How JuLIANNE PONAN IS SAVING PEOPLE ONE SNACK AT A TIME
How the businesswoman beat death, followed her dreams and changed the allergy game.
By Naomi Schanen
Julianne Ponan is the owner of Creative Nature, a ‘free-from’ healthy snack brand: “I wanted to make a food brand that has a purpose,” she says.
From flapjack bars to baking mixes and superfoods, their products are free from the 14 most common allergens and intolerances including gluten, dairy, nuts and sweeteners.
“I nearly died quite a few times,” the 29-year-old says, as her fingers play with the silver ‘J’ hanging from her necklace. Suffering from life-threatening allergies, anaphylaxis, to all nuts as well as some seeds and additives, her mortal enemy is also her absolute passion – food.
Ponan poses proudly with her Creative Nature superfood snacks.
Ponan and her partner enjoying the outdoors in Creative Nature T-shirts.
Everyday is life or death for Ponan.
At the age of two, she collapsed at nursery after eating a snack with traces of nuts. Paramedics had to restart her heart and inform her parents about the severity of her allergies. Her childhood was spent visiting the hospital every six months as she suffered numerous near fatal reactions and required regular check-ups: “At least I got to try loads of food as part of the allergy tests,” she says, huffing out a silent laugh.
“I’ve always had to eat very differently to normal people,” she says. “It was difficult being different to everybody else growing up.”
Eight years ago, finance graduate Ponan was 5,000 miles from home, working at an upmarket banking firm in Beijing. For a fresh graduate, she was successful, no doubt.
Despite her success, she felt empty and lost: “In banking, I could climb the ladder very quickly and earn a lot of money, but there was no self-fulfilment,” she says. “I wanted something to be my own. I wanted to feel like I was achieving something for me.”
She packed up her bustling life in China and flew back to the suburbs of Walton-on-Thames to start over.
“I’ve always had an interest in business from a very young age,” she says, laughing as she talks about how she used to charge her parents’ guests at dinner parties. Starting her own company seemed like the right thing to do. “It was always just a matter of when,” she says.
Ponan came across Creative Nature, a crumbling business that sold incense, candles and some superfoods. Despite the firm’s heavy losses of over £56,000, she saw potential in the name and logo. At just 22 years old, she bought the business and completely revamped the products and management. She took on the company’s debts, brought it back to life and made it her own.
To Ponan, this was more than just a business: “I was always asking my mum why I couldn’t eat like the others. Whether it was at the supermarket or the club, I started to realise that there’s nothing out there for people like me. And that’s not a way to live.”
Seeing there was a growing ‘free-from’ market, especially for gluten and dairy-free products, she took her chance. But she didn’t do it alone.
For the first three years, Creative Nature was run by Ponan and her partner, Matt Ford. They met at Waitrose at the age of 16 – he was a trolley boy; she was a checkout girl. She says: “When I bought the company, I asked him to quit his job and come work for me for basically nothing. I sugar-coated it and made it sound amazing. I don’t know why but he believed it, and he believed in me.”
Ponan and her partner Ford during a promotional shoot for their superfood powders.
Ponan poses behind her Creative Nature treats.
“At the beginning, it was just one day to the next,” she says, chuckling as she remembers the two of them cooking up recipes in their kitchen until sunrise to meet deadlines and pulling pallets by hand because they didn’t have a forklift."
But it wasn’t all fun and games.
“No one wants to say it but it’s lonely being an entrepreneur at the beginning,” she says, voice softening. “I didn’t go out much because I was so busy. And the less I went out, the more my friends pulled away. I wasn’t even invited to my best friend’s engagement. It was hard.”
On top of that, pocket money was running low and every attempt to crowdfund online and at events failed: “I nearly gave up and went back to banking. But if you really want to make it, you’ve got to be persistent, determined and for every knockback, you’ve got to open another door,” she says.
But the duo pushed on, using every chance they had to attend business fairs, reach out to corporations and create new products. In 2014, with their last bit of marketing spend, Creative Nature managed to secure an Ocado supermarket deal. Then, within weeks, they signed with Tesco. And soon enough, Asda, Co-op and Sainsbury’s followed suit. All the long nights and tears were finally worth it.
In 2016, Ponan won the Guardian newspaper’s Leader of the Year award. She went on to open the London Stock Exchange, and even appeared on Dragon’s Den and Britain’s Next Top Model.
But now, victims of fatal allergies need her more than ever before. Anaphylaxis cases are rising and more needs to be done to cater to those who suffer from it. In April, the World Allergy Organisation’s scientific conference hopes to bring together the experts in order to find a cure for life-threatening food allergies.
“I still get butterflies when I see people buying our stuff because if it wasn’t for me, that product wouldn’t be here,” she says, beaming with pride as the neatly arranged awards on the shelves behind her glisten in the sunlight.
“Success is so different for every single person. One person’s successful might be a mum with three kids. And I think wow, I admire that. But that’s not me. My definition of success is progress, change and growth.”
She tucks her wavy locks behind her ears and looks up. “I’m getting there,” she says, grinning from ear to ear.
Click here for more information about Creative Nature.