The Trailblazers Experience Podcast

EP62 Charlotte Blackler: Founder of Menopause-Friendly Foods - Transforming Women's Health with Nutrition and Innovation

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EP62 Guest is Charlotte Blackler , Founder of Mena ( Mena-pause Food Range ) 
In this episode of the Trailblazers Experience podcast, my guest is Charlotte Blackler shares her journey from pharmaceuticals to founding a menopause-friendly food brand. She discusses the importance of nutrition in managing menopause symptoms, the challenges of starting a business, and the significance of community support. Charlotte emphasizes the need for women to take control of their health through diet and lifestyle changes, rather than relying solely on HRT. She also shares valuable lessons learned as an entrepreneur and encourages women to seek help and not to assume they can't achieve their goals.

Empowerment, experience, and networking emerge as key themes as Charlotte reflects on her transition from feeling empowered at 40 to invincible at 50. She emphasizes the value of women supporting women in business, sharing stories of creative collaborations and the power of leveraging support systems. As the episode unfolds, we explore lessons from entrepreneurship, the significance of self-care, and the potential for menopause-friendly foods to reshape how societies view and manage menopause, envisioning a future where dietary choices lead to symptom-free experiences.

Chapters
00:15 Introduction and Background
03:27 The Impact of Nutrition on Health and Disease Prevention
05:28 Understanding Menopause and its Symptoms
07:34 The Importance of Plant Estrogens in Menopause
11:36 The Challenges and Influence of the Food Industry
15:46 Changing Palates and the Need for Healthier Options
18:05 The Perimenopausal Phase and the Role of Estrogen
20:09 Starting a Business to Empower Women
24:31 Exploring Alternative Solutions for Menopause
30:33 The Importance of Networking and Community in Business and Menopause
37:09 Lessons Learned as an Entrepreneur
41:38 The Role of Menopause-Friendly Food in Shaping the Future
43:44 Trailblazer Takeaway Tips 

Find Charlotte Blackler and Shop Mena products 
Instagram ‪@mena_pause
Website : https://www.mena-pause.com/
Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotte-blackler-1a9a56259/

Listen : to the audio version Apple Spotify .Amazon Music Google Podcasts
Watch and subscribe to my YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@Thetrailblazersexperience
Follow Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/thetrailblazersexperience/

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

Welcome to another episode of the Trailblazers Experience podcast, the podcast where we share candid conversations with women sharing their career journeys. My next guest is Charlotte Blackler, founder of Menpause Friendly Menopause Food Range, which is specifically designed for busy perimenopausal and menopausal women. Welcome, Charlotte. How are you.

Charlotte Blackler :

I'm very good. Thank you very much. It's actually the first Sunday morning in Scotland for about a week. Oh, we love that the birds are singing. It's actually the first sunny morning in Scotland for a week. Oh, we love that the birds are singing.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

It's looking good today. Oh, that's brilliant, that's brilliant. And you must have, looking out your window, such an amazing landscape, the countryside. I mean, Leicestershire is not as good as Scotland, but you know, looking out the window is always a pleasure, isn't it?

Charlotte Blackler :

Well, we're very lucky I do. I look right up at Glenn, but I have to say this summer has been a bit dismal because most days it's been rain that I've been looking at rather than sunshine. But anyway, these things are set to try us, we'll not complain.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

Now, Charlotte, can you talk to me about your journey and transition from working in pharmaceuticals?

Charlotte Blackler :

You talked to me about you're actually a science person to founding this menopause-friendly food brand that is available everywhere on a subscription service. How did you start out? Well, as with all these things, it's usually from personal experience and for wanting to solve a problem that's your own problem in the first place. Solve a problem that's your own problem in the first place.

Charlotte Blackler :

So pharmaceuticals was where I started my working career several decades ago now no decades, actually, and sadly and since then I've had children and I've gone back to. I thought I would go back to working pharmaceuticals, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it because I just didn't believe in the way that we do medicine. I would much rather that we prevented diseases rather than getting to a chronic state in the first place, and I genuinely believe that the majority of disease states could be managed with diet. So it's something like 75% of hospital admissions could be prevented if we actually just ate a diet that was in line with our biology, according to people like the Zoe team. You know, Professor Tim Spector and people like that are beginning to say this out loud in the public domain so that people are understanding just how fundamentally important our food is to us, and our body is this amazing piece of biological kit that has fantastic feedback systems.

Charlotte Blackler :

So if something's lacking, something else tries to compensate. It's made to look after itself, it's made to keep us well at all times. But if you don't give it the nutrition that it needs and the nourishment that it needs to do that, then it can't function. And that's where all these disease states begin where the dis-ease in your body. It becomes a disease later, somewhere in life, and it turns out that menopause is exactly the same kind of thing. If we actually just ate plants that had the essential ingredients in them that we need to maintain a healthy balance in our hormones, then we can manage it without needing to resort to chemicals and supplements.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

Yeah, there's a lot of documentaries that I watch on Netflix where obviously they're using celebrities to drive the message, but they're traveling to places such as Japan or South Korea or other countries where their nutrition has played a part in terms of longevity, less diseases, inflammation, etc. So getting out there. But I guess preventative medicine is not good for business in the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare.

