THE BRAVE & THE BOLD

JEREMY DIXON’S THREE BUSINESSES ARE DESIGNED TO HELP GIVE PEOPLE AS MUCH ENERGY AND DRIVE AS THEIR FOUNDER

“Healthful life, healthful business,” says Revive cookbook author and café owner Jeremy Dixon

PEOPLE LAUGHED WHEN Jeremy Dixon said he wanted to own a vegetarian café that didn’t sell coffee. When he did open the doors of the first Revive Café on Auckland’s Fort Street in 2004, suppliers were so sure he was going to go out of business they wouldn’t give him credit.

Fast-forward 15 years and Jeremy has proved them all wrong. He now presides over three healthy-food businesses, which turned over $6 million last year, making him the perfect advertisement for living well.

“If you apply the whole natural, pure living thing to your life, you just have so much more energy and vitality,” he says. “It makes such a difference.”

Jeremy’s journey from healthy-food enthusiast to entrepreneur began in 2003 after he and his wife Verity spent 10 days at a wellness retreat. It was a life-changing experience; soon afterwards he quit his marketing job at food giant Sanitarium and decided to open a café, despite not having any hospitality experience.

He was passionate and committed to his vision, but reality soon bit hard. “Even normal cafés have a high mortality rate, so opening one that didn’t sell the things that people like, such as coffee or

sugary drinks, was pretty risky,” he says. “I’d taken money out on the mortgage on our house, so I had to make it work. We nearly went under in the first year, but when you’re faced with massive financial collapse, that’s when you come up with your best ideas.”

Four years and many “painful lessons” later as he learned about supply, demand, staffing and all the other tasks involved in running a hospitality business, things were going so well that Jeremy opened a second Revive Café on Lorne Street. His cafés’ USP � bright, fresh salads and smoothies rather than hot chips, stodgy muffins and constant coffees � has made them stand out in a crowded market.

Jeremy was extremely hands-on at the cafés in the early years, but now has a “wonderful” operations manager who looks after them while he drives his two spin-off businesses. In 2011, he self-published the first Revive Café Cookbook, which was an instant hit.

“I went to publishers and they said, ‘Yeah, nah. There are too many cookbooks, and people don’t want vegetarian food.’” Undeterred, he learned food photography, hired a graphic designer and did it all himself. The first book sold 4000 copies, and before he knew it, he had another business. He’s since sold 200,000 Revive cookbooks, with the seventh volume published late in 2018.

Jeremy says they’re a constant

THE NUMBERS 2 Auckland CBD cafés 7 self-published cookbook titles 200,000 self-published cookbooks sold since 2011 18 million Frooze Balls produced last year $6 million turnover across the three businesses last year 15% growth year-onyear across the three businesses

work in progress, but the cafés have proved an ideal testing ground. His staff used to grumble about making bliss balls until a former engineer colleague from Sanitarium made him a machine that did the job and they teamed up to make Frooze Balls. “They were always popular in the cafés, so we had a go at selling them in health stores and a couple of supermarkets.” After a Pak’nSave sold a pallet of Frooze Balls in a weekend in 2013, there was no looking back. “In the first two years we were doubling our production every seven months,” Jeremy says. “Then, three years ago, our competitors suddenly arrived, and they were super-aggressive. We’ve been fighting hard to get our share back since.” The company has since launched a new nut-butter range of Frooze Balls and Jeremy says he’s determined to put the experience to good use. He’s wary of complacency. “The minute you think you’ve made it, that’s when you’ll start to go backwards. I’ve learned that you have to keep innovating and have a business model that works. You have to do things smarter constantly.”

ELEVATOR PITCH: “I want to help people supercharge their health and their energy levels with healthy food,” Jeremy says. HEADWINDS: Large-scale competitors were quick to catch on when shoppers developed an appetite for Frooze Balls. They moved fast to capture the market while Jeremy was figuring out how to keep up with demand. TAILWINDS: Being able to prove Frooze Balls’ popularity with café customers and healthfood stores helped Jeremy get his product in front of supermarkets. WHAT NEXT?: “I’d love to commercialize more of what we do in the cafés � they’re the perfect testing ground because we get instant feedback. Frooze Balls were our practice product, and now I have a fleet of ideas for new ones. We’re not standing still. We want to keep on innovating.” LESSONS: “Aim to win, but part of winning is failing along the way. Fail fast and cheaply. If you want to do something, give it a whirl. If it doesn’t work, move on quickly and try something else, don’t hold on to it.”