The Business of Retreats with Meadowsweet Retreat and Trewhitts
If you're interested in starting your own retreat business or have already organised retreat days but want to expand your offering, then Lauren (Founder of Plant Academy), Anya Lily Montague (Founder of Meadowsweet Retreat) and Peter “Chippy” Grant (Founder of Trewhitts) are here to guide you.
Drawing on decades of combined experiences and being on both sides of retreats our hosts will share their knowledge so that you leave feeling prepared and inspired.
The 2 hour session will cover:
Creating retreat concepts: how to make retreats different
What financial considerations you need to make and how to organise payments and costs
How to set a price points according to your offering
How to market your retreats to the right audience
Creating exciting menus
How to go about selecting venues and what to consider
Planning an itinerary
Managing relationships and division of work between the event team
Meet your hosts:
Peter "Chippy" Grant // Trewhitts
Peter "Chippy" Grant is a chef with a massive love of flavourful, experimental food and a huge passion for using local well sourced organic and biodynamic (toxic free), seasonal, healthy food, with over 12 years of experience in the catering industry and a love of cooking different cuisines from all around the globe.
Chippy has completed a number of courses in nutrition and herbalism. This has formed his path into a holistic approach towards cooking and working at yoga and wellness retreats. He sees food as medicine that can prevent illness and strengthen the immune system and other vital human functions. Chippy has catered at a number of different festivals and retreats across the globe, creating some exciting nourishing dishes along the way.
Anya Lily Montague // Meadowsweet Retreat
Anya Lily Montague is the founder of Meadowsweet Retreat, a place where people can truly immerse themselves in the wild, reconnecting with nature and their souls' purpose. Anya grew up in the English countryside with her mother, who is an intuitive herbalist and master forager. She spent much of her time as a child in nature with her mother, learning about the magic and medicine of plants. Anya's time was split between England and living in India with her dad, who trained as a yoga teacher in the early '90s, with her sister and her living with him at an ashram near Kerala.
Later in life, Anya travelled the world working as a restaurant consultant, specialising in the farm- to-table movement and a "garden-to-glass" approach to mixology. She fell into hospitality for her love of hosting and creating magical experiences. Anya has worked in some of the world's best restaurants and resorts, including 2 Michelin star farm restaurant Blue Hill at Stone Barns in upstate New York, where she also learned beekeeping. This led her into the Path Of The Pollen, an ancient shamanic practice connecting honey bees with the divine feminine.
Meadowsweet Retreat is a collaboration with a 2000-acre nature reserve in Tuscany. Anya's vision was to create a space where people could truly immerse themselves in the wild, reconnecting with nature and their souls' purpose and bring newly learnt skills in permaculture, beekeeping, wildcrafting and homesteading into their day to day life. She and her team have spent the past year working the land and getting to know the forests, waterfalls, springs, meadows, and orchards. The land is spread across 4 mountains and is truly untouched wildness.
According to Anya, retreats are a place of self-love. They are a place to find the answer to your deepest questions, a place to dream, to connect, to learn, to grow, and to nourish oneself. She and her team wanted to create such a space, a space so connected with the divine wisdom of nature that people visiting would themselves feel like a seed being tended by their careful gardening hands growing into a plant blossoming flowers. Anya's passion for nature, hospitality, and self-love has come together in the creation of Meadowsweet Retreat, a truly magical place.
Lauren Lovatt // Plant Academy
Lauren Lovatt is a plant-based chef, entrepreneur, and the founder of Plant Academy.
She is also the creative force behind Feed Your Mind Candy, a project dedicated to delicious food that feeds your mind as well as improves your mental health. Her first cookbook – Mind Food – is available to purchase now.
Early in her career, Lauren joined the aspirational vegan restaurant Asparagasm as Chef Creative, hosting plant-based pop-up nights and gaining a wealth of experience in developing recipes, writing menus and curating culinary events.
She now teaches worldwide from Bali to Barcelona, as well as curating food concepts (such as HOY Paris). She has a keen eye for plating and a passion for the most vibrant, seasonal ingredients with sprinkles of adaptogenic herbs and tonics.
Lauren is the curator of all the courses run by Plant Academy and acts as the lead instructor.