Interview: Rebel Kitchen coconut drinks founder Tamara Arbib

Tamara Arbib

Coconut milk entrepreneur Tamara Arbib is on a mission to improve our health through our diets. Emily Horton slurps up to learn more

Tamara Arbib has a lot on her decidedly healthy plate: four kids and a flourishing new business with the dream of a healthier world at its heart.

At just 32, the foodie entrepreneur is not only busy raising her young ‘uns – all under the age of 10 – at home in Bentworth, just over the Hampshire border, but is the driving force behind Rebel Kitchen: an exciting new food company producing coconut milk drinks.

Part of a rich crop of enterprises currently espousing the benefits of the coconut, RK conjures up tasty, sugar-free drinks beloved of Surrey mums for providing their sweet-toothed kids with an alternative to sugar-laden, allergy-inducing flavoured milks. The range includes delicious varieties designed especially for kids – banana, chocolate orange, cacao – plus an adult selection of coffee, chai and matcha (concentrated green tea).

The daughter of Israeli immigrants – first into the US, then the UK – New York-born Tamara grew up in a household centred on the kitchen where fresh, natural food was king. The attitude clearly rubbed off.

“Our drinks consist of simple ingredients direct from nature, with no refined sugar and absolutely no additives, preservatives or lab-made stuff,” explains the classics and law graduate.

And the response has been superb. Just 18 months after RK’s launch, the drinks – styled as ‘mylks’ – are now sold in 17 countries, plus Waitrose and Tesco in the UK.

Rebel Kitchen

Rebel Kitchen mylks

“My husband, Ben and I are passionate in our desire to have a positive impact upon global nutrition. Today’s world has gone too far in trying to maximize efficiencies and grow economies. In the West, we have industrialisation of everything; we’re constantly looking for the bottom line.

“The food and drink industry has forgotten that what it delivers has a massive effect on our overall wellbeing. It’s not just about churning out products to sell.”

Aspiring to see food standards and public health improve, Tamara initially founded a charity, The A Team Foundation, back in 2010. Progress, however, was slow.

“It worked with some incredible projects to do with breastfeeding, food wastage and pesticide use, as well as the Slow Food movement. I wanted to get people proactive about their health, but although the charitable sector is amazingly well-intentioned, it simply doesn’t pack much of a punch. This world only seems to respond to commerce. It’s the big food conglomerates that own the stage.”

So Tamara decided to play the big boys at their own game – and this is where Ben comes in. A former private equity and venture capital specialist, investing in early-level seed businesses in the tech and gaming industries, Ben possessed the requisite skills to drive the business financially.

”I realised that if I wanted to effect rapid change, I needed to be part of that wider world; to bring our products to the mass market and thereby educate people about health,” says Tamara.

In time, she hopes, RK will become a key player in proselytising for healthy fare – a status that often eludes enterprises of a similar hue.

“There are a lot of niche health businesses doing fantastic work, but many of them aren’t business-minded and only appeal to a small section of the market. As a result, they have to sell their lovely products too dearly.”

With RK mylks – sold at supermarket-friendly prices – Tamara rolled out the kids’ range first, having spotted a gap in the market. This, she was unreliably informed, was commercial suicide. In fact, it turned out to be a wholly enlightened move, winning RK legions of fans, from families to industry veterans.

Rebel Kitchen mylks for kids

“We have a long way to go in building the brand and developing new products, but people have started to listen – especially those that want to be seen doing the right thing for children’s diets,” chuckles Tamara.

So can the mylks truly help to change the habits of a nation?

“Yes, because they are delicious – and taste is paramount in persuading people to try new foods. Of course, it also helps that the likes of Jamie Oliver have alerted the public to the link between our food and our health. To eat healthily really is the most important thing. We need to be conscious of the stuff that we put in our mouths.”

And the hot topic right now is sugar. Too much of it, agrees Tamara, is asking for trouble, to which end RK mylks contain none at all. Instead, their sweetness comes from dates.

“Sugar is vilified in the media, but as human beings we do need it as a form of energy. On the other hand, we should stop to consider where we are getting it from. You would expect to find it in a banana. But in bread? Or a ready-made savoury meal? I think not.”

Fats too are a matter of concern for Tamara: as with sugar, she insists, we should remain alert as to their source. And meanwhile, an even darker dietary shadow looms.

“If we want to hone in on what is really detrimental, we should focus on added chemicals. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if reports soon start to prove the harm that these chemicals in our food do to us – just as we became aware of the problems caused by plastics such as PET (polyethylene terephthalate).

“When that happens, what we’ll get is: ‘Oh yeah, sorry guys, these things do cause cancer after all.’ Fortunately though, with the openness of the internet, big manufacturers can no longer hide. Today we all have a voice.”

The next step for RK is to go organic: a new range is scheduled for launch in the early part of the year. Economics have played their part in the timing, as success has opened the door of opportunity.

“We can launch our organic range now, as our current volumes enable us to price new mylks the same as the originals. That way we can use our products to push the organic agenda.”

And after that?

“The dream is enormous,” enthuses Tamara. “I want us to have a seat at the top table and help to push world health forward. I don’t see any of the big brands doing that.”

The kitchen rebellion, it seems, is well and truly under way.