In this instalment of 'Start-up spotlight' – which celebrates small and early-stage businesses and their innovations – we speak to Ineke Nugteren, founder and CEO of Nourish. The UK snack brand is responding to the demand for plant-based, functional offerings built around a gut-friendly ethos and natural, clean-label recipes. Read on to find out more.
Could you tell us a bit about Nourish’s mission and how you hope to impact the plant-based food and beverage industry?
Nourish exists to prove that food genuinely can be medicine, without ever tasting like it. I came to this from nursing and intensive care, watching first-hand how much diet shapes long-term health, and I wanted to build snacks that support the body – gut health, steady blood sugar, real nourishment – using clean, plant-based ingredients that people actually crave.
My hope for the wider industry is that we help shift plant-based food away from being defined by what it leaves out – no dairy, no meat, no this, no that – and toward being defined by what it actively does for you. If we can show that a functional, better-for-you snack can outsell the indulgent option on taste alone, that changes what the whole category aspires to.
What gap does the brand fill within the UK functional snacks market?
For a long time, UK shoppers have had to choose between snacks that are indulgent but nutritionally empty, and snacks that are 'healthy' but joyless – dry, chalky, over-engineered, and often very cereal heavy. Nourish sits in the gap between those two: genuinely functional (gut-supporting fibre and ingredients, thoughtfully managed sugar, clean labels you can pronounce) and genuinely delicious, because it's developed by someone who cares about the clinical evidence as much as the eating experience.
We're also filling a format gap. A lot of 'functional' eating still lives in supplements, highly processed bars and powders. Nourish brings that functionality into the snack aisle: a cookie, a bar, a bite you'd reach for anyway, so the healthy choice doesn't require a lifestyle change, just a different biscuit tin.
How have you seen consumer interest in functional and better-for-you snacks change in recent years? What’s driving growth?
The conversation has moved on hugely. Five or six years ago, 'healthy snacking' mostly meant lower calorie or free-from. Now shoppers are asking much more specific questions: what does this do for my gut, my energy, my blood sugar? Gut health in particular has gone from a niche interest to something people bring up unprompted.
A few things are driving that: much wider public understanding of the gut microbiome and its links to immunity, mood, and skin; a genuine post-pandemic shift toward proactive, everyday health rather than just treating illness; and a wave of accessible science and nutrition content online that's done a lot of the education for us. Retailers have responded too – functional snacking has gone from a single shelf to a whole category mainstream supermarkets are actively building out.
Was being a plant-based brand core to Nourish’s proposition from day one?
Completely – it was never a rebrand or a reaction to a trend. When I started Nourish in 2015, the 'food as medicine' philosophy and using plant-based ingredients were the same decision. Plants gave me the fibre, the functional compounds and the clean-label simplicity I wanted to build around, so it was the obvious foundation rather than something bolted on later.
Were there any notable formulation challenges in developing your range of snacks? How did you navigate these?
The biggest recurring challenge is that function and flavour can pull in opposite directions – the ingredients that do the most for gut health and blood sugar (fibres, lower-sugar formulations, whole plant ingredients) are often the hardest to make genuinely craveable, and to keep shelf-stable without leaning on artificial preservatives. We also didn’t want to rely on cheap, ooften highly processed cereals as the base. We wanted to create something different.
We navigate that through a lot of patient, hands-on recipe development in our own production kitchen rather than outsourcing it blind – testing texture and taste with the team who actually make the products day-to-day, and treating food safety and quality rigour (to SALSA-audit standard) as part of the formulation process, not an afterthought bolted on before launch.
How has awareness of gut health changed in recent years? Do you see this as a significant opportunity for the plant-based food and beverage industry?
It's changed dramatically. Gut health has gone from a specialist topic to something you'll hear discussed at the school gate – driven by high-profile research and health voices bringing the science of the microbiome to a mainstream audience, and by people's own experience that how they eat affects how they feel day-to-day.
It's a huge opportunity for plant-based food and drink specifically, because plants are naturally where a lot of gut-supporting fibre, prebiotics and functional compounds live. The brands that can translate that science into something genuinely enjoyable to eat, rather than another supplement to remember to take, are well-placed to turn curious, health-aware shoppers into loyal, repeat customers.
What has been the company’s biggest achievement to date?
Building Nourish into a nationally stocked, award-winning brand – sitting on shelves alongside Ocado, Whole Foods, Abel & Cole, Planet Organic, Daylesford Organic and in the last 12 months onboard Virgin Atlantic – almost entirely through organic growth and community, without a paid advertising budget behind us. Getting there from a standing start is the achievement I'm proudest of.
How does Nourish ensure sustainability within its approach?
Sustainability for us runs through sourcing, production and community. We keep our ingredient lists clean and minimally processed, which naturally limits waste and unnecessary processing steps. We use recyclable and compostable packaging options. A number of our ingredients and products are organic. And we give back through our charitable partnership with Water for Good, because sustainability isn't just environmental to us – it's about the wider impact the business has.
What’s next? Any exciting plans or collaborations ahead that you can share with us?
The big focus is taking Nourish from premium and specialist retail into mainstream UK supermarkets, so functional snacking is something far more shoppers can reach for on an everyday basis.
Alongside that, we've got new products in development and we're keen to keep doing the kind of collaborations we enjoy most, in the spirit of our recent Matcha Coconut Cookies partnership with OmgTea, where two brands with real ingredient integrity come together.
If you could offer one piece of advice to aspiring start-ups in the food and beverage industry to help them navigate the sector’s challenges and opportunities, what would it be?
Don't compromise on your 'why'. Supply chains will let you down, production will throw up problems you didn't see coming, and growth will test your standards at every stage – but if you're genuinely clear on the reason you started, that's what gets you through the hard days and stops you cutting corners when it would be easier to.
Invest in getting your quality and food safety right early, because that rigour is what earns you the trust to grow. And build your community honestly, before you have a marketing budget – it will carry you further than any advertising campaign.
