Denial – that was Ted Fleming’s reaction to his 2005 Crohn’s disease diagnosis. He was an elite university squash player and was determined to continue competing. He would not concede in the face of what Crohn’s threw at him.
Reality caught up with him: “Five years down the road, I came to a crossroads. This approach isn’t working.”
Two things happened. He experienced food poisoning during a vacation in Europe and the first of his three daughters was born. He says: “It was a combination of those two events that forced me to deal with this situation and accept that Crohn’s was impacting my lifestyle.”
The upshot was a decision to make changes, starting with diet. At the top of that list was giving up alcohol because it was clearly a trigger for his Crohn’s.
Ted is a beer lover, so he looked into non-alcoholic beer alternatives. What he found were miserable options. Nobody seemed to be filling this need well. He decided to start importing non-alcoholic beer from Europe where products were more developed. He started a business selling those products online.
He quickly came to know his client community and their interest in quality non-alcoholic beer for a variety of reasons – health and wellness being the primary ones. His health issues – not only Crohn’s but diabetes as well – meant he empathized with those like himself who were socially ostracized for not drinking alcoholic beverages.
Around 2015, his client community started asking him to develop non-alcoholic craft beer. In 2017, Ted started Partake, the first non-alcoholic craft beer in North America. In 2018, Ted and his family moved to Calgary. Partake moved with them.
Along with the inevitable ups and downs of a startup, Ted had to deal with flare ups and complications of his Crohn’s disease. In Ted’s case, he has a history of fistulas – deep sores in the intestinal tract that may tunnel into other parts of the intestine or surrounding tissues of the bladder or skin. Between 2010 and 2018, Ted had four surgeries to treat such sores. Since moving to Calgary, he has had one additional surgery.
Being an entrepreneur is incredibly demanding and often leads to overwork. Add a chronic disease into that equation, and things get more complicated. He explains:
“A lot of people may look at my success and say – it has all been good news. But there have been weeks where I’ve had to pull out of trade shows or conferences and I’ve been in the hospital trying to run my business from a hospital bed.”
For several years, he was largely silent about his health issues and their role in Partake’s history. This was especially the case in business settings. Slowly, that changed. He started talking about the connection in media interviews and on his LinkedIn feed, where he has 17,000 followers.
He says: “The feedback I got in telling that story and being more open about it was really encouraging and positive. People started saying, Ted, tell that part of your story more.”
So he did. Here is what he heard: “I’m having a positive impact on people who are on the fence whether they can do something or having self-doubt. I can paint a picture that this was what I was able to do while managing a chronic condition like Crohn’s.”
Ted’s personal storytelling is changing gears. He has entered a new chapter as he left his Partake CEO role in 2023 and is taking on different positions. Given his commitment to Crohn’s and colitis awareness, it was natural to join the board of Crohn’s and Colitis Canada in 2024. He is determined to contribute in that role, telling his story to more people to raise awareness of the diseases and Crohn’s and Colitis Canada.
Ted, his wife and three daughters hiking in Alberta
Ted with Partake beer in a supermarket