Charlotte Blackler :

isn't it as well that it takes millions, tens of millions of pounds to bring a drug to market, and so, unless you're going to receive a revenue from that, on the other side they're not going to do the scientific studies to start backing these things up. So it's in nobody's interest to do a load of scientific studies on saying how the diet is the main contributing factor to keeping us all well. It doesn't make anyone any money.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

It doesn't make any money.

Charlotte Blackler :

But there are fantastic examples of cultures who do have lots of plant estrogens in their diet, normally, naturally. So you mentioned Japan. They have tofu, tempeh, miso All soya-based products have very high plant estrogen content in them, have very high plant estrogen content in them and consequently that keeps the menopause symptom free as they go into this kind of phase of life. And the lovely thing is that they look forward to the menopause. It's a time of liberation. It's the end of that monthly horrible thing that we go through every month and dread and have discomfort around, and so they celebrate the end of all of that. And in this country it's just such a shame to me that we actually dread menopause, we don't look forward to it and we don't celebrate it in any way, shape or fashion. So it would be really lovely if I can do something to change that for those women who are looking for a more natural kind of menopause.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

So let's break it down to basics. For someone who's listening and has heard, you know they're thinking menopause is just a buzzword. What is menopause and what are the menopausal symptoms that you are trying to alleviate with your product?

Charlotte Blackler :

Gosh, there's a huge long list of menopausal symptoms. I think it's up to something like 84. The trouble is, oestrogen affects just about every system in the body, so that when you go through menopause and you start losing that biological oestrogen that our body was producing to make us fertile, everything is affected from our bones to our muscles, to our brain, all our regulatory systems, so the heat and things like that. So there's a huge long list of everything from brain fog to flushes, to bone and joints and muscle deterioration. And it's not even just that.

Charlotte Blackler :

You have to look after yourself in the perimenopause and menopausal stages, because when you get to the postmenopausal stage, if you haven't got any oestrogen in your diet at all, then your cardiovascular disease spikes and so does your potential for osteoporosis.

Charlotte Blackler :

So we need oestrogen in our bodies all the time. Osteoporosis so we need oestrogen in our bodies all the time. And if we were eating a diet that was more in line with our biology, like in this country, we were growing a lot of flax in Scotland and so they were probably eating lots more flax linseed, because we were making linen up here and that was readily available and that's really high in plant oestrogen. So it's not just that soya based things, broccolis and things, all those cruciferous veg. In bygone generations everyone had a veg patch. They were feeding themselves. They weren't feeding themselves from the supermarket, so they were eating much more fresh veg that contained those plant estrogens. And we've just come a very long way from that now with the convenience of supermarkets. So we need to get back to getting those things back into our diet so that we don't suffer.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

So what was your light bulb moment? To say there's a potential for plant estrogens. I have got an idea here and this is something I want to pursue.

Charlotte Blackler :

Yeah so, um, when I started with my perimenopause, um, which was probably about two years ago now I'm 50 now um, very, very quickly my joints were extremely inflamed, really painful. I couldn't go down the stairs forwards, I was going down sideways like a crab and my you know, everything hurt, like my body hurt, and I just assumed it was some sort of onset of arthritis, like some juvenile arthritis, and I was just like holy cow, I can't go through the rest of life like this because I can't even get downstairs. It was so painful to go downstairs, I didn't want to go downstairs. So I was finding myself working upstairs on my computer just thinking, nah, I'll just wait another hour before I go down and make a cup of tea, because it just hurt. But because I love herbology and plant science is my bag, I did know that there were lots of different herbs and spices that are good for inflammation in the joints. So I was putting turmeric in everything scrambled egg and curries and just everything I could get turmeric into, and sages, and I have a breakfast and I was putting more flax seeds into it and I was just making all the things that I knew were in my kitchen cupboards that would be helpful. I was just eating more of them and very quickly it was like within a week or two I was just like, oh, knee's not hurting, knee's not hurting at all, okay. And then I just thought, well, hang on a minute, because I was getting drenching night sweats as well, and I was just like, maybe I'm menopausal, maybe this is the beginning. So I started doing some research, looking at all the potential ailments that I could be struggling with that might be menopausal and not arthritis or something like that. And it turns out that that's actually what was happening, rather than arthritis. But I'd managed it with food, just because you know food's my thing and I think if you eat properly, then you end up finding foods that are actually powerful on a normal dietary dose. You know you're not having to eat an elephant sized piece of broccoli every day to be able to get the benefits. It's just normal dietary levels.

Charlotte Blackler :

And I had a chance conversation with a friend who was living in Japan and she's the same age as me and I just said you know, I think I'm managing to eat my way through our menopause it's I can find enough things in the kitchen that are really helping. And she said, oh yeah, that's why the ladies over here don't get their menopause symptoms. And I was like, what she's like? They don't get it in Japan because they eat so many soy-based things that have got all these plant estrogens in them. I was like, why don't we know this? Why don't we know that there is a whole, you know, 65 million women who don't suffer with menopause because they eat tofu? It's just like why don't we know this? So I just thought, right, okay, I'll do some more research, I'll find out what foods can be easily incorporated into a daily diet and let's just start there. So that was my light bulb moment. Was that chat conversation talking to my friend in Japan who was just like, oh yeah yeah, they don't get menopause symptoms over here.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

It's so interesting, isn't it? About how your nutrition is just playing a very big and fundamental part in your longevity, your clarity of thought, how you get around your hormones. And there's now, I feel like there's an awareness in the world or in the first world, really to say your nutrition is really important and not actually what drugs can we pump into you to help alleviate these symptoms.

