Delicious Desserts That Are Vegan, Gluten-Free, AND Refined-Sugar Free? (no, it’s not too good to be true)
In the UK, 1 in every 10 people avoid gluten — that’s almost 7 million people. And we can guarantee that none of those people want to skip dessert, especially when confronted by Oli’s Nectarous, a dessert company who pride themselves on catering to the changing consumer needs. Vegan, Gluten-Free, AND Refined-Sugar Free, they truly need to be tasted to be believed. We spoke to Oliver, founder of Oli’s Nectarous, to get the story behind his sweet treats.
So what is Oli’s Nectarous all about?
Oli’s Nectarous makes delicious dessert products from natural ingredients; we want to fill the gap in the market for more premium desserts that happen to be Vegan, Gluten-Free and refined sugar free! We’ve developed truly indulgent recipes with exciting flavour combinations that compare to traditional offerings not in the free-from market. We want to prove the power of plant-based ingredients…for example our Chocolate Lava Cake is the UK’s First Plant-Based, GF, and natural sugar fondant that has melting middle!
Where did the idea first come from?
I founded the business at 21 after leaving University, when I noticed a significant lack of quality, tasty dessert options on the shelf for vegans.
After speaking to my mother, who has coeliacs disease, I realised there was also a gap in the gluten-free market for indulgent pudding products. So we decided to set up a family run business, and I worked with my former chef mother to put our passion for food into creating innovative desserts that would be suitable for vegans, people avoiding gluten, or those wanting more natural ingredients; but that didn’t taste ‘free-from’ anything!
Did you face any obstacles when setting up?
There are so many obstacles when trying to set up a business from scratch, some of which we’re still overcoming in our early stages of getting to market!
One of the main concerns for us was that, although full of passion and interest in all things foodie, we had zero experience of running a business let alone developing a FMCG product for market.
One of the biggest hurdles for us was finding appropriate packaging, as well as ingredient suppliers that not only met our standards, but also were affordable enough to allow us to make a margin in low volumes to begin with!
Another difficulty we faced was sourcing a manufacturer to allow us to supply stores nationwide, almost all major retailer require certain accreditations from the people making food products, not to mention we couldn’t fulfil the huge orders we want to get in our home kitchen!
How did you tackle those challenges?
Both of these problems called for hours of google searching, calling companies, visiting manufacturers and talking about our needs. One thing we found really useful was talking to fellow business owners we admired; we reached out to businesses in the food space and inquired about their journey with finding manufacturers or suppliers. Of course some won’t reply, but the ones who do can give you invaluable insight and suggestions, and at the very least will be a useful contact to have as your business grows!
If you could tell your past-self one thing, looking back, what would it be?
Hindsight is a curse! There are so many mistakes we made in our small business journey; the first that comes to mind is feeling the need to fork out for a very expensive stand at a national food show before the products were even stocked anywhere. It was really useful market research, but we had nowhere to point interested consumers to to buy our desserts — It’s easy to convince yourself that you need to get out in front of the customers before someone has the same idea, but in reality that money could have been better used to speed up our journey to being retail-ready…
Another thing I would tell myself is think about the commerciality of your products from the get go! We started with a delicious product, but the portion size, packaging, and recipe were far too expensive to supply on a large scale and make any money, or compete with other products in the category! So make sure you perfect the recipe, taking into account required margins from the start and that will speed up the process.
What’s something you’re most proud of when it comes to your company?
We are very proud of the quality of the products themselves, our first product (The Chocolate & Maca Lava Cake) recently won a Free-From Food Award! We managed to beat out offerings from large national retailers with huge budgets. Our goal from the start was to create products in the free-from category that truly don’t taste ‘free-from’ anything, so this was a proud moment for us!
What would you want the future of your company to look like?
The dream is to create a successful company with longevity in the market, we want to grow a customer base that knows us for quality products. To be able to make a living out of our passion is our goal, while at the same time spreading the important messages about the impact of dietary choices on the climate and planet.
We want plant-based and Gluten-Free products that taste amazing to be more widely available in the UK!
That’s great! How can we get involved, and more importantly, get our hands on some?
We’re about to launch our first crowdfunding campaign to help raise funding to get us from kitchen start-up to hopefully on the shelves nationwide! Sign-Up at the link below to be one of the first to try our nectarous desserts:
At Forward Fooding, we work with start-ups at every stage, from idea to on the shelves, offering guidance, advice, and strategies to help turn your idea into a delicious reality. If you want to get in touch, contact us at info@forwardfooding.com, or join our Global FoodTech Map of start-ups and become part of the community athttps://forwardfooding.com/globalfoodtechmap.
