When I started Deliciously Ella in 2012, wellness felt like a tiny corner of the internet. I was twenty, very unwell and simply trying to find a way to regain my health. My first recipe was a tray of cinnamon roasted sweet potato wedges with avocado cream, photographed in terrible lighting on my parents’ kitchen table. Back then, eating more plants or cutting back on ultra processed foods felt almost fringe. People often rolled their eyes at the idea that what we ate might genuinely shape how we felt.
Almost fourteen years on, the picture could not be more different. Wellness has gone from niche to everywhere. McKinsey estimates that the consumer wellness market is now worth around two trillion dollars globally. Broader industry analysis, including work by the Global Wellness Institute, puts the wider wellness economy at closer to 6.8 trillion dollars, with forecasts suggesting it could reach almost 9.8 trillion by 2029, making it several times larger than the UK’s GDP. And here in the UK, interest has surged. Around 79% of people now say wellness is either a top priority or an important priority in their lives.