Charlotte Blackler :

Everyone, subconsciously, unconsciously, really wants to focus on things that are good for us yes, yes, um, it is beginning, the tide is beginning to turn, but I still think that people really need to fundamentally understand without being too evangelical about it, which I make no excuses for being so, because I think it is so important is your food has the capacity to either kill or cure you. It is. That is that basic. If you just eat rubbish the whole time, um, and and you know it's a diet of fizzy drinks and burgers there's no way that your body gets enough nourishment to actually see you through to any kind of decent state of life.

Charlotte Blackler :

I end up going into hospitals quite a lot, and coming towards me are people who are massively overweight, just like lots and lots of people who are struggling with their mobility and clearly lots of other diseases, because they're all in hospital and I'm just like we've become a nation that's become quite big you know, in quite recent times we weren't all this size when I was a child and it's just like we're just not eating the food that our body needs or eating too much of the wrong foods not eating the food that our body needs or eating too much of the wrong foods and so the NHS is going to have such a huge problem. Give it another few years. We're trying to cope with all this and deal with all this. So really they should actually be making changes in what is available on our shelves and saying to the big food producers do you know what You've got to cut out sugar?

Charlotte Blackler :

You've got to do this. You've got to do that Because as a nation, we're the fattest nation in Europe, apparently, and that will have consequences. I mean, food's not cheap. I raise livestock using the medicinal properties of herbs as well, because I didn't want to put antibiotics and hormones into the meat that my children were eating. And it takes a long time it takes more than a year to get a roast dinner you know it takes a long time, it's expensive.

Charlotte Blackler :

If you do it, naturally it costs money. There's no such thing as cheap food. If you are buying cheap food, you are paying somewhere else further down the line. You know it's. There is no such thing as cheap food. I mean that, that that is so true?

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

um, just even thinking about these sugars, I always tell my children sugar is the most legal drug out there. It's the one that you can see everywhere. It's yeah, it's addictive, it's and it's in everything. Yeah, trying to find products that have no sugar in them is very hard really really hard.

Charlotte Blackler :

So, um, if even before the menopause stuff, I, I mean, I have a cereal every morning because that's convenient to me, and, um, I wanted a sugar-free something for breakfast. Oh, my goodness, I found one thing in the whole supermarket just one, and that had fruit in it. So it wasn't exactly sugar-free, it still had fructose in it, but it's just about impossible. So the muesli that I make has no added sugar. It has some sugar from the cranberries that are in it, but it has no added sugar because it's just unnecessary. We don't need it. We get everything we need from from the rest of our food. We I don't know why they think the consumer wants or needs it.

Charlotte Blackler :

It's changed our palates, um, to the to the extent that we expect it now, almost. So I don't eat very much sugar at all, if I can help it. I mean, I confess I will be the first of the queue for the cinnamon buns. But you know, by and large, you know I don't eat an awful lot of sugar if I can. And so if my husband makes something and he puts a hoisin sauce in it or something, I'm just, you know it's so sweet and sickly and horrible, I'm just like I can't actually eat this. I can't, but it's changed my taste buds somehow.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

Your palate as well. Yeah, it's just too much.

Charlotte Blackler :

It's just overwhelming now and I taste all the other flavors from the oats or from the seeds and the nuts and they're actually delicious now, whereas before they were quite bland, but your palate actually just recalibrates and you don't need the sugar so much.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

So it seems like, Charlotte, starting your business has been threefold One through going through your own personal medical aha moment and saying something's got to give, but also your background in terms of understanding the science. And then, thirdly, you also mentioned growing livestock, so you have an understanding of nutrition and food and things like that. Starting a business is never easy To actually then say I now am going to be at the forefront of creating menopause-friendly food. What are some of the challenges that you've faced and how have you tackled them?

Charlotte Blackler :

I think ignorance is bliss? Yes, I think I had no idea what I was getting myself in for, and that's the reason I thought that'd be a good idea. I suppose nobody I don't know how people would go about going into business, but my my motivation wasn't to go into business. My motivation was to let women know that there was a third option to hrt or supplements, that actually there's something that genuinely works. So you're in full control of, so that you don't need to be going to a doctor, you don't need to be buying additional things to your normal grocery shopping list. You are in full control of how much you eat and when, and, and what you enjoy and how you take that it.

Charlotte Blackler :

It's very hard to overdose on plant estrogens. I mean, you would have to eat an elephant-sized piece of tofu, so you'd never get through it. So it's fine. You know it's normal food in normal dietary levels. So, um, that was very appealing to me that it's safe. It's. I mean, 75 of women who are menopausal do not want to take hrt, myself included, for various reasons. Um, and, and we don't have to. If we just ate what we needed to eat then, then we wouldn't get to this stage, um, and it's really important to start when you're in the perimenopausal phase because, um, what is perimenopausal phase? The perimenopausal is before you hit full menopausal, so it can start anywhere from your early 40s 45 sort of age, where you start getting the symptoms but you haven't.

