Who We Are
The Bottlebrush story
Two Good Mates
We are two good mates who share a love of great tasting food and have a passion for health, on a deep foundational level.
Being Aussies, we also love the odd Burger, Sausage roll or snag (Banger for you Brits) on the Barbie. What we don’t love though, is the negative stigma that sometimes comes with eating these so-called “junk” foods.
We want to be able to eat the foods we love and not feel bad for it. By adding a spoonful or two of our delicious ferments to almost any meal, it instantly adds intense colour, flavour and helps contribute to your daily veggie quota.
We also believe veggies needn’t be bland or boring and they can actually be the star of the show, not just an afterthought or a plate filler.
We (Bottlebrush Ferments co-founders Ben and Hesh) have many things in common, but we also have our own individual drivers behind why we wanted to bring Bottlebrush to the world.
Ben
I’m a personal trainer and health coach with nearly 15 years experience, having worked in one of London’s most prestigious high-end private members clubs.
I also ran my own successful body transformation business in Sydney. It was during this time that I got much more into the nutrition side of things and started to notice that most of my clients suffered from some kind of gut or digestive issues.
Some were quite mild and manageable, some were more serious and sometimes totally debilitating.
When I lived and worked in London the first time, I worked with some amazing people in health and fitness. Some of the trainers were the best I’d ever seen, but it was the other specialists, namely a functional medicine practitioner and colonic hydrotherapist who I would spend hours with talking about the gut and its far reaching implications throughout the rest of the body.
Hesh
I’ve been around food all my life and was exposed to fermented foods at a very young age. I witnessed my mum brewing Kombucha tea and making Asian pickles and it is something I have never forgotten.
I started my professional career as a chef in Perth, Australia and then ventured off to London to expand my knowledge and love of food. I’ve worked for Alan Yau for most of my career but later hosted private bespoke dinner parties and supper clubs and most recently, was approached to work with Hemsley+Hemsley and helped open their cafe in London.
Callum
Head Chef Callum is the newest member to the Bottlebrush production team, the main man on the knives and chief fermenter.
Callum studied professional cookery at Westminster College where he did his apprenticeship in catering for 3 years. During that time working his way up from apprentice/ commis/chef de partie/ sous chef up to active head chef.
On completion of his apprenticeship, Callum left the company to pursue education in different cuisine styles, traveling as far as Japan to learn about their rich cultural history and dishes from different regions. This experience inspired and influenced Callum greatly.
On his return to the UK, Callum gained more valuable experience in different kitchen settings and started to combine his interest in food and exercise by working in gyms learning about nutrition, cooking for certain dietary requirements or health goals whilst producing meals that taste great and are incredibly healthy.
During this time Bottlebrush founder, Ben and Callum crossed paths and Ben noted Callum's passion for food and health during their many lengthy discussions on these topics.
This passion and an incredibly high work ethic lead to Callum being offered some part time work, where he learnt the ins and outs of fermentation. This evolved into Callum eventually taking on the head chef role.
Separately, we have also both had individual health experiences, which have lead us to this somewhat niche area of health foods.
Hesh was inspired by his younger brother who has lazy bowel syndrome and a close friend that had cancer.
“It became my interest to research different lifestyle approaches that may yield positive results and the area of nutrition seemed to be one that came up repeatedly. So this is where I decided to focus my attention.”
A few years ago Ben, along with a group of training clients, completed a 30 day elimination diet with a specific aim to address his gut and its function. It proved to be a key moment and has been an area of interest for him ever since.
Together with their individual experiences and professional knowledge Ben and Hesh created Bottlebrush Ferments and are helping you eat your veggies and “go with your gut.” See our 5 Star Trustpilot reviews below!