From Dragon’s Den to homegrown success
Cat Thomson meets a young working mother who is combining looking after toddler twins with a thriving and UK award winning vegan food business, all from her home in Shetland
Evonne Morrison built her health food business while pregnant with twins and then overcame her own demons to face the TV dragons – she runs her health food business from Weisdale in Shetland whilst being mum to Ronnie and Savannah, who are now two-and-a half-years old. Her company, Good Nude Food, makes a range of live naturally fermented vegan sauerkrauts, called Superkrauts.
Growing up as part of a busy household with five sisters she said the only area of conflict was over clothes, for example she’d be looking for something, “then you’d turn up at school and your sister would be wearing your top,” she said. “I really enjoyed growing up in Shetland, my sisters and I have all of us moved back having lived away. It is a beautiful safe place to bring up my children in complete freedom. There is still a community here and people help one and another and I feel very happy and content to be back living in Shetland.”
There were some early indicators that a budding young entrepreneur was in the making. “When I was 11, I was in a fiddle group and we were on a trip to a musical festival in Kirkwall and I saw a Kangol hat I wanted badly. My mum said ‘you’ve spent your pocket money’, but I’m determined so the next morning I got up early and I went with a friend to busk outside Woolworth’s without our mums knowing, and I got my hat in the end.”
At school she was also the managing director of the young enterprise company which made flash exam revision cards which they sold across schools in Scotland. After studying Law at Aberdeen University she found a paid internship in USA (via Mountbatten Internship), which she said was a, “fantastic experience, I studied international business in the evenings and I volunteered loads. I did something everyday I was there because I knew I was only there for a short time”.
She also volunteered for the American Scottish foundation, which runs Tartan day, amongst other events. She said: “I wouldn’t be able to afford tickets to those events so it was my way to get in by helping out.”
But after a year of para-legal work she had a gut instinct that law wasn’t for her and it was then she first learned about fermented foods.
“I was tired all the time, really fatigued, I’m usually someone who has quite a bit of energy so I knew something was wrong.
“I had developed eczema and I kept being prescribed stuff but it wouldn’t go away.”
When visiting friends in upstate New York she found out about all the benefits of eating live foods and the importance of your microbiome, with its balance of friendly bacteria in your gut, “so that is where my love of fermented foods started.” Incorporating live sauerkrauts into her diet was not something she had ever thought of before, but it worked for her. She said: It won’t be a magic cure for all but I did notice that after eating this every day my skin cleared up.”
After returning to Shetland from New York, she fell in love with a Shetland man, Ronnie, her partner. He works in the oil industry in Norway. The couple moved to Glasgow
so Evonne could work as a trainee solicitor.
But in the evening and at weekends she attended business classes and talks, and was completely inspired by hearing direct from women who had set up their own businesses. As she couldn’t find healthy live sauerkrauts here, she perfected her own fermented vegetable recipe using pink Himalayan salt at home.
She said: “This meant it was really easy to have it every day – a sort of a ready-made salad in a jar. I learned how to make it the right texture with a much fresher taste and the consistency of coleslaw rather than a traditional soggy sauerkraut.”
She then added superfoods into the mix like root turmeric, ginger, spirulina and discovered not only that they tasted great but they lasted forever in the fridge. Then she decided to make a business.
With her fledgling start-up idea she was delighted to be accepted on to the Entrepreneurial spark programme in Glasgow. In the evenings she would work on the branding and packaging and the name. “I wanted to highlight the super food element so came up with superkraut brand.” Then she tested the market at health food stores asking for their opinions, then with their responses, she approached the distributor about stocking her products, promising a six-month implementation.but that’s when the really trouble began, because at the same time she discovered she was pregnant with twins.
During the rest of her pregnancy she worked seven days a week to get ready for launch, but being pregnant gave her the confidence boost and a focus she needed. “I had to get my stuff together for them coming, I needed to be set up and running.” In April 2018 she launched her Superkraut range one week before her twins were born. She said: “I absolutely love both motherhood and being a food entrepreneur, but doing both certainly isn’t without its challenges.”
After she won a business pitch at the International food and drink event in London she decided to bite the bullet and enter the Dragon’s Den.
“I would always get really nervous pitching, I’d shake on stage so the only way I could stop was to keep on practising.
“Being on the show was great, a break from trying to look after my twins and working. I got a such an adrenaline rush. I said to myself just enjoy it because you are never going to be here again, it might just be a blur in a few months time.”
For filming she went to Manchester for a couple of nights by herself. "It was bliss. It was an amazing experience and I would recommend it to anyone as long as you are well prepared for it.” Sadly the dragons didn’t invest but Deborah Meaden said her samples were absolutely delicious and, after the show aired, she had a huge amount of orders overnight. “We had made more sauerkraut than I had ever made before and there still wasn’t enough.”
Her website was only up and running the day before the show went out. “It was a phenomenal amount work – unbelievable – but I am really grateful for the exposure.”
Currently the entirely vegan range includes:
Red hot firekraut : made with fermented fresh chillies which is her take on a kimchi. The inspiration being: “I love spicy food but I struggled to find something spicy and healthy but convenient”.
Her award winning Tumeric and Ginger: has fresh roots to provide anti inflammatory benefits, and last year it scooped the “UK’S Best Relish” at the UK Quality Food & Drink Awards.
Supergreens with Spirulina: Contains a variety of vegetables which is good for gut health plus superfood spirulina to create a nutrientdense food packed full of vitamins and minerals with great antioxidant properties. This flavour won a star at the Great Taste Awards this year.
She explains that she uses Scottish vegetables in her sauerkrauts whenever she can, adding, “that is a big deal for me making sure we can get everything as fresh and as local as we can. Our production kitchen is in Kirkcaldy in Fife but I’m proud to run the operation from Shetland. “I started the company with £800 of my own money and it has grown from there,” she said. “I still have a lot of work to do and a lot of goals I want to reach.”
This year she plans to continue growing her online sales and expand her range to include a fourth flavour and to share recipe videos online, because she is keen to encourage people to make fermented food at home. She added: It is not just about promoting my products.”
She tells us that running her own business “is not easy but I really enjoy it and you just have to keep powering on as a working mum.”
Good Nude Food, 272 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 4JR www.goodnudefood.co.uk