10 NZB JUNE 2018
No
holding
back
As careers go, it began rather
unremarkably. Invercargill girl Sharna
McElligott started out in the travel
business, working for an agent in Sydney, before
‘falling in love with’ and studying health and
nutritional medicine.
But after two years of study Sharna was
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or chronic fatigue syndrome – an illness that has
no cure and affects around 20,000 sufferers in
New Zealand.
ME attacks the nervous and immune system –
resulting in extreme tiredness, memory loss, and
muscle and nerve pain.
Back in New Zealand with her family, aged just
23, she moved to Auckland to study, but soon
found herself working for a North Shore café
and running her own vegan cake business,
marketing cakes on her Instagram account
@thenourishingbaker.
After orders exceeded production capacity,
Sharna decided it was time to open her own café- Tauranga was her city of choice.
“It all sort of just happened,” she recalls.
“My partner Hayden had his Vigour and Vitality
business in Tauranga and a spare room in his
factory. My dad built me a hole-in-the-wall type
café out of pallets, which went really well until
we were too busy and needed to move into a
larger location.”
She opened The Nourished Eatery number
two in the city in November 2016 and everything
in the café, from the produce to the tables and
chairs is sourced locally.
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but, in dealing with ME, found herself burning out
and having to delegate more jobs.
So how is she coping today?
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for my business,” she explains. “For example,
someone good at art can do our drinks board art
during quiet times. The chef is also a barista so if
it's quiet in the kitchen, he can make coffee. The
A DEBILITATING ILLNESS DIDN’T
STOP SHARNA MCELLIGOTT FROM
MANAGING HER OWN PLANT-BASED
TAUR ANGA CAFÉ, THE NOURISHED
EATERY. NOW SHE’S INSPIRING
OTHER WOMEN IN BUSINESS
ACROSS THE BAY OF PLENTY.BYGLENN BAKER