An eponymous wholesome eating brand beloved of health-conscious Londoners from Highgate to Hackney is being snapped up by a Swiss food giant in a deal announced today.
Deliciously Ella will be part of the Hero Group after the transaction goes through.
Named after its founder, Ella Mills, who found fame as a well-read food blogger and transformed her own health with home-cooked fayre, the brand has grown fast.
Best-known for its range of oat bar snacks and granola and muesli, it has been at the forefront of the new fashion for vegan food. Hero said that it would be enable the products “to reach millions more customers around the world”.
Ella herself, and fellow founder and partner Matthew Mills, will stay with the company after the deal. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The couple said today: “We are both incredibly excited to partner with the Hero Group. What started as a small recipe website and a cookbook has becomesomething bigger than either of us could have imagined”, adding:
“We have had numerous approaches to sell or partner with other food companies over the years, but only this one felt right.”
Founded in 2016, Deliciously Ella has already over 100 million products. Hero is already competing in the UK healthy snacks market with its Organix brand.
The Swiss firm’s chief executive, Rob Versloot, said: “Deliciously Ella is a perfect fit for us, and we are particularly happy to have them on board.”
Hero is also a privately owned family firm. It dates back to 1886 in Lenzburg in central Switzerland and it describes itself as a “values-led” company.
Delicously Ella began as a food blog with a recipe for spiced sweet potatoes with an avocado cream posted in 2012. The firm’s famous founder had dropped out of university due to ill health.
After struggling to find an effective treatment for her ills, Mills adopted a meat-free diet which also cut out processed foods and taught herself to cook from scratch.
Now with millions of social media followers, status as a best-selling author and sales of her own lines putting even those numbers in the shade, today’s deal gives her the backing of a major international group.
She and Matt said today:
“Hero has brands all over the world and a proven track record in helping brands reach much greater scale. This is a transformational moment in bringing our natural,
plant-based ranges to more people, both in the UK and abroad”.
