The Company We Keep – the epic Nutreats sisters!

The Company We Keep series profiles some of the most interesting and inspiring people in our networks. Here we share the details of the lives of people we know, showcasing the extraordinary diversity of our society and proving that people truly are at the heart of everything we do. In this blog we had a quick Q&A session with Zissy and Feige Lewin from Nutreats, enjoy!

We met this inspirational duo when our Carel Nolte was training for his very first Comrades Marathon. Since then we have watched the Nutreats brand and site grow from strength to strength. They now feature diverse content and stories to help you live a healthier life – Food, Fintess, Wellness, Beauty, Travel, and more.

We recently sat down with Zissy and Feige and asked them a few questions about their journey, enjoy the read and check out their newsletter (which is amazing and definitely worth subscribing to). We can learn so much from the people all around us, let’s have more conversations and connect.

Give us a few lines about who you are (intro yourself)

Zissy: I’m one half of Nutreats. I think about food more than most people and love spending time in the kitchen creating recipes for Nutreats and the clients we work with. I’m one of those people that loves exercising and need it in my life. I have an insatiable curiosity that fuels a lot of the content we publish on Nutreats.

Feige: I’m the other half of Nutreats. I come from an architecture background where my passion for design and photography came alive. I love storytelling through photographs, designing beautiful spaces (physical and virtual, graphical and coding) and constantly learning.

Where did the idea come from to start Nutreats?

The idea to start Nutreats as you see it today – a health, wellness & lifestyle website and content creation studio – came from a combination of not seeing the local content we wanted to read and getting positive feedback on the content we were creating on a smaller scale.

We saw a gap in local content that was current and that bridged the gap between international trends and local availability. We wanted to create a space that would inspire people to live healthier and introduce them to new products, ideas and experiences. We wanted a space on the internet that felt educational, inspiring and accessible.

Our content creation studio which is mainly focused on recipe creation and food photography is an extension of our popular food category on Nutreats. It allows us to create delicious recipes and food content for brands for their own marketing purposes. 

How has it grown?

It’s been a slow, steady and organic growth. We’ve grown largely by being consistent, spotting trends and publishing good content that people come back for again and again.

We’re constantly evolving and looking to see what’s working, what’s not and making changes. It usually starts with the website which we’ve built from scratch and then redesigned at least 3 times and then it feeds into the images and content we publish. Each new iteration has improved the end user experience and helped our audience grown.

Our content creation studio has grown from client referrals and us going after what we want and producing good work.

What do you enjoy most about healthy living and the lifestyle?

Zissy: The way it feels. I don’t think most people realise how good your body can feel. Your health is the most valuable thing you have and looking after it is worth it.

Feige: How good it makes you feel and what a positive impact it makes on every aspect of your life.

Tell us a bit about your running – why do you do it?

Zissy: I started running when I started getting into fitness and healthy living and was looking for an exercise that I could turn into a habit. One that was easy to start and that I could do anywhere. Running was it – you don’t need a lot to get started and no matter where you are in the world, you can get out an explore by running. It turned into something I love and I’m lucky to have ticked off some bucket list races like Comrades and the New York Marathon.  It’s become a sort of therapy – where my mind sorts itself out and a time just for me to decompress. I run because of the way it makes me feel and every so often for the feeling of pushing myself to be faster and improving.

Feige: I started running to lose a few kg’s but kept at it because of the challenge and how great it made me feel. I started with a 5km Ladies race where I pretty much walked the whole thing and built all the way up to doing Comrades 3 times in a row. I will not lie, the intensity of training for 3 Comrades really took a toll on my love of running and I was definitely burnt out when I crossed the finish line of my third in 2015. I took a major step back and after a short no running break, I came back as a casual runner, doing no more than 5kms, not pressurizing myself on paces or plans and no races. Last year no more than 5kms became no more than 10km and this year I have thoroughly enjoyed doing 21km training plans without the intention of running a race at the end of them.

I run because it keeps me healthy, it energizes me, and it sets my days up right (I’m a run as the sun rises runner). It also enables me to eat cake as part of my balanced diet 😉

What are you excited about for 2020?

Taking all the lessons we learnt from the past decade and growing Nutreats into the wellness company we envision and improving both our media side and content creation studio and perhaps adding to our offerings. We’re revamping a new home office DIY style to give us a fresher better work enviroment that has a kitchen available so that we can grow the recipe creation side of our business.

We also are incredibly excited to build on the quality content we created this year and partner with more brands we love (like our beginner’s guide to investing with Easy Equities).

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