The Wordrobe chats brand building and breakfast with Ella Mills, founder of Deliciously Ella
Recent winner of the EY Rising Star Entrepreneur of the Year London Award 2017, with several cookbooks and successful delis under her belt, Ella Mills is on a serious mission to change the way we think of healthy food. We sat down with her to find out more.
Tell us more about your culinary background…
I started learning to cook properly in 2012. I’d been diagnosed with a condition that affected my autonomic nervous system and had spent the best part of a year in bed struggling with it.
I became interested in diet and nutrition and wanted to see whether changing my lifestyle could help manage some of the symptoms, especially the digestive problems and chronic fatigue, but I didn’t know how to cook healthier food in a delicious way so started experimenting and recording the results on my blog, deliciouslyella.com
What keeps you motivated?
Our readers, I manage all our social media accounts and I love seeing everyone make our recipes and enjoy our products, it makes my day every time!
Name three of your favourite ingredients
I love herbs and spices (turmeric, cumin, cayenne pepper, paprika, chill flakes, mustard seeds, fresh basil, coriander and rosemary are my go-to’s)
If you could share a meal with anyone in the world, who would it be and why?
My husband, cheesy as it is he’s my favourite person to be with.
You recently launched a new granola range. It’s great! What was the inspiration behind it?
We’re always inspired by what our readers are enjoying and asking for and the granola had been one of the most popular recipes on our blog since it went up in 2012, as well as a real staple in our deli.
We adapted our deli recipe to make the original granola, which is a mix of crushed almonds, toasted oats, cinnamon, coconut chips and raisins, and then created our nutty granola and bircher muesli.
Do you have a favourite granola?
I love the bircher muesli and eat it most days. We mill our oats really finely, so they go soft and creamy within about two minutes of adding your milk. They’re mixed with chewy bites of dried apple, raspberries, sunflower and chia seeds, to create a little sweetness.
I love it served with almond milk, a dollop of coconut yoghurt and a sliced banana with a little peanut butter on the top.
Do you have any role models?
So many! I’m inspired by strong women in business, as well as the amazing women that I work with and learn from everyday and then my mum and mother-in-law, who are both astonishingly strong.
What’s next on the cards?
We’ve just launched some new oats bars (in three flavours – apricot & coconut, cacao & almond and apple & raisin) into Tesco, which is a huge step for us as we developed it exclusively for them.
We’re now looking to launch them into other stockists over the next few months. My other big focus at the moment is our recipe app, which we’re adding so much new content too.
Find out more by visiting deliciouslyella.com
