A Day In The Life Of…

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13 Aug 2014
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3 min read
We hear from Joanna Symes, founder of cold-pressed, organic juice company BoBo’s.

I wake up between 6-6.30am during the week. Though I am not a natural early riser, it really does give one that extra time needed to reply to overnight emails from overseas and plan the day. I drink hot water and lemon and follow it with one of our A Bit of Ruff(age) cold pressed juices. It contains apple, cucumber, ginger, kale, lemon & pear and really sets you up for the day as the nutrients are easily digested and shoot straight into the blood stream. After some porridge and fresh fruit, I head to work.

BoBo’s Juicery is based in Wandsworth which is a short drive from my house and the team are already busy checking in the fruit and vegetable deliveries and cold pressing delicious concoctions when I arrive. We start the day by going through all the orders received via the website and the office, as well as through our stockists such as The Grocer in Notting Hill who are a fantastic team of respected foodies.

I handwrite notes for juices going out to press and taste the cold pressed juices created by the kitchen team before they are bottled up and put into our fridge which takes the juices down to a perfect refreshing temperature. We deliver throughout Central London ourselves and it’s usually me who does the driving! I could be a cabbie after living in London over 20 years and driving all over town. I really enjoy meeting our customers and stockists face to face and it creates a better understanding and rapport with them if they meet the owner of the business who is passionate about healthy food. My assistant Millie often helps with the boxes of juice and we often drive to Central London and split up in different directions with our BoBo’s boxes in hand to deliver to customer’s homes and offices.

Lunch will often be on the run. It is often a BoBo’s Feels So Raw green veg only juice and something that the kitchen has made during the recipe testing that morning. Their Lebanese inspired raw wraps with collard greens are especially delicious. I run out of the door with a piece of raw hemp seed flapjack and spend the afternoons either with Millie at the office going through marketing and strategy or at meetings with potential suppliers, growers of produce and new clients. We really enjoy taking part in various diverse events and it’s great to meet our customers and Instagram followers and Twitter friends in real life. It was great fun being part of London Fashion Week this year and we recently provided our juices for Men’s Fashion Week Model Zone held in Covent Garden at the Hospital Club. We also took part in Be:Fit in the City and at the preview evening of the Siobhan Davies Dance Company recently. We are constantly looking ahead and are busy in the process of launching a new product very soon which will appeal to a wider range of customers as well as being very affordable. Our philosophy is making healthy living choices available to everyone and we are very excited about the next stage of growing our business this way.

I tend to work and feel my best after lunch so the afternoons and early evenings are a productive time for me work-wise. I try my best to finish work by 7pm and love to grab a yoga class near my home. If I find I have enough energy I will go to a spin class or bodypump which is good to keep up your bone density through weight bearing exercise, although I do wonder if I do enough of that packing up boxes and using the sack trucks at the kitchen! I will drink a BoBo’s Mind Blowing smoothie after the class as I can’t wait for supper on the drive home. Supper tends to be vegetable soup or quinoa with roasted vegetables if I am at home by myself or when I catch up with friends there are an increasing number of healthy things to choose on menus these days at restaurants in London so no excuse. I do not eat meat very often as I believe that we should all cut back not only for health reasons but environmental ones too. By 11pm I am fast asleep and needing as much REM as possible for another busy day ahead.