In many ways, Ramona Hazan makes the perfect products for 2019. Her hummus and falafel range is vegan, gluten-free, locally made and follows food trends. “We have a quinoa falafel and a spinach and kale falafel,” Hazan, 40, says of her 14-year-old company’s innovations. Yet although the businesswoman has had some success – her range is sold in some branches of Sainsbury’s and Tesco – recently, buyers have gone cold. And Hazan thinks she might know why.
“We haven’t got a definitive answer on this, but we are 90% sure that our name is not something anyone wants to put on the shelf,” Hazan speculates. That name? “MeToo!”.
In October 2017, the viral hashtag #MeToo became a way to share stories of sexual harassment after the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of abuse by dozens of women. The simple phrase became a global movement, shedding light on horrors women deal with daily.
“It’s not as though we’re Coca-Cola and could turn around and go: ‘Guys, stop using my name,’” Hazan says of her initial reaction to the hashtag. At first, she wondered about aligning the brand with the movement.
“I thought, what happens if we really jump into this and use it as a marketing tool. We’re a female-owned business: ‘MeToo! For #MeToo’ … But we didn’t want to benefit our business on the back of other people’s suffering.” Hazan and her team waited for the phrase to fizzle out – it didn’t.
Just over a year later, she has decided to change the name to something “a little bit more straightforward” (exactly what is still to be decided). “If something else has changed the meaning of ‘MeToo’, that’s OK.”
Hazan sighs when asked how she originally came up with the name. As the youngest of three children, she fought to be included in family games, so would cry to her siblings: “Me too!”
“It became a family thing,” she says. “And I used it as the brand, trying to link it to what I care about, which in retrospect was …” She pauses and laughs. “Not the best thing I could’ve done.”
