Deliciously Ella #4 Bland burgers and branding under CEO Matt, daily affirmations won’t change that

[BringingReality]

So. The audited accounts have now been filed at companies house and I’ve been picking it apart. Because they have been audited, we get to see the profit and loss and more details then we did before. The accounts are basically all of her companies added together.
Firstly, Ella lied about the Revenue. They made £22mil in total, not £24mil. The interesting thing is that their profits were only £1.4mil (meaning they spent £20mil on expenses). Ella and Matt paid themselves a measly salary of £12k each to avoid tax, and then shovelled out dividends of £700k.
The companies net worth is also a spectacularly low £750k, and they have net debts and loans of £3.4mil. There’s probably more to unpack, but revenue is never an indicator of how well a business has performed.

 

[queenamber]

This subtle shade is quite funny. ‘We don’t go to celebrity parties or anything like that’ followed immediately by a photo of them at some sort of event.

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"I made the choice really early on in my career not to be known for me" says the woman who literally named her company after herself.

 

[queenamber]

The "more plants for more people, more of the time" is so cringe! And she's doing nothing to make plant-based food more accessible. Instead they're slapping enormous profit margins on chocolate-covered almonds and branding them "healthy"

For instance we never see her wandering the aisles of Aldi and showing how you could make an affordable vegan dinner with some canned beans and tomatoes, etc. Or a plant-based grocery haul for under £20. These are really simple things that might make plant-based food more normalised and accessible to average people. Instead she's too busy shilling her own merch and books desperate to prove herself.

There's a huge disconnect. She can't be the business owner bragging about £1 million worth of sales and then trying to pivot into the war on junk food and preaching about how plant based food needs to become more accessible, just buy my £5 almonds...

 

[stardust21]

To be honest this is the bigger red flag for me:

A small child does not have the ability to understand what it means to have your face plastered on social media and in published books around the world. You don’t own your children. And this also isn’t how consent works “I’ll stop hitting her when she asks me too” … “I’ll stop touching her when she asks me too”. Absolutely gross way to look at it.

it should be “I give my children autonomy to own their own online presence and their own image. Therefore I won’t share anything about them until they are old enough to understand and to give consent”.

At this point they’re a marking tool to show she’s relatable.

 

[Tiger tat]

No sick pay at a company that began because the owner was (checks notes) … sick.

 

[User41137788]

Don’t you know that Matt and Ella don’t take holidays? They only had Thailand, Singapore, Venice, Spain, and Finland last year. They only have the one nanny, how could they possibly find time for themselves?! Matt only plays 18 holes of golf every week, that’s only 5 hours to himself on a weekly basis. It’s an absolute nightmare and I don’t quite know how they survive.

 

[User41137788]

Yes to all of these! I haven’t been abroad for five years. She’s constantly away.
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I’ve probably said this before but Matt once did a big song and dance speech and round of applause for one of his team because she always stayed latest in the office. The same girl has now been on long term sick leave because of the stress that Matt caused her.

 

[User41137788]

As someone who worked for Matt, he is the worst ‘leader’ I’ve ever had. He hasn’t a clue how to manage people. His business is chaotic, and he is happy for his senior team to bully others as long as they are making him money. He’s a dreadful person. Happy to make his millions but never pay bonuses, and only pay the legal minimum pensions.

 

[Walkthehemline]

I've said this before but think she could have been so content keeping the business with where it was 10 years ago. What happened to her nutrition course? And her yoga teacher training? And California being her happy place? She seemed primed to set up a nutritionist/yoga business, could have wheeled out her PoTS story every so often whilst doing DE-branded supper clubs and tote bag releases, alongside a cookbook every once in a while. There is a community that would have loved and sustained that.

This....thing...CEO Matt is trying to create seems very much his idea and based on absolutely zero real-world experience which is why the execution is total crap. Failed restaurants, a membership plan no one understands and microwave ready meals with a string of 1* reviews? No wonder she feels like she has to overexplain and overcelebrate. She's probably trying to convince herself most of all.

 

[stardust21]

Hello and welcome to another episode of how the humble gal becomes a girl boss.

In the last episode, we recalled how contradictory it actually is for Ella to claim she comes from humble beginning: https://tattle.life/threads/delicio...and-munchable-matt.35219/page-4#post-12741602

We also discovered some of what happened to her perfect girl boss friendship with Livia: https://tattle.life/threads/delicio...nd-munchable-matt.35219/page-25#post-14106879

We discovered what it’s really like to work for entitled wealthy children playing at being hard working entrepreneurs (spoiler: not great).

King of the loud patterns and supreme business book reader, Mundane Matt doesn’t believe the DE staff should get pay rises to help the country with the high levels of inflation. We’ve all got to do our bit haven’t we? In other completely unrelated news, apparently they’re going to hit £24m turnover this year. Just so humble. We’re all just doing our bit.

Chief Entitled Oaf (CEO Matt the Prat) also managed to get the flu, but because he likes to live in the past judging by his decorating skills, Ella proclaimed he had “Influenza”. To quote @Meg78 “Influenza? Is he a sickly Victorian on his death bed having the leeches prepared?”

