Hillary’s our Mumpreneur of the Year!
It started in her kitchen. Now her ready meals firm has a £12m turnover — and feeds 200,000 children a week
The ballroom was full of some of Britain’s most accomplished businesswomen, but as hillary Graves collected her prestigious Daily Mail Mumpreneur of the Year Award last week, she was keeping a beady eye on the clock.
For it was also her eldest son Monty’s tenth birthday and there were candles to be blown out back home.
Neatly illustrating the work-life juggle familiar to any working mother, hillary, 46, accepted her much-coveted award — a special accolade for women who launch successful businesses while bringing up young children — then headed home to be Mum.
‘It felt very meaningful to win this award ten years to the day that I became a mother,’ she says. ‘It is hard to start a business while bringing up a family — there’s no point denying that — but it’s definitely attainable, and I’d be incredibly pleased if this encouraged more women to become entrepreneurs.
‘Men are conditioned to do what they want, but women tend to hold back. We need role models to change perceptions, which is why this award is so important.’
With an anticipated turnover of £12 million this year, Little Dish was judged an outstanding example of mumpreneurship, and a valuable part of the booming ‘mum economy’ (defined as businesses run by women with children aged 18 or under) which is now worth £7.2billion and employs 204,000 people.
LITTLe Dish was born at the same time as Monty. realising time-poor working mothers were feeling guilty for feeding their children frozen convenience foods, hillary created a range of chilled meals that adhered to the best nutritional guidelines; were salt, sugar and additive-free; provided one or two of the recommended five-a-day; but could still be thrown in the microwave.
As her family expanded (ridley joined Monty in 2009) so did the company. her husband Dean Brown, also 46, came onboard as managing director last year. At that point Little Dish moved into healthy snacks and soups, too.
But it’s not been easy. ‘Women have a great emotional intelligence, which helps in business, but we also take things more personally,’ she says. ‘I’ve had to learn not to — and be more laid back when a plan falls apart.’
‘It was hard just getting the meals on the supermarket shelves. At one point we had to deal with a very aggressive man who represented a big chain and kept asking us for more money to stock Little Dish.
‘he was incredibly difficult and at times I felt near defeat.’
Another rep told her quite openly he ‘didn’t care’ about the ingredients in children’s food. ‘he wasn’t very sympathetic to the idea of improving children’s nutrition.’
But the fact that she did care, very much, kept her going through the most difficult times. ‘This was my passion. People could be negative, but it was never going to stop me.’
Which is also her top tip for success: ‘The number one thing is to find a business idea that you feel passionate about. That really drives you.
‘If you’re working on something you love, you’re more likely to get through the bad days and find ways to turn setbacks to your advantage.’
If the award proves women can combine business with babies, the product itself, says hillary, reflects the challenges facing all working mothers. ‘There’s definitely a sense that women get judged for not being in the kitchen every night making good food from scratch for their children,’ she says.
The emotional connections we have to both food and motherhood mean that some people get very agitated by the idea of women buying prepared meals for their kids, no matter how well-made they are. Women can often be accused of being lazy for resorting to them.
‘I don’t agree with that. We love to cook, and it would be fantastic if mums and dads could always do it. But sometimes they can’t.
‘Busy modern life means that women can’t always create perfect little meals from scratch. There might be football or ballet, or you might have a late meeting at work.’
‘The idea behind Little Dish is that kids get the equivalent of a home-cooked meal and women can feel great about feeding it to their children.’
The doubters, she says, should try one for themselves.
With dinner done, there’s one less thing to juggle. Yet working mums still have to spin more plates than dads. The administrative minutiae of children’s lives — teachers’ names and Pe kits and Christmas collections — still seems almost always to fall to mums.
‘But you do need a supportive husband to make a business work,’ says hillary.
‘he doesn’t need to stay at home, but life would be much harder if there was no one there to share logistics. Things like breakfast and the school run, for example. My husband is very good at that.
We’re raising boys, and I do think it’s important for them to see him doing his share of the caring, and to expect women to achieve just as much as men outside the home.’
It’s here, too, that the Aphrodite Mumpreneur of the Year Award, sponsored by the Mail and given in association with the NatWest everyWoman Awards, is important to her — the more visible and celebrated businesswomen are, the better.
Now in their 14th year, these awards raise the profile of successful women, form networks between them and inspire a new generation. In fact, Prime Minister Theresa May sent her congratulations to the women at the ceremony last week.
hillary’s sons are also learning their way around a kitchen; she has written cookbooks under the Little Dish brand that include cooking roles for children. Both boys are Little Dish ‘tasters’. ‘They’re not fussy eaters, but they do know good food,’ says hillary. ‘They’re good with sprouts, though it won’t be the first thing they put on their plate.
‘Getting kids to taste new foods is like starting a business — you’ve got to persevere and stay positive.’
And yet keep a steely grip on proceedings, too. If the children refuse even to try a new taste — say, a morsel of gently steamed broccoli — there are consequences: ‘In that case, I do say: “No pudding!” It’s important to be able to be hard like that, too.’