Name Lizzie Vann | Education Lancaster University | |
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Grand Designs An Idiosyncratic Home (SE04E08)
Lizzie Vann MBE is the founder of Organix, an organic children’s food company, based in Christchurch, Dorset.
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Biography
Vann studied biology at the University of Lancaster, and then worked as an investment analyst in the City. Ongoing health problems, and the belief that more and more parents shared her concern for safer children’s food, led her to set up Organix in 1992, offering parents a healthier alternative to mass-produced children’s food.
Vann has campaigned for improvements to children's food, including calling on the Government to ban all additives in children's food.
She was also one of the founding members of the Soil Association's Food For Life programme, and in 2007, she became the chairman of the Soil Association's Organic Trade Group.
Choice, the Australian consumer organisation has criticised Organix products, describing them as "highly processed...(with) no substance" and likening them to Froot Loops. The group stated that the "ingredients list largely consists of flour, grape juice concentrate, two types of oil (including palm oil) and strawberry powder. The pack claims the biscuits contain 'nothing unnecessary', but you could equally argue they contain nothing necessary"
During 2017, several of the Organix products were urgently recalled in several countries, including Singapore and New Zealand, due to a choking hazard they presented.
Awards
Vann has won a European Woman of Achievement Award, the Caroline Walker Award for campaigning work in the food industry, the Organic Trophy from the Soil Association in 2002, and an MBE for Services to Children’s Food.
Personal
She lives on an organic farm on the edge of the New Forest, with her partner Mike. The livestock farm rears pedigree Hereford cattle and Poll Dorset and Llanwenaog sheep.