Charlotte Blackler :

Um, the menopause is when you've you've finished your last menstrual cycle, whereas perimenopause is the lead up to that, where things are just, you know, ups and downs yeah, yeah, yeah, um, and you start getting brain fog and things like that during the perimenopausal stage, and that was one of those things that I noticed, because I work in a school as well, in the science department, and it just that brain fog stops you from coping so well with all the day-to-day stuff that you're trying to juggle, especially as a parent and a mum, as well as working, as well as having a business and on for me livestock to look after as well. At the end of a day, it was, it was just quite easy to get overwhelmed, and I've since found out that estrogen helps keep those channels in the brain open where the neurotransmitters are going through the brain. So once estrogen starts dropping, those channels start to shrink and to decrease. And that's what your brain fog is is because the neurotransmitters aren't getting through to where they need to get through to, and so brain fog is just like a physiological thing where your brain is shrinking and you want to keep those channels open.

Charlotte Blackler :

So by eating a bowl of muesli every morning, that's got some plant estrogens in it. For you it's just an easy win, and then you haven't fallen off the cliff before you're trying to get back up. So if you're doing it all the way through perimenopause, you know you're staving off the big sort of fan crash when you hit menopause. So it's really valuable to start as early as you can, and at perimenopause you don't want to go to the doctor and say I've got the odd this. It's a bit niggly, I'm a bit foggy, I'm a bit, you know, it's not hrt worthy. I don't want to be on hrt yet. Um and so eating plant estrogens is a perfect solution for that. And if you get to the stage where you do need the hrt, then you can have that alongside your muesli. It's no problem, it's it's there's. There's no sort of downside to having it. So what was the question?

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

I think I probably got completely rambling and ranting, what one of the challenges you face starting the business, I mean how long has the business been going for would be a good question as well, actually, yeah, I think um in.

Charlotte Blackler :

In the concept of it was 2022. So we have have a competition in Scotland called the Scottish Edge, and I entered that and won the wild card for innovation, because the judges deemed this idea a very real solution to a very real problem, and so that was. That was the OK. It's not just me. The validation, yes, yes, yeah, because lots of women actually end up losing their jobs because they can't cope with menopause in the workplace, and that's being recognized now, and there are policies coming in, which is great, but up until then, you know, menopause hits women when they're at the peak of their careers.

Charlotte Blackler :

If you've sacrificed a lot in your lifetime to be, you know, a top lawyer or a top surgeon or a pilot or something like that, and you get to the stage where you're looking down just like I can't remember what I was doing there. Did I connect that bit or didn't I connect that bit? Or is that plane coming in or not? Air traffic control it's just like, oh, hang on a minute. You just you know you can't do it. You just can't do it because the connectivity is just physically not there, and so it's a real problem, and a million women a year lose their entire careers just because they can't cope with their menopause symptoms, which is so you know, um? And of course we weren't. We weren't working in our 40s and 50s.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

I was saying, what's changed historically? So what's changed is obviously women would be childbearing, become mothers, and then that was it. They'd be locked away in the house. So no one would know these symptoms were coming on, isn't it? It's the kids and their mom who would face them, whereas if you're in a business environment, it's very evident when something is not right.

Charlotte Blackler :

Yeah, so women weren't working historically and in further days gone by, if somebody was really struggling and was completely losing the plot, they were put into an asylum. And prior to that our longevity wasn't that long. I mean historically, with improvements in hygiene and medicine and things like that, we are living a lot longer, but we were probably there by you know 30, 40 as a you know a human being before too much intervention, you know, not that long ago. So we weren't getting to this stage in life either, wasn't? Nature hasn't programmed us to actually go on to in a childbearing capacity.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

So as far as nature's concerned, the job is done, yeah yeah, so you won the award and then it was like right, we can do this. We're now bootstrapping and launching this business. Yeah, yeah.

Charlotte Blackler :

So, um, the award came with a £10,000 grant and I said with that that I was going to make one product, two products, and get them on the shelf ready to launch in 2023.

Charlotte Blackler :

And I got three products on the shelf and all the website made and the e-commerce site and all the rest of it, and so by November 2023, it was all ready to go. And I made it into a subscription because, as with hrt, you have to replace your missing biological estrogen on a daily basis, which means you have to be eating it. So unless you're going to eat tofu and lots of fresh veggies and things like that, then having something in the cupboard, that's an easy go-to Because we're at work, we're busy, you know. I just thought, if I make it into a subscription so it arrives every month, you don't have to think about it. Put it in the cupboard and it's there when you need it on a daily basis and that just ticks that box and it's just one less stress and hassle that you have to think of and hassle that you have to think of and also developing that habit.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

Isn't it that healthy habit? If it's on a subscription model, then there's the consistency piece, whereas if you just order it once, if it's the same, like even taking your medication, et cetera if there isn't that reminder for you to take it, then you won't continue on on that journey. No, it's too easy we're too busy.

