Meet the Founder
Jessica Rogers
I’ve met many people who’ve experienced epiphanies. Moments when a sudden realisation motivates change and influences the course of their lives. Not many report it happened to them in childhood, but it did to me.
When I was 14 and on a school trip to China, I contracted swine flu. During treatment in Beijing, I was moved from one hospital to another. Trouble was, nobody told my teachers, so for 24 hours I was on the missing list. I even made the news.
But here’s the thing. When I was lying there alone with a potentially life-threatening illness, it struck me just how short life can be. That you never know what’s round the corner. So I made a deal with myself. To never waste precious time. To start doing everything I could to discover what I loved. And to help others do the same along the way.
Time to discover
I made a deal with myself. To start doing everything I could to discover what I loved. And to help others do the same.
As soon as I got my degree, I took off. Travelled to Israel, Jordan, Columbia, India & Europe.
Once recovered, I set to work. I did a placement at Channel 4 (brilliant), tried being a photography assistant (couldn’t carry the heavy equipment), did a stint with Warner Bros, (loved it), gave law a whirl at the Royal Courts of Justice (broke the dress code with too-short skirts), interned at a teenage magazine (eye-opener). This gave me the push to edit my own fashion magazine at school. Celebs agreed to be interviewed. And I was beyond excited to have Anna Wintour write the Contributing Letter (gold star).
I interned loads more and got into the music scene, creating a music blog, before studying German at UCL. I say studied, but I tutored on the side. Then did marketing for an avant-garde hairdresser on the side. And had my own radio show, on the side. Until it was really the studying I was doing on the side.
Back home, I was hired by Swarovski. Wow, that job taught me so much, in so many disciplines. Come one summer holiday, I headed to a country I’d always wanted to visit…Ethiopia. This is where I first tried teff. It was a revelation.
I was already into food, but I had also began to care about healthy eating and when I found out how teff is high in protein, fibre and important nutrients, gluten-free and yet super-filling, I started to experiment cooking with it, in tandem with my foodie dad.
Now if you talk to him, he says I’ve always been inquisitive about what goes into recipes. He recalls that when I was four years old, I stopped eating the M&S spaghetti bolognese because I noticed one ingredient had changed. Intrigued, my parents rang head office, who confirmed that this was indeed the case. I don’t say this to sound like a totally annoying, smart-arse kid, but to suggest I instinctively know a good ingredient when I taste one.
This is when the dream to create The Teff Cookie Company began. I realized there aren’t any cookies out there that are vegan, filling, stuffed with important nutrients & unbelievably delicious.
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We wrap them to look stylish (no point coming from a fashion background and ignoring the basics). They’re emblazoned with slogans of wit and whimsy, and come in pairs because they’re also about sharing. Just like our company.
Because we don’t want The Teff Cookie Company to be a cookie cutter kind of place. More of a creative outlet, focussing on how people find happiness in the everyday. We want to collaborate with artists. Foodies. Travellers. We want to hear from people who are following their passions and doing incredible work. That’s what our blog space, ‘Teff Me’, is all about. Consider this your official invitation to be part of who we are.