It all started with a phone call in August 2017, from a lovely lady called Sarah, asking us if we would be interested in coming to the Christchurch Food Show in April 2018. We said “Sure, why not?”……….
A little bit of background may be required here…. We are a couple of ladies who are wives, mums, cross-fitters, ultra runners & part time workers (on top of our passion that is Forage & Graze). So you may pick up on the fact that we generally juggle a few balls in the air at once, the kind of people that cram 110% into each and every day – good, now you have that picture lets continue with the looming Christchurch Food Show story…….
Wow. Then came the emails, the paperwork, the signatures, the very fine small print and loads of instructions. Ok, we can do this, right? We are a small, two person, part-time passion. Is the Food Show too much of a jump? Is this a mountain we can’t climb? Actually, we thrive on challenge so lets dedicate ourselves to making it work! Then there is the other side of this – why do it? We believe that the Christchurch Food Show will be a platform that will enable us to reach out to more people and share our passion for good wholesome food that is not full of nasty ingredients you can’t pronounce!
That was August and all of a sudden it was November. We attended the Southern Artisan Christmas Fete in November 2017 – it is a wonderful event held at the Hideaway 201 with stallholders coming from all over to participate. Visitor numbers were around 2,800 and our 200 bags of Granola sold out with an hour and a half to go (good and bad right there). Ok, so if this happened at the Fete what would the Food Show bring…arrgh?!
Back to “The Plan” – we needed more stickers, bags, ingredients, baking time & a stock number to aim for. We were fortunate enough to contact an ex Food Show attendee who is also a small operation like ourselves & ask for her advice. Her tips, tricks & advice were a page long but priceless in our eyes; so great to have fellow operators willing to help us out with no question – gotta love New Zealand! We also had to figure out a way to become more efficient with our kitchen time. As our sessions have gone on, we have found our roles that we do best and it is working well, with our production almost double than when we started. We have had to increase our commercial kitchen sessions to 3 per week & as at less than 4 weeks out we are halfway to our goal.
We do hope some of you out there can come and see us at the Christchurch Food Show 6-8 April 2018 and flick us a high five for the dedication to the cause – which is that our products have been handmade with love and care for people like you and I, looking for grain, dairy & refined sugar free options or anyone simply looking for clean, healthy whole foods for themselves, family & friends.
We will update you once we have packed the van and set off on our road trip to the big smoke that is Christchurch (a bit of a change from our country life that is Winton and surrounds!).
Eat the way our ancestors did and feed your body the fuel it needs to get through the day!
Check out our Food Show information below:
https://www.foodshow.co.nz/whats-on/christchurch-2018/partners/forage-graze-south-ltd/