Charlotte Blackler :

There's just too much going on and we're probably in a really bad mood. Yeah, we're grumpy. We're 50. We're allowed to be grumpy.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

I'm quite enjoying it. I mean, to be honest, I wouldn't say so. I've worked in businesses where, obviously, the menopause policies have come in the awareness, the talks have happened, which I think is really important. Come in the awareness, the talks have happened, which I think is really important. But then what I've also seen is the other side, where just loads of women just going on HRT and I've always been a fan of okay, what other solutions are there? Is there something with nutrition? Is there something with health? Could that not be the first step versus going directly to taking HRT? So to know that actually you've taken the time to say there is a different option, there is a different way that is probably better for your body in the long run is, I think, is great. Because there's a tendency to always go towards the easier option we'll just ingest something, we'll inject something into us, or there's a patch, there's something like that yeah, well that.

Charlotte Blackler :

But that is the narrative that we've been given as well, because there wasn't another option. Um, so to say to people, yeah, you can do it through nutrition, but you have to eat tofu every day. It's just not going to happen. No people know it exists. Sexy, yeah, well, nobody knew. Well, I live in scotland and even if we deep fry it when nobody's going to eat tofu in Scotland, it's just not going to happen. So, so I was just like it has to be something that you either already eat or is a staple in a Western diet bar, because it's just got to be something you don't have to change your life to incorporate. And that was important to me. And and the narrative has been you know, hrt straight, hrt safe, you know, just just do it.

Charlotte Blackler :

But there's a lot of resistance within a lot of us that actually says do you know what a? I don't feel like I really need it just yet, or I don't want it, or there are other issues. And there are other issues. Some people are so dependent on it they're still on it when they're 70 and 80, because they don't go through their menopause fully. I want to go through my menopause and come out the other side and it just be done and dusted with as little pain as possible. I don't want to find that I can't come off my HRT at some stage because you know, I didn't, I didn't go through the process, my body didn't adjust, um, so so there's things like that. But yeah, I mean, people need to know that it exists in the world. So when I've spoken to GPs about it, they say, invariably, if somebody comes in and I have to say to them I, I think it's time for HRT, they will always say is there anything else? We can try first? And it's just like right, we all do feel like this let's just do this, let's just put something out into the market that everyone can find and Google and start taking, that actually does that job. And you don't have to go down the pharmaceutical route so quickly, if at all, because all of our journeys are so different, depending on how much exercise we do, depending on what else we eat in our daily life, depending what our stress levels are, which just our biology is all so different. We all have such different experiences that it's not, you know, one size fits all. Then you may well find that you, you do need to have hrt. I may well find that I still need to have hrt but amazingly it's.

Charlotte Blackler :

I'm completely symptom free and I had a. I had a, a bit of a, a road test the other day. I went to london for four days and I didn't take my muesli with me because it just seemed a bit rude to eat my muesli in the hotel, in their restaurant, and because I felt like I'm symptom free. I just thought I haven't really started my menopause journey yet. It must still be coming somewhere down the road.

Charlotte Blackler :

You know, that was a blip when I had all the joint pain and stuff, because I haven't had anything since and after about day two or three I was just getting everything, just the whole sort of like hot sweats, brain fog, just my whole body just started to hurt inside and out and I was just like, oh my God, oh my God.

Charlotte Blackler :

By the time I was on the train home and this was day five, I was just like in a not very good state at all. So actually I think my menopause journey is well on its way and I wasn't at all happy with how I felt. I was in physical pain as well as like mentally just not okay, and the low mood and anxiety were just such a surprise to me. I was just like, ah, just not, okay, I just don't want to get out of bed. I just hate everybody could murder my family. Quite happily, you know. It's just like, wow, that's just like that's just five days of not eating my muesli holy cow, so it's well on its way yeah, yeah, and I'm so, so, yeah, it's.

Charlotte Blackler :

It's one of those things where I can say, hand on heart, I've, I've done it with just diet alone, and I'm not and I'm not religious about my diet, I'm not very good at it. I still, you know, like I say, I'll be first in the queue for a cinnamon bun. Um, but um, I think, by and large, I do eat a lot of broccoli and I do my muesli every day. So I think maybe those two things combined are just enough you know just, and it's about balance.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

I think if you have great nutrition and once in a while you indulge, life is too short, isn't it? You have to also eat some of the things that you love. It's when that one cinnamon bun turns into five or six. It's a good job. They don't sell them in packs of six, because, because I wouldn't eat two, I wouldn't eat two Exactly. Let's talk about how networking has played a role in the growth of your business as well. We talked about Buy Women, build, so shout out to them as well. Bringing women together. In what ways are you building your community in terms of not just talking about menopause, but as a businesswoman and founder?

Charlotte Blackler :

There is a lot of help out there for women in business at the moment, and people are understanding that it's quite hard for us to get investment, things like that. So there is a spotlight being shone on those kind of issues for us, which brings us together as a female community of founders, which is great, um. But social media and things like that are where you actually end up connecting with other ladies who aren't in the business world, who are just going through what you're going through and and you know, are looking for solutions and looking for answers by googling menopause stuff. Um, I I would love to have um more of a community. I would like to make a menna community. Um, it's one of those things that when, when there's another 12 hours in the day, I might actually be able to spend some time doing um, but at the moment, it's just through social media on my social media um sites that I'm connecting with people and talking to people. Um, but you know, I think um, women are sticking together a bit more.

