A healthy, food delivery start-up founded by Georgia Cummings in 2012. For the first year Georgia did all the cooking at home. Balanced & nourishing meals delivered to you, recipes are developed by a nutritionist and chef using fresh, local ingredients.

What have been the main contributors to your brands success?

Working hard, having a great team and really supportive family and friends. Potage started in my mum’s kitchen in Notting Hill in 2012. Today we’re a team of 8 working from our own kitchen in Battersea. Other big factors have been staying focused on our goal, to make eating well easy by delivering nourishing meals, and growing slowly. I spent the first year doing everything; I built the website, cooked all the food, took the orders and delivered on a bicycle, only hiring a team as I could afford it. We’ve continued to grown this way and as a result have an incredibly loyal customer base whose feedback and support have been instrumental in our success.

Where have your biggest influences come from?

Mostly my family and friends, they all influence me in their own way. My mum started her own business (nurole.com) and I’ve always admired how much she’s achieved and the way she balanced it with bringing up a family. I also often think about my dad talking about summers as a child living with his French grandparents who lived a long and incredibly happy life on a farm in Castelmoron and were totally self-sufficient.

How important has your young age and optimism been in setting up Potage?

I don’t think age is important. After all you’re only as old as you feel and I certainly feel a lot more energetic and positive when I have a good balance of eating well, exercising and sleeping. I find I recharge off certain people so it’s also really important for me to set aside time each week to spend with family and friends. Starting a business can be very lonely, I suspect I spent 95% of my time alone in the first year so optimism is important to keep you motivated.

Where do you see the healthy food market going?

There are all sorts of trends in food that go in and out of fashion. Our healthy eating philosophy is to keep things simple and we work with a qualified Dietician, Rosie Norman, to make sure what we say is based on scientific research rather than misleading trends.

Scientists and health professionals are beginning to understand that the old fashioned criticism of single nutrients as the root of all evil is not the most helpful approach to healthy eating. We don’t tend to eat sugar, salt or fat on its own. We eat a complex diet composed of many different foods, often combined together to make meals. This means instead of arguing over whether we should eat more butter or less sugar, it’s more important to look at our diet as whole, thinking about how that food fits into your overall diet. Not just today, but also over weeks and months.

Healthy eating is therefore a balance of quality, quantity and frequency, and each person’s diet varies depending on their own activity level, nutritional needs and goals.

Do you believe that people will always look for quick and easy ways to eat healthily?

Yes because we don’t all always have the luxury of time to make our own meals, even if we’d like to – but I don’t believe quick and easy any longer has to mean unhealthy. When I had the idea for Potage I used to describe it to people as a friend around the corner who delivered an extra portion of whatever they were cooking, it’s delicious, handmade, fresh food delivered.

Are there any other areas that Potage will look to explore in the future?

Definitely! There are lots of things I’d like to do in the future; a cookery book, Potage branded homeware, work on educating kids on food education and nutrition.

www.potage.co.uk/