When Little Girls Dream

In celebration of International Women’s Day, I wanted to share with you how I came about starting Root2Ginger with no investment or start-up money just doing what I love.

I knew it was time to start my own business I felt ready, and my adult sons encouraged me to ‘go for it’ but my younger daughter cried when I told her I was thinking of resigning from my job and immediately felt anxious. This served to make me even more determined in my decision as I wanted to be an example to her of a woman in business. I reminded her that I had previously been successfully self-employed for 8 years. I talked to her about the need to be brave and take risks in life and if things don’t work, we simply try again. To mark the importance of this talk we spontaneously went and got our right ears pierced as a reminder to us both to continue to be brave. Last week my daughter told me she was proud of me. She laughed as she called me ‘a successful businesswoman’……with the passing of time it’s all been worth it for her to see what is possible! We still have a long way to go with what is now a family business.

In my previous role as a senior manager in a fostering company I once got caught by a new boss whilst asking the admin staff to print off some bottle labels for my Christmas gift bottles of ginger. Luckily, she laughed and told me to get on with it; I had after all bought my own labels! In 2021 my boss as well as family and friends encouraged me to leave my job. She would often delay our weekly Monday managers meetings to have a brief update from me about the weekend sales and events of Root2Ginger which I had begun to sell locally.

Developing the brand of Root2Ginger was new and exciting, I was bursting with creativity and ideas. The customer feedback about our drinks and branding was fantastic from the start; we were overwhelmed with positive feedback at events and our Trustpilot reviews which are Excellent.

I am pleased to have started a female-founded black-owned company that can go some way to promoting a more diverse, inclusive, and stronger economy. There are more women starting businesses than ever before. As a single parent for over 20 years, it has sometimes been difficult to think about starting my own business alongside the responsibility of raising children, paying a mortgage, working full time, and managing finances. Having previously had a limited company and been self-employed within my profession it felt totally different starting a drinks company in a world that was completely unknown to me. I hadn’t even used Instagram or Facebook before Root2Ginger, now I’m asked by my children to put my phone down. Starting Root2Ginger felt instinctively right, and I had to trust my gut as it carried us along in a whirlwind first year of excitement and new opportunities.

Since starting our family business in 2021 my children are thoroughly on board, and we continue to learn new skills from manufacturing to marketing. We work well together and play to our strengths.