didn’t have a lot and it was make or break. Wastage was through the roof. We decided to hire a PR company to get editorial, as we knew we had a great story to tell. We were the first health food store to have a full meat counter. At the beginning there were vegans and vegetarians yelling about having dead animals. Then in our fourth month there was the first BSE scare. As a result the meat counter took off. We had loads of press about the meat counter, and then about being really trendy because we were in Notting Hill.

What other factors contributed to your success?
We really wanted to distinguish ourselves from the hippie brigade. We wanted to say organic food is the best food for everyone. We wanted mainstream shoppers to feel comfortable in the shop, not like it was a little club they had to join. The two things I used to say to the press were ‘I want to make organic mainstream’ and ‘I want to change food retail in the UK’. When people started to buy the meat they’d then shop in the rest of the shop. Then there was the E. coli scare in the autumn and we jumped again. We were stable the end of that first year. By the end of the second year we had doubled our turnover.

Should all businesses be trying to be ethical?
I find it unthinkable that companies don’t take responsibility for what they do as a business in the world. I’m always having new ideas about things we can do, it’s just logistics that hold us back. Though when you start out as a business, commercially you can’t do everything. Now we agonise over everything. We used plastic food containers for years. But now we have reed pulp containers which are fantastic. They’re completely biodegradable and put nutrients back into the soil – they’re so exciting!

What’s the next step for Planet Organic?
We refinanced last autumn and raised new investment. We now have two new directors so we’re a team of five, which is great. We’re looking at two new stores by the end of this year, and two next year. So we’ll have eight stores in total. Then we’ll see. I’d like to roll out throughout the rest of the UK.

Isn’t it more expensive to buy organic?
It depends what you buy. If you buy ingredients and cook, it’s not that expensive. If you buy processed food and luxury treats, that’s expensive. Meat is expensive, but you should eat less meat anyway – all modern nutritionists are saying that now. Buy organic meat, but not so often. If you don’t have the budget to buy all organic, then buy organic meat and diary, to avoid BSE, hormone and antibiotic residues. And chocolate! Chocolate is the most highly sprayed food crop in the world.

Should we buy Fairtrade or organic?
The thing about Fairtrade is that it guarantees the worker a fair price, but it doesn’t mean it’s a quality product. There is no incentive to make a better product if the price is guaranteed. Fairtrade doesn’t mean chemicals and pesticides aren’t being used. Organic tends to embody Fairtrade values. That’s been my experience over the years.

How can we find out more about organic foods?
The Soil Association website is terrific. They have a newsletter you can subscribe to. For nutrition, there’s Patrick Holford, and Gillian McKeith, who has done a lot to transform the way people eat and think about food. And our talks will soon be in all the stores. Nutrition is complex, you can’t reduce it to ‘No salt, no sugar and reduce fat’.

You’ve got a great solution for healthy and organic baby food. Will you share it with us?
Yes! A great way to feed babies is to puree vegetables. I perfected this! I’d do red lentils, quinoa, broccoli and sweet potatoes. I’d puree it, freeze in ice cube trays and store in metal containers in the freezer. When I needed them I’d knock out two cubes of each and thaw them with hot water and thicken with some brown rice powder. So easy, so cheap and so easy to travel with!

Visit Planet Organic’s website www.planetorganic.com (please note this is just a holding site and new site will be live soon!).