Little Oak founder Elke Pascoe. Photo / Supplied
Single mum-of-two Elke Pascoe, founder of infant milk powder company Little Oak, talks starting a business and how she lives a transtasman lifestyle juggling her duties as mum and chief executive of a growing international brand.
What does your business do?
We're a premium infant nutrition company specialising in goat milk-based products for infants, toddlers and children.
What was the motivation for starting it?
I started the business in 2016 in response to my son's health conditions. He was about 18 months at the time and was suffering from really bad skin conditions. I had went in search of a cure for this outside of typical medical chemicals to put on the skin, so I started looking at goat milk as a skincare range, which really helped, and then it occurred to me that actually skincare was just treating the problems and not actually the cause and so I started looking at what he was eating and drinking; one of the things was the infant formula I was giving him - and that was the first time ever in my mothering that I looked at the ingredients of formula, and realised that there were a lot of rubbish ingredients that were going into the large majority of infant formula, so I set about to make something better. It started out as a hobby at first - I never set out to start an infant nutrition company, but the further I got into the space and understood how formulas were made and with what ingredients, I was shocked, and felt I had a responsibility to do something better for all children.
I'm based in New Zealand and Australia - my children go to school in Australia, so I have to split my time between the two. We have two partner goat farms in Manawatū and we source our milk fresh from there. Most goat milk formula is made from whole goat milk powder - milk spray dried by heat that strips out the water and put through a turbine to make into powder. Most companies start from that powder format but in doing so it strips out half of the nutrients, so we're really proud to be one of the first in the world to do what we call a "from fresh" range, which means we milk our goats and add all the oils and macros into our base powder and only spray dry it once so it doesn't strip as many nutrients.
How big is your team?
We have about 20 staff all up, scattered across New Zealand where we do our manufacturing and R&D, Australia, America and some team in Singapore as well.
How was your business funded?
I funded the business myself for the first couple of years, which is a tough proposition as a founder because you are basically earning no money for a very long time. There were times where I regularly reminisce of when I virtually had no money and worried about whether I could feed my own children let alone anybody else's. I have been fortunate enough to get some backing and subsequently we've had investment from our private equity partners.
What does your travel schedule look like and how do you juggle young children and business responsibilities between New Zealand and Australia?
Every second week I'm in Australia as my children have a week with their dad and a week at home with me; I have a house here and one just out of Auckland in Patumahoe. Every second week I'm usually travelling, whether it is to Australia or to America where we're building out a manufacturing facility in Oregon, or to Tasmania in Australia where we've got other products being made; I'm used to skirting around the place - obviously with two years of Covid I wasn't doing a lot, but now we're back on the airport cycle again.
What is your focus right now?
Every day we are trying to make the consumer experience better; easier and more accessible, and creating more interesting and better for your products for older children. We're looking at yoghurts, and some more bespoke nutritional ranges for children as well. I use my children as my guiding North Star in terms of innovation and look at what they need then look across the marketplace to see what is on offer and nine times out of 10 most of it is crap so I go, if that's what they want to eat, I want to make something that not only is going to be good for them but good for every other child at their age and stage. We're making yoghurt and looking at other interesting snacks for children, as well as making sure we continue to create a great experience for parents across the world. America and Canada are big focus markets for us; the volume potential and size of the markets are attractive.
Where do you hope the business will be in three to five years' time?
We're looking to build the business in North America. I built this business with the dream that really no child went hungry wherever they are in the world. My aspirations were always to be a paediatrician but I never made the grade, but I still hold onto that dream now with helping children with Little Oak wherever and in what form that takes us.
We're a company that tries to do things a little bit differently, so doing the traditional bricks and mortar approach for expansion isn't really our driving factor. What we have found is that invariably if you try going through the big retailers it is quite difficult to secure and to make any decent margin because they take most of it. We want to offer mums and dads different ways of buying our product; online and making sure that we can get products to them without them having to leave their house, so we've got grand plans to try and be the first infant formula company in the world to deliver our formulas by drone, and break the mould.
How is the business tracking financially?
We're growing month-on-month at about anywhere from 18 to 25 per cent. Our aim is to be a $30 million to $40 million business within the next couple of years, and we'll only really achieve that through making sure we can break into new markets via that direct to consumer model, and introducing some exciting innovation along the way.
What advice do you give others thinking about starting their own business?
Make sure that whatever business you are starting you are passionate about it because you have to get up every morning and feel excited and motivated by it. Starting your own business is incredibly tough. Those tough days, and sometimes with no money in the bank, all these costs and life you still have to manage, you still have to wake up every day and feel confident that you are doing something that is going to change the world. If you've got that motivation then you can work through the hard times.
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