Planet Organic founder Renée Elliott: ‘Build a business with values and trust yourself’

Planet Organic founder Renée Elliott urged fellow entrepreneurs to build a business with purpose and stick to their values at an event hosted by leading UK wealth management firm Evelyn Partners. 

“I deliberately wove values into the business when I started. As the company grows, you want to maintain those values,” the UK-based American entrepreneur told a crowd of more than a hundred business owners, current and prospective clients of Evelyn Partners, at the firm’s Entrepreneurial Minds event last week.  

Outlining her motivation for setting up her business that aligned with her values around health, sustainability and integrity, Elliott added: “I wanted to live a life of meaning. I wanted to live a life that made a difference because we have one precious life. This is not a dress rehearsal. I thought, I want to do something that somehow makes a difference in the world.” 

Nick Travis, Evelyn Partners’ Head of Entrepreneurs and an investment management Partner, said of the event: “It was fantastic to hear Renée tell her story and I know our guests left feeling inspired and full of ideas.  

“At Evelyn Partners we have a great record of attracting and looking after entrepreneurs and business owners as wealth management clients. We find that they not only have particular needs but also a certain mindset that we understand, after years of building close relationships of trust with many long-standing clients from the business world. 

“Some of those clients were there to hear Renée and many brought business-owner friends who it was a pleasure for us to meet. This is just the first of six Entrepreneurial Minds event this year, and we’re looking forward to hosting more high-profile speakers and guests from the business world.  

“As a firm that is proud of creating bespoke financial plans and investment portfolios for our business-owner clients, the exchange of ideas and experiences is fascinating and invaluable.” 

Values are one thing, but Elliott also stressed the need for a solid business plan: “It’s the best thing I did,” she said. “I think it is critical. I now coach and mentor on business planning because I feel it's so fundamental to setting the vision. And the business plan is the journey from now to that vision.” 

Determination and self-belief are key, she said, adding that going on a course of personal development and self-awareness early on in her entrepreneurial journey was “life changing”.  

She said: “I realised on that course that anything was possible. Even though I'm a small-town girl, I didn't have the best degree, I didn’t have the highest IQ, but I could do anything I set my mind to.” 

Elliott recently bought back Planet Organic when it nearly fell into administration after a period in private equity hands. She said of her rescue of the firm, which was the UK’s first organic supermarket when she founded it in Notting Hill in 1995, that her mistake was taking on investors who did not share her values. 

She said: “Don’t take money from anyone unless they're completely aligned with your values, because that will create arguments and conflict and it's such a waste of time and energy when all you want to be doing is getting on with the business and doing whatever you're trying to do in the world.”

Elliott also fielded questions at the evening - which was hosted by some of Evelyn Partners’ leading investment management and financial planning practitioners at the firm’s Gresham Street offices in London – telling one guest that the most important thing an entrepreneur can do is to “trust yourself”. 

As a coach, Elliott helps entrepreneurs work on strategic planning and personal growth, with a particular focus on supporting female founders, who she said sometimes need guidance to combat self-esteem challenges and to override imposter syndrome. 

She said: “When you are living your purpose, which I believe as entrepreneurs you are, because you've got this great calling and it's not an easy task, you have everything inside yourself to do that business. So yes, canvas the opinions of smart people, but in the end, do what you know is right. You know how to live your life, how to run your business, and how to raise your kids. All of the answers are inside of you.” 

About Renée Elliott 

Renée opened the first Planet Organic store in west London in 1995, with a mission to promote health in the community by making organic and natural food accessible.  

After challenging early years, the business gained momentum in the late 1990s and expanded to multiple London locations. Renée also authored cookbooks, served on the Soil Association Council, and earned accolades like Grazia’s Businesswoman of the Year (2007).  

By 2009, she had stepped back to focus on family, retaining a stake in the company, which she later sold to private equity firm Inverleith in 2018. When in 2023, it emerged that Planet Organic was on the brink of administration, Renée staged a dramatic return, buying the assets with a new team to rescue the business she founded.  

Today, with eight stores and a renewed commitment to organic excellence, Elliott describes this chapter as both the hardest and most rewarding of her career—a “business fairy tale” rooted in her original mission.