On today’s episode of The Engaging Marketeer, Darren is joined By Zoe Devenport of Henry R Davis accountants.
Below, Zoe dives into the life-changing diagnosis she received five years ago, an embarrassing incident that could have scared her husband off for life (spoiler: it didn’t), and what supermarkets and restaurants need to be doing BETTER.
Darren: I have no secrets from you Zoe – you know exactly what I spend all my money on. Welcome!
Zoe: Good morning!
Darren: So, I believe you don’t want to be talking about accounts today.
Zoe: No, no tax accounts today. Something a bit different, I think.
Darren: So, what exactly would that be?
Zoe: Well, I thought I would share with you something that happened to me five years ago that completely changed my life. Some people might think it’s a bit trivial and roll their eyes, but actually, if it happens to you, it’s a major issue until you get your head around it and deal with it.
Darren: What happened to you five years ago?
Zoe: I was diagnosed as being coeliac, which means I can’t eat gluten in any way, shape or form. I had lots of symptoms for years – irritable bowel syndrome, as they called it – but I finally got diagnosed by blood tests. They make you eat gluten for 12 weeks to see what the effects are, and then they send a camera down to take biopsies and things, which is lovely.
Darren: This is all sounding delightful so far.
Zoe: Really, why I wanted to mention it today was lots of things have happened in the last two or three months, over Christmas particularly, that has brought a lot of this to the forefront for the general public. That was mainly to do with This Morning on ITV – did you see any of that?
Darren: I am an avid watcher of This Morning. By that, I think I remember watching it once in about 1994.
Zoe: Snap. But this was all brought up in the news, because Vanessa Feltz took a phone call from a lady, who was basically saying she was having everybody around for Christmas, and someone was coeliac. She was saying that this person was dictating that the whole Christmas lunch was to be gluten-free, and she thought it was extremely unfair. Vanessa sort of backed the woman up, saying how ridiculous it was to expect everybody else to eat the same food. This Morning ended up getting hundreds of complaints, which led to them paying quite a big donation to the Coeliac UK charity, and apologising. They also brought on a celebrity chef called Becky Excell, who does gluten-free cooking, and she was basically showing the world that you can cook anything gluten-free.
So, it was sort of all to do with that, but also the way that supermarkets are at the minute. It’s all about cost-cuttings. If I compare this Christmas just gone to like two, three years ago, this year has been a nightmare. I went to six different supermarkets, and couldn’t find any party food that was gluten free. So I just wanted to talk about that really – the experience you get by being coeliac, and how difficult it can be.
Darren: I can understand that. This woman that was complaining on This Morning about cooking food – she felt that it was unreasonable that somebody would make that demand? I suppose it’s not like being a vegetarian, which in most cases is a lifestyle choice. If the woman coming to the Christmas meal were to consume gluten, what would happen?
Zoe: There’s four people in my family that are coeliac, and all four of us have completely different symptoms. One of us doesn’t get any at all, whereas one of us throws up. I am the opposite end, if you know what I mean, which is just great.
Darren: Beautiful.
Zoe: Depending on how much gluten I eat, I can get symptoms from anywhere between 2 to 6 hours. I start getting pains in my stomach, and then if I’m not anywhere near a toilet within 10 to 15 minutes, it’s not a good look. I’ve had times where I’ve been caught out and it’s so embarrassing – I can’t believe I’m talking to you about this on here, but it is what it is.
Darren: It’s all right – it’s only going to go on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, LinkedIn… it’s fine.
Zoe: It’s fine! I think the worst thing when you first get diagnosed is that you think, “oh my God, what the hell am I going to eat?” You wonder how you can possibly go out to restaurants and deal with going to parties, and being invited to places, without sounding like you’re the most anal person ever. Coeliac UK recommend that you don’t eat anything they call “May Contain” – so if there’s a “May Contain” warning on a packet, it’s probably because it’s been made in the same factory, so you get cross contamination. I would never eat anything like that now, because it’s just not worth it. I even nearly had an accident last night, where I was finishing my grandson’s Muller Corner yogurt – you know the ones with chocolate balls? I had the spoon in my mouth, and realised the chocolate balls, which I thought were filled with rice, like Rice Krispies, were actually biscuit. I just happened to glanced at the wrapper, and it’s a good job I did – I managed to spit it out just in time. So, I might not have been here this morning!
Darren: You’d have been blowing like a volcano!
Zoe: Exactly. After you get diagnosed and they confirm that you’re coeliac, you go on a waiting list to see a dietitian, who tells you what you can and you can’t eat. So you end up having to plan meals out and holidays away with military precision (which I tend to do anyway). You tend not to really call in on a whim anywhere anymore – you have to look on websites to see where people serve gluten- free. I remember having this really embarrassing experience in Nandos once, where I asked somebody what I could eat, and they brought me a ring binder. I’m just sat there with this folder that contains all the nutritional information, and everyone’s looking over. It wasn’t a good experience.
Darren: Do you think restaurants are doing enough?
Zoe: I think some are, but some definitely aren’t. Desserts are normally the worst – you normally just get fruit salad or ice cream, and then someone comes along and puts a wafer in it, which I can’t eat anyway. And you can guarantee they’re going to go back in the kitchen and just take the wafer out and bring the same ice cream back, rather than serving you fresh ice cream. Some restaurants will say that they don’t cater to gluten-free because they don’t get customers asking for their options – and that’s because most people who are gluten-free will have done some research beforehand, and if they can’t find any options on your menu online, they won’t go there. So, those restaurants aren’t just missing out on one person – it could be a whole group booking.
Restaurants are missing out by not providing gluten-free options
Darren: That’s very true. So, you said you were diagnosed five years ago – but presumably you didn’t suddenly just have it?
