Coutts Woman

Growing a business - organically

Ever since she was a student, Ella Heeks was interested in food. Studying geography at school taught her about food’s importance to society and the environment, while the establishment of an out-of-town superstore near Winchester, where she grew up, was a very visible demonstration of how it could change the feel of a high street.

‘Food has a huge effect on everything,’ says Heeks, the 28 year old managing director of organic food delivery service Abel & Cole, who was recently named in Management Today’s ‘Top 35 women under 35’.

‘We try to do things in a reasonable and fair way, but we are not a charity. We don’t pay exorbitant prices for our crops but nor would it occur to us to slash prices at the last minute. Many of our growers now work as co-operatives.’

‘I was interested in making that effect positive. I thought there might be positive ways to sell and grow food. I was interested in ethical business. I don’t subscribe to the traditional corporate view – I think companies can be a force for good and change.’

On graduation from Oxford, Heeks ‘did a lot of research and talked to people’. She was introduced in 2000 to Abel & Cole by a friend of her father who knew Keith Abel. The company then employed 20 people and was run from of a lock up on an industrial estate in Brixton. ‘It was friendly, chaotic, 100 per cent madness and all hands on deck,’ she recalls. ‘It was running on a day to day basis and concentrated on keeping the customer satisfied. Nobody thought about the future. They didn’t have time.’

Heeks adds: ‘The nature of the entrepreneur is that they are fundamentally bad at management. They are bold, creative and decisive. They need somebody else to be systematic and cautious.’ Within Abel & Cole, Heeks became that person.

Today Abel & Cole employs 220 people at premises in Wimbledon and has 70 vans serving 25,000 customers. But the farmers have also thrived.

‘At first Keith went to New Covent Garden to get the stock, but then he made connections with the farmers and cut out the middlemen to work directly with the growers,’ explains Heeks. ‘The farmers are all gradually farming larger areas of land. We give them the security to plant more crops and different crops. For example, we encouraged farmers to plant asparagus, which is a risky crop but they trusted us.’

She adds: ‘We try to do things in a reasonable and fair way, but we are not a charity. We don’t pay exorbitant prices for our crops but nor would it occur to us to slash prices at the last minute. Many of our growers now work as co-operatives.’

Heeks believes that customers are conscious about the provenance of the foods they eat, and keen to eat both seasonally and healthily. ‘Customers are demanding to know more,’ she says.

‘They believe they have a right to be healthy and enjoy their food. But, in the past, they have spent a lot of time buying the same things every week. Our boxes give them an easy way to break that routine. They open the box and find something they may have never cooked before. We often get customers saying ‘I thought I hated X, I am so glad I tried it’. They would never have bought it for themselves.’

Heeks has also introduced ethical business practices, although admits that, unless Abel & Cole grew its produce at its Wimbledon premises, there will always be some environmental issues regarding transportation. ‘We continually experiment with alternative fuels, and plan routes to cut down mileage,’ she says. ‘We return packaging to farms, and smaller farms often work together so that we make just one collection.’

Abel & Cole was recently voted one of the top 20 places to work, and in June Heeks received her accolade. ‘I was utterly delighted,’ she says. ‘I always do my very best and it is hard to have any objection to being recognised for that.’