If your last weekly shop consisted of coconut sugar, chia seeds and an inordinate number of avocados, chances are your current healthy-eating regime has been inspired by the new wave of wellness gurus ruling the UK.

The recent ‘clean eating’ revolution that favours nutritious and delicious home-cooked meals over deprivation and calorie counting is an impressive phenomenon in itself. But what’s even better is that its champions are nearly all female and the trend has transformed many of them into bona fide business owners.

Jasmine and Melissa Hemsley, the sisters behind Hemsley+Hemsley, and Natasha Corrett of Honestly Healthy have turned a personal love of nutritious meals into the foundation of their own international empires. At the time of writing, Deliciously Ella, the newly-released debut cookbook by healthy-eating blogger Ella Woodward was top of the Amazon book chart for the third week in a row and has set a new record for the highest first-week sales for a debut food writer.

For Olivia Wollenberg, the creator and founder of Livia’s Crumble, her business began last summer after she abandoned her plans to follow a degree in neuroscience with a PHD.

“I realised academia wasn’t the right path for me,” she explains. “I wanted a career where I could put my personality out there and after visiting California and seeing how big healthy eating is, I knew it was only a matter of time before it hit the UK.” Selling just one product (a sweet crumble free from gluten and sugar and packed with superfoods) Wollenberg now employs a small team and is soon to expand her range.

While these women all share a passion for spreading the message of eating well, there’s another common trait among them; they all started out with no business experience. Wollenberg embarked on an eight week entrepreneur programme after developing her recipe, but the Hemsleys, Corrett and Woodward have simply learnt on the job.

“No one’s done exactly what we’re doing so there’s no business model to follow,” says Jasmine Hemsley, “but we’ve learnt the importance of asking questions and to go with our gut.”

“There’s also something to be said for outsourcing the stuff you can’t do, like finance and admin, rather than spend days trying to get your head around it and not get on with the real work,” adds Melissa.

Woodward credits her business success to social media and believes other small businesses shouldn’t underestimate its importance. “I’ve never had to worry about a marketing budget because my feeds do the job for me. Instagram is half my life, I use it to express myself and people can see that my brand is authentic.” It works; the 23-year-old has over 300,000 followers.

It’s safe to say that these women are collaborative leaders, as committed to maintaining the health of their staff as they are their profit margins. Corrett is constantly posting shots of good-for-you treats she bakes for her office and Woodward invites yoga trainers into her headquarters for lunchtime staff sessions. “I run a wellness brand so it would be hypocritical if I created a working environment that went against that,” she says.

Considering all the women have soared to new heights of foodie fame around the same time, is the competition fierce? “Oh no!,” exclaims Wollenberg. “We’re all so new to this exciting world that it’s more about helping each other and trying to avoid the business mentality of stepping on each other to push forward.”

Jasmine Hemsley shares the same view: “We’ve all got slightly different takes on the subject of eating well and those key messages will appeal to different people. At the moment, there’s a lovely supportive feeling among us that we’re opening up the field for eating and living well not to be seen as a vanity project any more.”

So what’s the real secret to owning a successful business? All agree that there’s no quick fix, and it can be a hard slog. “I never switch off,” admits Woodward. “There’s no end to the working day when it’s your own, and I constantly want to do more and more.” At least she’s always got an energy-boosting smoothie recipe to hand.