Charlotte Blackler :

I think one of the great things about getting to a menopausal age is we are all in our 50s and we don't take much rubbish anymore. Um, I remember hitting 40 and and just being much more, more assertive about things and just thinking, no, I'm not doing that. However, that's an unreasonable thing to ask me. And I just became much more empowered, and then I got to 50. And I was like just try it, just don't make me hurt you, this is not happening. It's just like, wow, I'm really enjoying being 50 and being empowered, and I think, because this is our menopausal years and lots of us are coming to this stage, we're going come on, this is not okay. We're, you know, we are uniting as a female cohort and just going. You have to do something about this. People keep saying you know, this has been happening to men all these years. It wouldn't be an issue anymore. They'd have.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

Oh yeah, there would have been something. Yeah, definitely yeah yeah yeah.

Charlotte Blackler :

So things like I mean I try and get involved with as many women networky things as I can. So I was um part of um women's enterprise week, uh, which celebrates women in business, and I did their, their women's launch lab, which was just 10 of us in the whole country who started businesses who are just trying to do fabulous things, you know, with our businesses for the social good. You know, and it's there. You know, you just have to tap into those things. You just have to be quite proactive about it. You know I could do better, I'm sure, but it's a fine line of how many hours there are in a day and I and I really struggle with that because it's still just me in the business at the minute and I just outsource what I can, um, because I'm not a techie human being and I loathe and detest those things.

Charlotte Blackler :

Same with accounts and those sorts things. I just want to be creating things with plants, um, but, um, yeah, it's, the networking thing of it is so valuable in as much as like the by women built site that we were talking about. Just the questions that that people are asking in in our forum every, every day just makes you realize that we're, all you know, up against lots of challenges so we don't even realize exist until we come up against them. And then we're just like what's that? How do we do with that? Has anyone had to do this before? Because I'm not sure about this. It's just like, oh good, somebody else somebody else is going through it, that's okay, it's not just me.

Charlotte Blackler :

So yeah, and you've touched on. Uh sorry, go ahead. No, I just it is really important yeah.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

And you've touched on the fact of I mean, the fact that you're a one-man band in the business is it's the reality and you've accepted that. A you've got a great idea, you've launched your business, so you just started. You are taking advantage of any outsourcing. So if you don't know a certain skill, outsource, because why pretend to be an expert when you're not? And those are like the little things which sometimes I feel as women are a barrier to even starting a business in the first place. We're thinking of all the things that we don't have versus, actually, what do I have to hand, which I think is a strength of yours? What am I good at? Let me just go ahead with this idea. What problem am I trying to solve? And going ahead with it, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Charlotte Blackler :

I learned that very quickly. I mean, I could spend an awful lot of time on a tax return and be weeping at the end of it. I'm just like I can't do this.

Charlotte Blackler :

It's just taking too long. And you know, I outsourced it to my accountant, who started as a meat box customer, so she didn't get paid in cash, she took lab. I love this, you know, and that's how we did it, because I couldn't afford to pay her. She was just like I really believe in what you're doing and she wasn't a woman in. We have something up here called grow biz with a b-i-z on the end of it and it's a local business community who are very supportive, who have, you know, women's only sort of meet up, networking nights and stuff, and they were a great support at the beginning and I met her at one of those and I just happened to sort of say over a scone, you know, gosh, I wish you could do with an accountant. And she was like I really love your products, I really love what you do, I'll take a meat box instead of cash. And I was like done, bring you on board.

Charlotte Blackler :

Yeah, so I, so I bartered where I can. Um, it's just a thing that happens. Now, you know, I do photo shoots and stuff and again, if it's a female who's doing it, she's just like, right, well, this is what I need to eat, so this is what it's going to cost, and I'll take the rest of it in menopause products, please. It's just like done, that's fine.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

We'll do that. I mean, lucy was talking about it with her socks, where at the beginning, she was giving away socks, isn't it? In terms of um, I'm not generating as much revenue now, but I'll give you some socks instead and like yeah, brilliant, we'll take the socks. You can never have enough socks, I guess.

Charlotte Blackler :

Yeah, exactly you know kind of what you have to do. There's always a way. You know where there's a will, there's a way, and and don't waste your time trying to do things you can't do or will make a mess, or just let somebody else do it and, and you never know, they might be looking for for you, they might be looking for exactly your products. So just just put it out there, just ask the question. The worst they can do is say no and you're no worse off yeah, definitely reflecting on your journey so far.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

So what are some key lessons you've learned as an entrepreneur so?

Charlotte Blackler :

the one thing which I think is really important is you have to look after yourself, because it's very easy to get burnt out and overwhelmed and just frazzled and just stop coping, especially when you're a woman. You've got kids, you've probably got another part-time job and you're starting to start a business and you're up against. You know all the challenges of being a female trying to start a business in a man's world, so you need to be mentally and physically strong. So I meditate morning and night, um, and I started doing that in lockdown with my yoga teacher when she said look there's, let's get up at half past six every morning for 40 days. Do it for 40 days straight. There is never, ever going to be this opportunity again, probably in our lifetimes, when we're all here every morning and we can just do this. And that's what we did, and it was so beneficial that I was just like I'm quite addicted to it. I have to do it every day because that just resets me, and in the morning I'm grateful for everything that I have achieved and how far I've come, and you know the fact that it is sunny this morning and that there is a roof over my head and the kids are well, and blah, blah, blah, and it just brings you back to earth and it just stops you worrying about the tax return and the corporation tax and the blah, blah blah. It's just like the real stuff you know, just life. It just brings you back to zero.

