This week marks 3 years of This Little Pig Went to Market. What a long way we have come. What started as a test in our lounge room for 5 lucky family & friends to the big pig with several piglet staff, a fabulous dietitian, a head piglet chef and most important of all, a delightful array of piglet customers who all actually seem to be the funnest type of customers in the world!
We’ve got up at 5am for at least 150 Weekend days. We’ve made up boxes, liners, ice bricks and stamped bags by hand. We’ve tied goodness knows how many black ribbons and we’ve done nightmarish things like hand grate parmesan and tie small ribbons around each individual bunch of parsley because we thought it would “look pretty.” We’ve hand ripped foil and baking paper for each box and we have hand stamped more brown lunch bags than any canteen lady in the world.
We’ve had a few early disasters, like the unspeakable day where the recipe was mistyped and a tablespoon of chilli flakes was put into the sauces going out instead of ¼ of a teaspoon. We’ve stayed up until 2am and then got back up at 4am to continue to pack Christmas packs. We’ve glazed more hams in the lead-up to Christmas than anyone should ever have to do, who isn’t in the ham glazing industry, and we’ve shed many tired and stressed tears.
We’ve had delicious big breakfasts (on delivery days when we definitely shouldn’t have), we’ve barbecued crayfish and Katherine’s been slapped in the face with spring onions by her mother Bronwen who finally had enough of her chirpy attitude. We’ve stuck rosemary up our nose, we’ve hand polished capsicums, and we’ve had many naps, celebratory champagnes and commiserating beers with our feet in the pool after a long day.
There have been highs and there have been lows and what we have learnt is that there is nothing we can’t solve. We’ve tackled every problem business can throw at you from broken down freezers with defrosted ice bricks to horrific storms on delivery days. As the work has shifted from family (AKA slave labour) to paid help, our trotters have become less tense. We have time for friends and family and we even enjoy being social again (who would have known!). We have also learnt that we have incredible humans who encourage, support and in general keep us going when all we want to do is sit on a box and cry. We have found that the food and blogging community is not only delicious to participate in, it is rich with incredibly passionate and lovely people who want to help in any way they can.
Mostly however, we have found that whilst owning a business can be a little stressful and tiring, it is also the most glorious thing in the world, to create something from scratch. To share delicious ingredients with others and hear the stories of people discovering new ingredients, new techniques and to also have the rewarding experience, of helping piglets find that they love to cook. It’s been a wild ride, with many tears, tantrums, hysterical laughter and ohhhh so much food. It’s been a whole family effort that has created a glorious product that feeds hundreds of Perth people every week.
So after that bit of waffle, these Little Pigs would just like to say thank you to everyone who has supported them (you know who you are) and onwards, upwards and outwards, to the next 3 years of This Little Pig Went to Market. Oink!