Zoe: No, the symptoms were there for years – stomach pain, bloating, diarrhoea and lack of energy. Basically, gluten affects the lining of your intestine or your stomach. How I describe it to people is, to think of the lining of your stomach as like anemones – lots of little fingers that grab the goodness out of food and help you absorb it. Gluten makes those fingers swell up, so they can’t move, and they can’t absorb certain nutrients out of food. We tend to cook everything from scratch now, but it’s not just hamster food. I still eat everything – we just tweak it.
Darren: Yeah, because there’s some people who think you have to restrict everything. But you can still have a big red juicy steak! It’s actually better for you – so why do we still have gluten?
Zoe: It’s scary how much stuff wheat is actually in now. It’s coming back to what I was saying earlier about the party food for Christmas. I used to go the Co-Op to get all my gluten-free stuff, but there wasn’t one thing in their fridge that I could find this Christmas that didn’t have wheat in it.
Darren: Should businesses be doing more for people with specific dietary requirements? Here at Engage Web, we provide Valentine’s Day chocolates, for example, and Advent Calendars at Christmas, and we always have to find something special for one member of staff, because there’s a lot of things she can’t eat. Should we be doing more?
Zoe: It’s difficult, because a lot of businesses, especially small businesses, are struggling from a cash-profit point of view. I don’t know whether to say yes or no, because from my point of view, it’d be great! But actually, being an accountant and being on the opposite side of things, for some businesses, I’m not too sure.
Darren: You can always do what my daughter does. She’s lactose intolerant, and whenever she’s staying with a family member and they’re like, “eat this, you’ll be fine”, she’s like, “well, it’s your toilet!”
Zoe: One of the funniest stories I can tell, actually, is when I first started seeing my now-husband Craig. The first time I ever went around to his house, he cooked dinner for me. I had been on a networking event in the day, where they sent food to the office. I was assured it was gluten-free, but there must have been something in it, because I hadn’t eaten anything else all day. So, I went round to his house after, and he’d cooked this lovely meal, and it was all romantic, and I’m sitting there thinking, “oh god, I’ve got stomach ache.” It’s a bit like childbirth – it comes in waves, and it creases me. I say, “I’m really sorry, I think I’m going to have to go use your toilet.” Three times I ended up going, within like an hour, to the point where I was really upset, and I said, “I’m going to have to go home.” He’s like no, no, it’s fine, you don’t have to go” but I’m insisting, like “no, I’m going to have to go.” He was like, “well, you can’t drive, you’re in agony, I’ll get my car and take you.” At this point, I just burst into tears and said, “you can’t take me, I might sh*t in your Porsche!” But, bless him – he still asked me to marry him.
Darren: Well, clearly that’s how you know it’s love. I think we have our podcast title, anyway! So, what would you like to see happening going forward, with shops like Marks & Spencers, Sainsburys, that kind of thing?
How can supermarkets be more inclusive?
Zoe: With Aldi and Lidl, you’ll tend to find that some of their own food is naturally gluten-free anyway. If you buy their cheap sausages, for example, you’ll find they have wheat in them because they’re padded out with breadcrumbs, but if you buy their more expensive sausages you tend to find that they’re gluten-free. But with other supermarkets – even if we could just go back to how it was there before Covid, and all the cost-cuttings started, then that would be great. They’re all limited on shelf and freezer space, and they’re selling a lot more plant-based stuff now, which genuinely is a bit of a fad, and certainly a lifestyle choice a lot of the time, but it sells more because it’s more popular.
Darren: And restaurants – if they can do more from an advertising point of view, so that when you are doing research, you can see that they can actually accommodate you, you’ll be more likely to go?
Zoe: Exactly, yes.
Darren: It’s interesting what you said earlier, about restaurants thinking that they’re only missing out on one person potentially – but they’re not. It’s a common thing within marketing, where people say about websites, “oh, I don’t need a website, all my business comes from word of mouth referrals”. Well, it’s like… yeah, all your business comes from word of mouth referrals, because you’re not doing anything else! It’s cause and effect – restaurants are not getting people coming in asking for gluten-free food, because they’re not advertising that they’re offering it, so those people are going elsewhere! If you advertise that you offer it, more people will come and ask for it – it’s quite simple.
So, if somebody wanted to get in touch with you to, I don’t know, talk about explosive volcano sh*t or maybe even accounting – which is what you actually do, and you do ours very well! – how would somebody get in touch with you?
Zoe: We’re on Facebook, and you’ve done a wonderful website for us! They can also ring me – my mobile number is on the website, so if they want any help in any way, shape or form, they can feel free to get in touch.
Darren: Fantastic. Zoe, thank you very much. I normally say a pleasure, but, well… it’s been interesting!
About Zoe:
Zoe Devenport is the director of Henry R Davis & Co, who has been providing leading chartered accountant services since 1912. They work with businesses all over Chester, The Wirral and North Wales, providing a holistic yet traditional approach to accountancy.
You can reach out to Henry R Davis & Co, and Zoe, here:
Website: https://hrdand.co.uk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HRDandCo/
LinkedIn (Henry R Davis & Co): https://www.linkedin.com/company/henry-r-davis-&-co/about/
LinkedIn (Zoe): https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoe-devenport-fcca-fca-a351a027/
About your host:
Darren has worked within digital marketing since the last century, and was the first in-house web designer for video games retailer GAME in the UK, known as Electronics Boutique in the States. After co-founding his own agency, Engage Web, in 2009, Darren has worked with clients around the world, including Australia, Canada and the USA.
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/engaging-marketeer/id1612454837
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenjamieson/
Engaging Marketeer: https://engagingmarketeer.com
Engage Web: https://www.engageweb.co.uk