Charlotte Blackler :

So I think actually looking after yourself is actually the first thing that you have to do, because when you're mentally and you're physically strong, then you can cope with all of this, and if you're not, then it's a hiding to nothing and you're miserable and you won't last it. You know, you just won't want to do it. It'll be too much. So that would be the first thing. The second thing I'd do is take all the help that's offered. So for me it's lots of women networking type things and women investment groups and all those things online that you can tap into and become members of, because that is an enormous source of information as well as support.

Charlotte Blackler :

And the third thing I think I've learned is that never, ever assume about things. So, on times when I have outsourced things like, say, making making the men are bars and I've drafted my children in to just, you know, finish packing and wrapping at the end of the day or something, and I say just put the, put the labels on the bars and and then just put them in that box over there. And to my mind that means put the, the labels, along the lengths of the bar. But they, but they thought just like a 90 degree angle, so it wrapped all around. Look lovely.

Charlotte Blackler :

And I was just like it's just like just don't assume people think the same way that you do or that they understand it. And with the livestock, I've had it with butchers as well. I've sent the carcass in and said dudes, this, this, this and this thinking I was going to get you know this back, and then, like a whole slab of meat arrives. It's just like what's that? That's not chops.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

It's just like, that's like juice.

Charlotte Blackler :

It's just like just don't assume that people hear what you're trying to describe or have the same perspective as you do about things. You really need to make sure that you've told them exactly what it is you want and explain it as fully as you can, and maybe even write it down so that when they go, you never said that, you just said yes, and it is the picture. So, uh, yeah, never assume, and never assume that you can't do something or that that person's going to say no, just at least ask you know if, if you're not knocking on the door, nobody knows you want to come in exactly that.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

Yeah, I'm just thinking about the never assume that's I live, live and die by that. Never assume anything. You have to be as specific as possible and be clear of your intentions, because you never know what a the other person is thinking, how they've interpreted it. It's just amazing, isn't it? These kind of things? It really is.

Charlotte Blackler :

That has been one of my right from the beginning. That was one of the real steep learning curves. It was just like is it me, do I just not speak clearly? Am I not saying this right? Because just about everything I asked for, I was just getting not what I asked for back and I was just like, okay, I'm just gonna make sure that this.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

There's no, no error here for some misinterpretation yeah it was a real learning curve, that one see the industry evolving at one role do you think menopause friendly food will play in shaping this future?

Charlotte Blackler :

I think in a minute it's not just gonna be me. That's the only person who's making menopause food. I think in a minute the big boys are gonna wake up and they're gonna realize just how valuable. And it's not just going to be me. That's the only person who's making menopause food. I think in a minute the big boys are going to wake up and they're going to realize just how valuable that is for us to have menopause food on the market. Half of me will be quite sad about that and half of me will be really pleased, because at the end of the day, I would much rather everybody had a symptom-free menopause just by what they ate, because there's no reason for them not to. So that would be an absolute win If we got to the stage where we were like the ladies in Japan and we didn't even think about it.

Charlotte Blackler :

The days of doom, of menopause were a long, distant memory. That would be amazing, that would be fantastic. But obviously, obviously the big boys have got much bigger marketing budget than me and the capacity to manufacture and all the rest of it, and so they'll just maybe just completely wipe me out as soon as it all starts. But even if I, what I did was just start the conversation and start. You know, people thinking and understanding that you can't do it, you die alone. Um, and that concept was accepted by us as a nation and as women.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

Then that's fine job done, that's great you're the one to to start the conversation, I guess isn't it be the one the trailblazer in in that too. Hindsight is always an interesting thing, charlotte. So you've had a pharmaceutical background and now you're a business owner, founder. For the audience who's listening, what are some of the tips that you would give? Because I feel we live in a society where, especially for the young people coming up, where there's this pressure for them to study something, et cetera, et cetera, and, as we know, you live then 20, 30, 40 years and you realised, connecting the dots, actually what really mattered in terms of your education or experience. What are some of the tips that you would give in terms of your background and what's led you to this point, as to what will serve them in the future?

Charlotte Blackler :

Well, I actually think whatever you do in life is probably meant to be somewhere along the line, and it plays part in getting you to your end point. So I never wanted to be in pharmaceuticals. I'm a geologist by education, but I didn't want to go down a mine or work in a quarry, and so I ended up in a software sales job, which was just so scotchy, boring, boring. That was just like, oh my god. And then there was a better sales job with pharmaceuticals and you got a company car, so I just went oh, that's a better deal I'll do that yeah, you know.