In May, Ella claimed that she was taking a break for the first time in 2 years. In 2022 she had been on 5 holidays, and there had already been other holidays in 2023. We mere mortals don’t understand the stress of being supreme business people though, and those holidays don’t count for Ella because from Lapland to Barcelona, she and Matt are always working.

Talking off always working, in the last episode Ella loved to show off that hers and Matt’s whole lives together revolve around discussing DE and how to make more money. She seems to think this is life goals rather than a major red flag that this guy saw her as a meal ticket.

And finally Ella decided to go to war on processed foods, after having just spent the past few years moving DE away from its roots of real food cooked at home. The DE range isn’t processed though, because it’s made with brown sugar rather than white or some bollocks like that. Their health wash packaging also tells you how many plants you’re eating in each product, neglecting to tell you if you’re eating enough per-portion to get the health benefits… go figure….

Anyway, have a lovely day, doing lovely things, fitting in some scrumptious yoga, delicious meditation and some wholesome garlicky beans

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Thread title: @Walkthehemline congratulations on being such a huge inspiration. Reading all those Business Babe books has really paid off.

 

[Clare]

In the article: I had to go back to work when Skye was 4 weeks old, not because I wanted to, I HAD to.

FUCK OFF, then FUCK OFF some more. A multi millionaire does not HAVE to go back to work. Povvos like us ordinary people have to otherwise we don’t get paid, lose our houses, families etc. She went back to work because she’s a narcissistic control freak and she is so triggered by it because rightly so, she didn’t have a gun against her head to do it but she went back anyway so she feels guilty as sin. Being a working parent can be great but after 4 weeks, no, just no. Their nanny brought those girls up and there was no need.

 

[Clover123]

Yes exactly! Whenever I see these posts boasting about how they moved in together after the first date and he quit his job to manage her business almost immediately I'm just like ... Ella that is not the flex you think it is? It makes Matthew sound predatory as hell, and like you were just desperate for a man to come and take charge of your life???

 

[bluefox9]

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It's kind of sad how she credits everything DE to Matthew.

I bet they treat the people that work for them as insignificant cogs in the machine.

I don’t know how she can put that post up about Matt as if it’s something to celebrate?! I’d be embarrassed by the number of red flags which scream unhealthy relationship / taking advantage of a young woman - especially when you consider the age gap with Ella being in her early 20s back then while Matt was early 30s, and the situation with her parents going through a high profile divorce at the time making her vulnerable.

Is she seriously blind to them?!

 

[smirkingrevenge]

They do literally nothing that would help people shift their mindset. Nothing! They don’t educate. They don’t set up school programs where children learn about nutrition and food and how to prepare food. They do not help anywhere with healthy food options for those who can’t afford it. They are doing nothing at all to actually help. They are a business, just like any other business. Ella preaching about their mission to be the biggest and best when it comes to changing how people it is literally delusional as well as gross. She talks like they were a charity or at least an NGO.

 

[InTheDollsHouse]

The mark of a good leader is being able to walk away for a while and know that the business will continue to function just as well without you as it does with you.

It shows that you have trained and coached your team, and that you trust and have empowered them to make necessary decisions (within reason of course) to keep the wheels turning day-to-day.

Matthew’s behaviour screams control freak (at work and home frankly) and I doubt he allows a single decision to be made without him.

 

[User41137788]

I think you just need to be independently wealthy to work for DE. Because with no sick pay, no bonuses, the government minimum pension, lower than average pay for the sector, longer than average working hours, and the need to be working in central London with the commuting costs that involves, a normal person just couldn’t afford it.
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They also have a couple of shockers in their contracts…

They can get rid of you with only 1 month notice paid, but you need to give them 3 months notice if you want to leave. It’s below industry standard and screws over their workers.

 

[InTheDollsHouse]

Why is his name first, and why is it all credit to him?

(Family money and contacts aside) this is HER company, her beginning and her dream that made it happen. Now control freak husband takes over everything while Ella just fawns over him and eats all the profits.


Matthew: More red flags than a Matador.

 

[Megatron1298]

Coincidentally when her Dad is about to be named, there's a self-indulgent spread just hit The Times featuring this bag of red flags:

There have long been plenty of huge offers from mega-conglomerates. The couple could sell the business and be retired by 45. “No!” Mills shrieks. “We were talking about this the other night, we looked at each other and said, ‘What would we do?’ ‘What would we talk about?’ It’s just our world.”

Ella Mills: ‘I felt overwhelmed by the trolling’

The author of the bestselling cookery book Deliciously Ella has a thriving food empire — so why did it feel like she retreated? It wasn’t an accident, she tells Julia Llewellyn Smith

www.thetimes.co.uk

What would they talk about, Jesus. What a marriage

 

[InTheDollsHouse]

Made me think of Ella straight away

 

[smirkingrevenge]

I actually find this sad…
Children shouldn’t talk like this + the friggin entitlement… their kids will be insufferable.