MY LIGHT BULB MOMENT
Natasha founded Biotiful Dairy, which makes a range of products. she lives in London with her daughter.
GROWING up in Russia, a staple part of my diet was kefir — an ancient cultured milk drink. It’s popular throughout Russia, Eastern Europe and parts of Asia. I’ve been drinking it since I was four months old.
But when I moved to Ireland in 1999 — to take up a new job at KPMG, having been working for the firm in corporate finance — and later London, I found it was hard to get hold of kefir. What I could find didn’t match the quality I was used to back home.
I badly missed both the taste and the health benefits. Kefir has more than 40 types of beneficial gutfriendly bacteria and yeasts, as well as vitamins and calcium. That was my light bulb moment.
I decided to make a product myself that was natural, delicious and of a very high quality.
I had some savings, so I left my job and began researching how to make the best kefir I could. I travelled to Russia and visited production sites to see how it was done and to find ingredients.
Then I came back to the UK and found a production base, as well as a dairy consultant to help. I also enrolled in various courses, including food safety.
After four months of extensive experimenting with different flavours and packaging, we finally launched in 2013 with our Organic Kefir range, straight into Selfridges, Harrods, Fortnum & Mason and Planet Organic.
I ran lots of product tastings in stores myself, as I wanted to speak to customers and get as much feedback as possible. I was thrilled to find that the response was overwhelmingly positive, and within 18 months, we started selling through Ocado, too.
Two years after launching, we introduced morello cherry and honey flavours, as families wanted something naturally sweeter to appeal to children.
We had no big marketing budget, so relied on word of mouth. Thankfully that worked and sales took off: our average year-onyear growth has been more than 250 per cent.
We now have a range of kefir drinks and high-protein snacks, and are stocked in all major UK supermarkets. This month we’re launching a children’s range, with no added sugar.
When I began there was very little consumer awareness of kefir. Now everyone is talking about fermented products. I’m so pleased to have been a part of that.