Pinch of Nom unmasked: Meet the women behind the diet sensation
They’ve lost 12st between them and sold over a million books last year alone - meet the two modest chefs behind the diet world’s latest bestseller
You may not know their names, but you’ll definitely know their books: Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson’s debut diet cookbook, Pinch of Nom, was last year’s bestselling title and the fastest-selling non-fiction work since records began.
Just nine months later, the follow-up went straight to the top of the chart, ousting David Walliams from the top spot.
Kay, 34, and Kate, 48, have sold more than a million copies and, to date, have only been dwarfed in UK sales by a handful of authors including Harry Potter’s JK Rowling.
Yet, in spite of their amazing success, the couple – who met on a dating site 15 years ago and have been partners, both personal and professional, ever since – have stayed firmly in the shadows.
They’ve had numerous television offers, as well as countless offers from newspapers and magazines. Repeated efforts to interview them last year were batted away on account of their dislike for publicity, undergoing root canal treatment and personal tragedy; their new cookbook doesn’t even bear their photo.
‘It’s not about us,’ is how Kate, the quieter of the two, explains their aversion to the spotlight. ‘It’s about the community and the people we’re helping.’
That ‘community’ – many of whom began following the pair when they started posting recipes after a Slimming World meeting in 2016 – is now millions-strong across social media. Their main
Facebook page alone has 1.5 million followers. They have a fanbase so dedicated that their first book topped the Amazon chart six months before it was published, thanks to pre-orders.
So, how did a pair of unknowns become Britain’s biggest publishing phenomenon?
Despite what Kate and Kay think, their success surely is about them. For the 400-calorie meals contained in the pages of Pinch Of Nom are not being touted by cleaneating types with washboard abs, but a pair who are, by their own admission, very much still ‘on that journey’. They both hope they can lose another 18st between them ( having already dropped 12st), bringing their total weight loss to 30st.
Surprisingly, neither woman had dieted until a few years ago. The pair were working together in the restaurant business – Kate as a chef, Kay front of house – when Kate’s mum, Kath, suffered a brain haemorrhage. The couple decided to close their muchloved eatery and help with her recovery.
‘That’s when we were like, no, work doesn’t come first any more,’ Kay says. ‘ We grieved for a long time. That was us. It was our personality,’ she says of the restaurant.
‘It was just time to give up,’ Kate chips in. ‘It would have killed us,’ Kay agrees.
Consumed by grief, eating well went out of the window, until Kate’s sister, Lisa, who lives with them and her father in the family home in New Brighton, Wallasey, suggested trying the local diet club.
What surprised them, the pair recall from that first meeting, was just how little people knew about food. Their own passion for it reignited, they began devising low-calorie recipes that were all distinctly un-cheffy: chicken tikka drumsticks, sausage casserole, fish pie – all low in carbs and cost.
At a Slimming World meeting, they overheard someone discussing a meal they had shared online; that, combined with Kate’s dad eating their concoctions for a month and losing a stone, suggested that they were on to something.
Today, those responses take centre stage. To decide what will end up in their cookbooks, the pair post recipes on a secret Facebook group for its members to try.
Two large women promoting an enormously successful healthy living plan is not, they know, the norm. Kay checks off the phrases routinely used to describe them – ‘jolly’, ‘middle-aged’, ‘fat’ – the latter of which didn’t bother her. Until it did. ‘It’s an ownership thing,’ she explains.
‘ We own it, we are [fat], we know this, someone telling us that isn’t going to achieve the right message. It’s going to do more harm than good.’
Kay – the ‘gobby’ one of the two – first messaged Kate on a dating website 15 years ago. Or at least she thinks she did – she can’t exactly remember who began the conversation, nor its opening line.
On their first date, they drove to Rhyl in north Wales had a flat Coke, and Kay (‘they call me Calamity Kay’) hit her head on her door; the rest is history. ‘ When you live and work together, it’s a bit of a weird dynamic,’ she admits. ‘But we do try to carve out some time for ourselves outside work which can be difficult, especially now.’
Shunning publicity means they are rarely recognised on the street – though a recent trip to Costco, where a shopper began shrieking on realising she was sharing a conveyor belt with Pinch of Nom, reminds them things are changing.
But to them, the chefs they love – even though they’ve taken a big bite out of their book sales – are the real markers of the culinary A-list. Their favourites – who they say they ‘ look up to’ and ‘would die if they met’ include Nigella Lawson and Angela Hartnett.
Yet modest Kay and Kate are being spoken of in the same breath – last month, their publishers held an awards ceremony for passing the million book sales mark (which they did inside five months), an honour extended to a small number including Douglas Adams and Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father.
‘I think it caught us all with a proper bit of a tear,’ Kay says. Kate inhales sharply, demonstrating their shock: ‘That was massive for us, and just a little bit overwhelming.’
Their next book, due in June, is a meal-planning guide: the Pinch of Nom formula is, they say, to ‘give people what they want and hopefully they will come back’. Which all signs say they will. In their millions.
Pinch of Nom Everyday Light by Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson (RRP £20).
‘It’s not about us, it’s about the people we’re helping’