A down-on-his-luck chef has turned some of the worst things life has thrown at him into something worth savouring. Olly Beard, 47, is behind a rising food business, Roastie Wraps.
It’s an on-the-go food stall, based in Falmouth, that serves up delicious roast dinners in Yorkshire pudding wraps. But it’s not been an easy road to get where he is with a series of life blows, the latest being the closure of the Stag Hunt Inn, a Ponsanooth pub which was letting him use its kitchen for food prep.
But he’s faced bigger challenges having, at his lowest, found himself begging outside of Tesco. He’s been homeless, jobless, battled with sobriety and was seriously injured in a camping stove fire incident two years ago. Now he’s running a successful start-up and is sharing his story to inspire others, mere months after living on the streets.
Recalling his story, Olly speaks of the moment he was seriously injured in a fire on the houseboat where he was living. The incident put him in the serious burns unit in Bristol but led to a life-changing diagnosis.
What this treatment revealed was far more sinister. Here Olly learned he had done some serious damage to his liver from 20 years of heavy drinking. Doctors told him if he carried on drinking, he would die, so he checked into rehab for a third time and finally stopped.
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(Image: Olly Beard/Roastie Wraps)
The talented chef, who has been working on and off in the industry since he was 16, decided in the summer of last year to set up his own business. With the help of a crowdfunding event and other companies, he managed to get together enough gear to launch Roastie Wraps.
“It’s my second chance,” he said of his business. “After 20 years of struggles with addiction, homelessness, and a life-changing accident, I turned my life around and poured everything into this dream.
He recalled how December didn’t go as planned with storms cancelling markets and losing his prep kitchen but that he’s determined to “come back stronger”.
(Image: Olly Beard/Roastie Wraps)
Now living in assisted living accommodation in Truro, he has had to rely on the help of people and other businesses to keep things going, saying: “Unfortunately, I didn’t have a fallback plan for something like this, and now I’m facing a serious challenge to keep Roastie Wraps alive.”
If you or anyone you know could assist with providing Olly a prep space, you can find him on Facebook. He’s also set up a GoFundMe page.
This post was originally published on here
