Husband and wife team Julius and Devorah Nussbaum hope their company Fresh Wholefood will help change people’s eating habits, writes Alex Bellotti.
While Britain is showing an ever-increasing appetite for healthy eating, the problem remains for Londoners that it often takes too long to prepare. Only so much good can come from supermarket salad, so there’s a demand for the delivery companies who can drop carefully prepared meals ready to eat at your front door.
Enterprising husband and wife team Julius and Devorah Nussbaum are the latest addition to this burgeoning profession. Their company, Fresh Wholefood, uses only vegan, unrefined and unprocessed ingredients to create breads, curries, bakes and more which can be delivered each day to enjoy for breakfast and lunch.
Previously a nutrition and health coach for six years, Devorah says the business came about after finding her clients would often ask her for meal portions to fit with their busy lifestyles.
Based in Hendon, they deliver across north London to areas including St Johns Wood, Hampstead, Hampstead Garden Suburb and Highgate.
“Being in London, most people if they’re not getting onto a tube are getting into a car; there’s a lot of travelling so the extra preparation you need to do just to eat properly takes a lot of organising,” says Julius, 39. “So if we can take the pain out of that and deliver good, nutritional wholefood to you, home or office, then it’s a great option if you can sign up to it.”
As Devorah explains, the increasing popularity of veganism is both down to greater consideration for animal rights and to the associated health benefits. Yet the 29-year-old believes there is also “vegan healthy and vegan unhealthy”, so Fresh Wholefood ensure at least 90 per cent of their ingredients remain organic, with many of them sourced from a local bio-diversity farm. Recipes are devised by Devorah and cooked by specialist chefs from their Harrow kitchen.
But why the focus on breakfast and lunch?
“A lot of people will have coffee for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, find themselves starving hungry and later eating a lot more food faster than they should,” she explains. “They wake up in the morning feeling a bit sick, and the vicious cycle continues.
“People also need energy during the day to function, moreso than the evening when your body needs to wind down and go to bed. This is a way for people to change their programme; if they’re eating better quality food earlier in the day and less food in the evening, then they end up waking up in the morning feeling energised because their body’s had a chance to detox overnight.”
With prices (including delivery) starting at £26 for one day and running until 40 days for £880, it’s certainly one of the pricier options on the market. But as Devorah argues, the ingredients are inherently expensive, with the unrefined oil they use, for example, costing nearly £10 to ensure a higher quality of product.
“It’s different to the kind of wholesale food that normal restaurants might use, because often they’re using the cheapest ingredients,” she adds.
“And the reason why we’re doing that is because we want to offer high quality service to high quality people; we could just be another fast food company, but that’s not our ethos.
“We feel that in the food industry there’s not enough quality out there that people are looking for, and we want to help change that.”
Fresh Wholefood are offering a discount to Ham&High readers, with their five day programme available for £90 (usually £125) and 20 days for £350 (usually £470). Visit freshwholefood.uk
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