Alumna Eleanor Turner-Mendis studied the Grand Diplôme® at Le Cordon Bleu London, graduating in 2014. After gaining her diploma at the institute, Ellie added a wealth of experience as a Chef working in some of the best restaurant kitchens in the world. She then went on to run her own business for a decade before turning her culinary expertise to managing food trends at M&S. We caught up with Ellie to find out more about her impressive career journey.
What made you decide to train in the culinary arts?
"My Mum is a private chef and ignited my love of food from a young age by introducing me to beautiful Scottish produce. Then, when studying my chemistry degree at Newcastle University I developed a bit of a reputation for baking late-night souffles - to varying degrees of success! I was fascinated by the likes of Heston Blumenthal and Ferran Adria’s scientific approach to cookery and spent my spare time reading as much as I could about cooking. So when I graduated, I decided to study culinary arts as an equivalent to a master's."
Why did you choose to come to Le Cordon Bleu London?
"As far as I’m concerned, it’s the best place to learn the classics with the richest heritage- I just had to be a part of it!"
How did your culinary training studying at Le Cordon Bleu London help you to start your career?
"After leaving Le Cordon Bleu in 2014 I found myself cooking in some of the world’s best kitchens like Noma and the Fat Duck. Le Cordon Bleu gave me the skills, knowledge and respect for the craft to help me get started. Kitchens are wild and fast, so if you have classical techniques and recipes ingrained in your memory, you can concentrate on learning your new environment because it doesn’t matter how avant-garde the restaurant is - you need to know how to make a crème anglaise or a hollandaise!
Le Cordon Bleu gave me skills for the kitchen, but more importantly, it introduced me to like-minded people going through the same things- from helping one another get jobs or setting up our businesses (I had a small cake business, Cake ID for 10 years) or running supper clubs together.
What advice would you give to someone looking to follow in your footsteps?
"Make sure you’ve got good footwear- I’ve taken a very long and scenic route! For me, a career in food is about time and experience. There’s an endless amount to learn but don’t get lost in the detail. You could dedicate your life to making the perfect choux pastry so do what inspires you.
If you want to work in fine dining, the best advice I was given was by a chef at the Fat Duck before I went to Noma- “if they tell you to pick herbs- pick them better and faster than anyone else. The better you pick the herbs, the quicker you get to do the fun stuff.”
What does Le Cordon Bleu represent for you in a few words?
"Culinary excellence and opportunity- it was also the funnest year of my life!"
How would you describe your current role?
"I work in product innovation, looking after food trends at M&S. My role is to help build our product strategy for our three big moments- Christmas, Summer and Health. I also guide the product team with the big trends on the horizon, from cuisines to techniques and ingredients. I get to work closely with product developers, marketing, nutritionists and the (AMAZING!) chefs to deliver innovative and delicious food to 23 million customers."
How did you get into this role?
"I left fine dining in 2018 to study a master's in Food Policy as I was really interested in the food system. Since ¾ of Brits shop in supermarkets at least once a week, I wanted to understand how they work, so I spent 5 years working at Ocado, learning about retail. It was fascinating and, like kitchens, I loved being behind the scenes of getting people fed and I fell in love with retail! I then landed my dream job at the UK’s best retailer 2 years ago."
What does your day-to-day look like?
"Every day is different! M&S is like the top fine dining restaurants; it’s fast-paced and high-performing. Events like Christmas are huge, so building the strategy takes months. I start by working with our customer insight team to get under the skin of what our customers want (sometimes before they even know it themselves). Then it’s research, working with agencies, experts and our own team, which involves lots of reading, tracking social media and eating. We then edit all of that information into a product strategy and work with our product developers and marketing teams to deliver! It’s a huge process involving a lot of very talented people."
What is the most challenging aspect of your job?
"We work up to 3 years ahead, so placing your bets on what the trends will be can be overwhelming - but that’s what makes it exciting!"
What is your inspiration?
"Trends aren’t just what’s viral on TikTok; they’re much bigger than that. So when we look at health, we look at public health data, for example, 96% of the UK aren’t eating enough fibre. So we developed our Nutrient Dense range to help customers eat more fibre in a beautiful, delicious and convenient way. But not only that, M&S then took a report to parliament to highlight the fibre gap to recommend how the government can help people eat more fibre! It’s called Bridging the Fibre Gap."
What part of the role are you most passionate about?
"I love using both sides of my brain, whether that’s academic research and building a strategy, or the creative side, keeping on top of the latest restaurant openings and ingredients that chefs are using and developing new range concepts. We recently launched products using koji instead of salt- I first came across this when I was working at Noma 12 years ago!
But mainly, I get to work with talented, deeply foodie people (many ex-chefs and chefs) and make food for millions of people- what's not to love!"
Do you have anything exciting coming up in the future?
Inspired by Ellie’s journey? Find out how you can follow in her footsteps by finding out more about our Grand Diplôme® or by visiting our programmes page to view the full list of courses available and start your culinary journey today.
