Julie grew up in Northern Ireland, surrounded by “foodies” as her Grandparents were in the catering trade.
But after University, Julie ended up working as a radio news presenter at the BBC in 2005. But, Julie’s passion for food and broadcasting came together when she took on a role on BBC Radio 4 as a journalist on The Food Programme in 2012.
During this time, she invented her signature flavour – a ‘smoked’ humous from her home kitchen, where her creative culinary skills had been put to use looking to make healthy food taste amazing for her young family.
Coincidentally at work, Julie was asked to research the popularity of humous in the UK, which she was amazed to discover has a market size of over £60m.
Julie put her knowledge and cooking creativity together and conducted some market testing on her unique smoked humous. It turned out that people loved it and wanted to buy it! So she decided to set up ‘The Little Smoked Food Company’ and launch a range of “Moorish” smoked humous products to sell at delicatessens in her local area.
Julie’s smoked humous products have won 2 Great Taste Gold Stars, 2017.
In 2015, Julie was named as one of DEFRA’s ’50 Food Stars’ and Moorish was named as “Most Disruptive Food Brand 2015” in the Real Business Awards.
Julie’s business has grown exponentially with her Moorish products now being stocked in Ocado, Booths and she even supplies Park n’ Shop‘s found in Hong Kong and none other than with British Airways.
In 2019, Moorish went into mainstream retail in the UK, with products hitting Sainsbury’s nationwide.
Julie is an accomplished broadcaster and speaker and is happy to talk on TV, Radio, podcasts, at foodie shows and events to tell her story.