Camilla Ainsworth is the founder of M+LKPLUS, she set up the brand due to her intolerance to dairy and wanted to share her story with FF readers!
Camilla
‘How on earth did you get into nut milk?’ is one of the first questions people ask me about M+LKPLUS (beaten only by the question of HOW you milk a nut..)
It is a valid question especially given that I went to the school of Law in Manchester and yet my path has taken a VERY different turn! Without boring you all for hours, I discovered I was dairy intolerant whilst working on a cow farm in rural Australia for 3 months in order to get my second year visa for the country.
I was gorging on dairy daily and this manifested in a rash all over my body and bad stomach cramps which were put down to lactose intolerance. My rash was particularly uncomfortable due to the fact that I was having to wear long sleeved tops in a hot country.
I had never had any sort of intolerance before so I was not prepared for the lack of options available to me. I started out on my mission of finding a dairy alternative that wasn't plain, boring almond milk with only 2% nuts and lack lustre branding. I wanted a product that was a handy grab and go size as I was always on the go and didn't want to carry round a litre carton in my handbag!
I couldn't find anything and I have always been of the mindset.. if something doesn't exist, then why not create it? And that’s exactly what I did. When I arrived back in the UK I started experimenting with different gourmet flavour combinations and morphed into something of a nutty professor in the process.
I spent hours burrowed away in my room creating the logo, the labels and all the social media pages myself! I started posting about the product and soon people started asking me to make some for them as they’d been looking for the same thing as I had.
Before long, I was delivering 300 cartons of mylk alongside my full time job and still doing everything in my kitchen alone. I soon realised I was ready to take M+LKPLUS to the next level and knew that in order to scale up and conquer the retail market.. I would need investment.
I was hungry for opportunity and set my sights on becoming a candidate on BBC ‘The Apprentice’ as I knew it would be an incredible launch platform for my business. At 22, I managed to become the Youngest ever finalist in the shows 14 year history and launched M+LKPLUS into 645 Holland and Barrett stores the day after the final.
My intolerance could've definitely been seen as a setback but I chose to adjust my thought processes and view it as an opportunity instead. An opportunity, to create a gourmet flavoured grab and go plant based product thats packed full of personality and makes it cool to be alternative and different. Who said free from needs to be free of everything fun? Not me!
M+LKPLUS was created out of a personal need which makes me the target customer and allows me to really connect and identify with what our customers want. At the core of M+LKPLUS is kindness and inclusivity. Dairy intolerant? We got you! Vegan? You’re in! Just want to try new things and get involved in trends? Welcome to the family!
We have recently launched our ‘Kindness campaign’ wherein we encourage people to nominate organisations, charities and companies to receive free mylk for all involved. We have had thousands of nominations so far and organisations include St johns ambulance, mind charity, apple, Birmingham children's hospital to name a few and we will be actioning the campaign throughout October and November in order to put a smile on people’s faces and to encourage people to be ‘randomly kind’ more frequently.
With two flavours already released (salted honeycomb hazelnut and strawberry cheesecake cashew) good things come in threes and thus, we have a very exciting third addition in the pipelines which will be launching in November. Watch this space!
M+LKPLUS is available from Holland and Barrett nationwide
Tagged in The Apprentice