An Allerton woman has been named as one of the most inspirational female entrepreneurs across the UK.
Celia McDonald, who was born in Africa but now lives in Liverpool, has ranked in the top 100 of the F-entrepreneurs #IAlso 2023 list. The 54-year-old secured her place after successfully establishing a dog-food brand, despite having faced racism throughout her life.
The former rehabilitation officer for the blind told the ECHO: “I’m overwhelmed and in awe to be on the list. The women on the list are so inspirational. The strength you feel and get from the other women who all have their own stories to tell is amazing.”
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Celia was “extremely proud” to be on the list, especially after being told no so many times in her life beforehand due to her skin colour. The business owner, who is of Portuguese and Indian heritage, moved to the UK when she was four years old after the former President of Uganda, Idi Amin, ordered the “expulsion” of the country's British-Asian community.
The Ugandan leader, who had seized power in a military coup the previous year, gave the British-Asian population 90 days to leave the country, reportedly, following a dream in which he had been instructed by God to expel them.
Celia said: “We had to leave as part of the mass exodus and we were scattered all over the world. We left very quickly and with very little so as not to draw attention to us and I remember silly things like leaving our dog. When we came to England, we stuck out as there weren’t any people here with different coloured skin and we weren’t very well accepted. There was a lot of racism flying around in the 70s and it wasn’t easy.”
The architecture graduate was brought up in a Catholic household and her dad wanted her and her three siblings to therefore attend a Catholic school in the Southeast of England. However, the former Oxford Brooks University student claims the school rejected the family on the basis they “couldn’t accommodate for your kind”. Celia ended up going to her local primary school and even there she was the “only person who wasn’t white” and with that “came a lot of racist name-calling”.
Racism would continue to be prevalent throughout Celia’s life even as she got older and started to consider which industry she wanted to make a name for herself in. Celia claims she has experienced both positive discrimination and tokenism.
She added: “I’ve been offered jobs just because I am a woman and my skin colour isn’t white. I’ve been put on billboards with the tagline ‘we employ people of minority backgrounds’ placed above me. It definitely has been something people think they can use me for, to tick all those boxes. It frustrates me because they don’t actually recognise my skills or my qualifications - they just see me at the surface level rather than what I can contribute.”
Despite the setbacks, Celia kept motivated as she claims she never “took racism” personally as she saw it as the other person having a lack of intelligence.
The entrepreneur made the list with the help of the story behind her business. Celia founded, For Dog's Sake Treats, after her miniature Goldendoodle, Bella became sick after eating food from the store shelves. Bella started to vomit blood and had to be taken to an emergency out-of-hours vet when she was 18 months old.
After staying in for several days and having multiple tests, it was concluded Bella had Irritable Bowel Disorder. Later, Celia learned from the vet it was something in the shop-bought foods that continued to make Bella sick. However, the process to find out what exactly was a long and expensive route to take. Instead, she opted to take matters into her own hands and make her own raw diet food.
Having already created her own liver cake recipe before to meet Bella’s needs as a pup, she knew she was capable of doing it once again. Once the word got out about Bella’s illness, members of the local dog community reached out to Celia to explain they were having similar problems with their own dogs – from stomach problems to picky eaters. Now Celia caters for the community with everything from steak and kidney to peanut butter and fish cakes.
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