Roman and Andrea Jewell

Roman and Andrea Jewell started Fix & Fogg peanut butter a few weeks before their first child was born in 2013. This year, they’ve opened a factory in Texas. Roman, 40, and Andrea, 36, met doing their master’s degrees in law in 2006. They live in Wellingt

RI’m a Kiwi and I went to uni at Otago. I finished there and was working as a commercial litigator in Sydney, kind of on that corporate treadmill. I wanted to get off but wasn’t too sure how. I had this idea that I would go to London to do an OE but keep a toe in the water with law. I went and did a master’s degree in London, at King’s College. Andrea was doing her master’s at King’s College as well.

You had to choose four papers in law, and Andrea just happened to be in two I was doing. She was my first and only friend really, at the start of the degree. Then we decided, as friends, to go to Turkey together. We backpacked around for a couple of weeks and ended up becoming an item.

It’s just one of those things – you find someone that’s kind of amazing and you turn a corner in a different direction to be with that person.

She’s super intelligent; she’s got a really infectious energy about her. She’s really beautiful, and she’s caring. She’s an amazing mum as well. She’s always up for doing things, particularly in the outdoors, whether it’s going ocean swimming, or walks in the bush... She’ll get out first thing in the morning for a swim in Wellington harbour. It will be freezing. She doesn’t wear a wetsuit!

A challenge has been to find our niches in the business. We don’t have a classic 9-5 job; we’ll be in bed talking about it, or at breakfast, when we’re trying to get the kids out the door. I probably am a bit more of the creative dreamer and Andrea’s definitely more of the, cut-to-the-chase, give-me-the-facts... Probably because she used to be a criminal barrister in London.

The peanut butter had been a hobby, selling at local farmers’ markets, and we ended up starting a business a week before Otto was born. Andrea’s been so supportive of the whole journey, and often it’s in the background – whether it’s things like keeping the household running and the kids fed and bathed, to helping me with legal problems, putting lids on jars...

In the first year, my mum got terminal cancer. In about eight weeks, it was all over. Andrea was this unbelievable rock of support for me, for the business, for Otto... That side of her was something that I hadn’t had to see before, but it was so amazing to get support from her at that time. Getting through that, you kind of think you can get through anything. We’ve carried on in that sense. Andrea often says to me, ‘‘persistence beats resistance’’.

AI was sitting with one of my friends from bar school, and I saw this guy walk into the lecture hall. He was wearing a pale blue polo shirt. He must have said something to somebody like: ‘‘Can I just squeeze in?’’ or something. I remember thinking: ‘‘Oh, he sounds different!’’ As luck would have it, Roman and I had chosen two of the same classes: company law, and evidence and proof.

From then on, we would sit next to each other and talk, and became really good friends. Our company law lecture was in the evening, and we’d go for dinner after. Towards the end of the year, we decided to go to Turkey, just as friends. We had an absolutely brilliant time together. We came back and I think it was only then that we thought actually, we quite like each other.

I had been offered tenancy at chambers. To leave that was a really big decision. I spoke to my head of chambers and said: ‘‘This is the situation. Can I have a year to go and live in New Zealand and get some experience, like a sabbatical?’’ He said: ‘‘Yes, as long as you come back.’’

We had been together for a year-and-a-half. I had a two-week holiday here to see Roman because we kind of had a long distance relationship after our master’s degrees. Wellington turned it on: it was still, it was sunny; it was blissful. Then we moved here and I said to Roman: ‘‘Ugh, I hate the wind.’’ He’s like: ‘‘Well, you know, they call it ‘Windy Wellington’...’’

I went to work for the ACC tribunal, and I saw a different way of working. It was hard. It was intellectually stimulating. But it wasn’t that high-pressure, high-stress, emotional work that you get as a barrister in London. Also, we were ocean swimming, going for bush walks, tramps – all these things I didn’t even know really existed. This whole new lifestyle opened up.

I had my flat in London, I had my job; I felt quite independent, I could see the trajectory of my life... Then we moved to New Zealand, and we lived in this tiny little flat that was really drafty. I think I was a bit shy of my accent and feeling different, which was in total contrast to how I felt in England where I completely fitted in. Roman’s parents at the time lived in Sydney, his brother lives in Sydney; my parents are in the UK. I guess it was kind of makeor-break because there’s nowhere to escape to! It was quite difficult, looking back. But obviously, it was worth it.

He is very good at speaking to all manner of different people. He’ll find that common thread, or something that connects him to somebody else, be it sport, or love of the outdoors, business, family values, travel...

He and the kids do crazy things that I would just not do. The other night, they pushed the garden sofas together to make like, a massive day bed. And then they slept on it, overnight. Outside!