Charlotte Blackler :

And then you end up in that medical world and all the sort of science that I had from geology translated very easily into medical science, because it's the same science, it's just a different application. And so you end up in that world of medicine and then you end up going well, hang on a minute, why are we giving people all these drugs? I had an antidepressant and a hypertensive drug that I was talking to doctors about all the time and the whole time. I'm just thinking they weren't eating takeaways every day and white bread and iron brew. I think they find that they were actually much happier.

Charlotte Blackler :

Yeah, exactly, you know, they wouldn't be so overweight, you know they wouldn't be struggling with all these other conditions that they were finding that they was manifesting in their body. Why aren't we saying it's time to change your diet instead of here's your antidepressant? It's just like why are we patron over the cracks instead of dealing with the issue? So I became so disillusioned with just how we do medicine that I was just like I'm not doing this. And then I worked in a cancer hospice as a therapist and realized that people's psychology was so important to how they fared during their illness. Their psychology basically became their biology. Those who were given a diagnosis of cancer who just said, well, that's me done, then died really quickly. And those who said it's not getting me and I'm gonna, you know, fight it all the way, lived so much longer, had much less pain, were in much better, you know, state, physically and mentally. And it was so noticeable that I was just like, well, that's really interesting. So your psychology, you know, plays a massive part of what happens in your body, um, which is why you need to keep it nourished and why you need to look after yourself on a mental and physical basis. So that was really useful.

Charlotte Blackler :

And then I had my own children, so I didn't go back to work in pharmaceuticals, as I thought I might and just wanted a part-time, term-time job. So I got a job in a school in the science department, and again that put me in a lab and all the scientific things of sort of like. Being quite particular about how you formulate things. I'm in charge of potions and explosions where I work because I'm the technician, and so I was surrounded by bottles of chemicals and potions. And again it brings you back to gosh. Everything we put into our body is a chemical. You know, every piece of food is a chemical and it causes a chemical reaction somewhere in your body, whether it gives you potassium or magnesium or something like that. It then does a job where, where you know, a neurotransmitter can go from one bit to another. It's all, it's all chemistry. You know, it's not just biology, it's all there.

Charlotte Blackler :

So again, that was another sort of thing where it keeps it all in my, your building, all those little building blocks of where you get to today, where plant medicine is what I love. I love that I can walk down my hedgerows and pick and eat things that help help with high blood pressure or help with depression or help with digestive enzymes or any of those things. Plants around us all have all these things. It's just that pharmaceuticals take those ingredients. I think it's something like 73% of pharmaceuticals are plant-based. So they extract those active ingredients, super concentrate them and put them into a pill or a capsule and then you take them when you've got to a chronic disease state.

Charlotte Blackler :

But if you had those in your diet on a daily basis, you wouldn't be getting to that chronic disease state. So if we were just eating in line with our biology, in line with what nature already gives us, nature's already got all the answers. We just don't eat like that anymore. We don't eat house hedges, we don't dig up roots, we don't. You know how dirty corns and you know we don't. We just we just don't eat like that anymore because we have supermarkets. So um that, all all my work experiences, all my journey, has brought me to this to start a business to hopefully help millions of women change their their menopause experience. So it's all been valuable. So don't think it's a rubbish job. It'll be teaching you something somewhere along the line. It will be valuable. It just might not appear like that everything you've described.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

Just there's one thread I think that was um singing right through is you're very curious and observant as well. I think that's it. Be curious and observant and want to learn and want to understand the why behind things is a good way of learning and open to different opportunities. You know, if you had just narrowed yourself down and said, ok, I'm a geologist, now I'm going to go down a quarry in a mine, that would have been your life. But you said it must be something else, didn't you? No thanks, no thanks, not for me as well. That's really key. We come down to the part of the show where we ask our guests to leave three Trailblazer takeaway tips, tips to guide away. For those that maybe just said I'm going to skip all the way to the end, what's Charlotte got to offer in terms of tips? What would you share?

Charlotte Blackler :

Okay, well, I think I've probably already done them in the midst of our chat, but the first one would be to look after yourself. Just make sure your mind, body and soul is all taken care of, because then you can achieve anything. Basically, um, and it's all there for the taking. I don't, I don't really believe that there, that we can't do things, because even when you think I can't afford to do something, you know you can barter, you can haggle, you can, you can offer your, your services another way, um, take every all the help you can. That's another tip. Just accept help. Don't think that you're alone. Don't think that you can't ask somebody the help you can. That's another tip. Just accept help. Don't think that you're alone. Don't think that you can't ask somebody to help you, because more often than not they'd rather help you than see you struggling. And don't assume don't, just don't assume. Don't assume that that people have understood what you've told them your labeling might go wrong so no, those would be my tips, unfortunately, so yeah charlotte, this has been amazing.

The Trailblazers experience Podcast:

It's a very been a very wholesome conversation um. Menopause is. You know, I don't want it to be just a buzzword, but people understand what it means in terms of the journey of being a woman. That's the most important and the fact that there are options out there that are outside of taking drugs. Taking care of your body is so important, whether you're a man or a woman, but in this specific case, for women, we need to take care of our bodies. So thank you so much for sharing your story, creating an amazing product. I'll definitely put it in the show notes and thank you so much. Oh, an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me For the audience. This has been the Trailblazers Experience podcast. Tell another woman about the podcast and remember to follow, subscribe, share and like. Until next time, thank you.