Online shopping, door pants & behind the scenes...

Online shopping is a glorious thing is it not?

You can browse in the nude/in your pj's (imagine doing that IRL) put things in your cart & then come back a few hours later, it's blissfully quiet, can be highly efficient annnnd you can get your shopping done & delivered without a single human interaction if that's your jam.

True story? These little pigs have a much adored sister in law who keeps a pair of "door pants" specifically near her front door so that when deliveries arrive she can transform from relaxed & sans pants (her preferred home attire) to respectable citizen with the quick flash of a soft pant #protip

Door pants and online shopping convenience aside we're here to give you an insight into the work behind each Little Pig order, specifically our Christmas orders. The biggest (and most delicious) menu of the year is an absolute beast behind the scenes & we adore that as the customer, all you have to do is browse online, chat to our brilliant customer service/pig of the people Chris (aka the Ginger Pig) if need be, place your order online & then move on with your life knowing that some very delicious & beautifully organised Christmas food is being delivered to your door.

Behind the scenes? It's a little more complex than that & that my friends is the secret sauce to 11 years of delivering delicious Christmas feasting allllll over Perth.

From 6 months out...

• We start reviewing the previous years feedback & sales numbers on the menu lineup
• Chat to suppliers & growers about whats looking good, what's available & any trends/costs/potential shortages we need to know about
• Brainstorm a "dream" menu, review that, ideate the actual recipes, add in some bestsellers from previous years & then whiteboard the whole thing making sure we have a good mix of flavours, cooking styles/times, ease & ingredients that will be seasonal & stand up to the rigours of a Christmas day
• Enter that menu into our incredible custom-built database (thanks Dad)
• Draft cost the menu to make sure it's going to be viable to produce AND good value for our customers
• Lock in the final menu, set a testing date & start planning the marketing & operational dates around orders opening, closing & when we will be delivering
• Testing weekend! 2 day bonanza of more food than you can shake a trotter at. We're tasting, checking cooking times & methods, photographing the final dishes & getting behind the scenes footage for marketing
• Final database entry, final costing, marketing descriptions, images edited, website ready for launch & touching base with suppliers to make sure we're ready to roll

From 3 months out...

• Marketing planned & implemented (think emails, customer comms, social media, paid advertising, giveaways, flyers etc)
• Website goes live - wahoooooooo (fun fact? we always get orders within the first 24 hours of going live and that's even though we do a soft launch, (no advertising that it's live) first to check everything over. This is always a real giddy moment seeing the first one trot in)
• Designing starts on customer service delights like our famous "get ahead" info sheet (sent out ahead of your delivery with what to expect, what you'll need cooking implement & serving wise to have on hand & some brilliant get ahead tips for the day) as well as our recipes, carving & serving guides
• Weekly order tally begins with numbers for our suppliers to start getting a picture of what's selling & to keep track internally of any hard-to-order items/things we need to pre-order
• Operational planning kicks into gear for staffing, packaging, drivers & weaving that into our regular weekly meal kit operations
• Market & produce checks start to ensure what we've got planned is still viable - scars from the great Easter 2020 Cauliflower debacle still linger (that's a story for after a bottle or two from The sWine Cellar friends...)

Final few weeks & DELIVERY

• Orders close for both our delivery days - amazingly & even though orders are open for at least 2 months, there is always a handful of people who miss the deadline & speed dial The Ginger Pig in a panic - top tip? Don't do that, order ahead so you can actually have what you want & not what spares we allow for in the first 24 hours after orders close. These sell out everrrrry year, so we highly recommend getting in early with your order friends
• Orders are placed with our suppliers the same day that the menu closes - it's a flurry of calls, emails and texts for our food procurement guru Genna who was born for this. With two delivery days to order for & a huge menu with over 200 possible combinations that people can order, it's a juggling act like you've never seen before
• Our dry pack team swings into action with anything shelf stable prepped & portioned 
• Our sauce ladies get chopping, whizzing and decanting delicious handmade glazes into glass jars & fresh marinades to head off to the butchers - fresh dressings & other sauces to follow closer to the pack & delivery days
• Packaging is all ordered & in the warehouse - think boxes, liners, icebricks, menu paper, ribbons, packaging for sauces, glass jars for glazes etc
• Recipes & cooking/carving guides are printed, black satin bows are tied & a creative director is heard reminiscing about the days where we used to tie each box with a ribbon...
• The produce & pack team start making up boxes, labels for delivery are printed, delivery routes are finalised (an epic job for The Ginger Pig)
• Fresh produce starts coming in - Hardy veg comes first, usually several hundred kilos of potatoes leading the charge, delicate dudes like fresh berries won't be in until the day of delivery & then there are hundreds of avocados that need to be in and ripened to salad perfection before going out. The produce team start portioning, packing bags & working out what will be packed in what combos for max efficiency and meanwhile we're also juggling the final meal kit pack & delivery for the year as well, FUN TIMES
• Specialty ingredients start being delivered all throughout that final week - think handmade cheese, chocolate, preserves, biscuits & incredible WA wines
• Nan's homemade choc chip cookies are baked, packed into bags and stickered with a little thank you note for all our suppliers
• All the bags are packed the day before the first delivery and a final "bag check" is done to ensure all the perfectly portioned ingredients are tucked safely in there
• Frank Torre our butcher rolls up with a literal truck of incredible hams to free up some space in his coolrooms with the promise of another delivery the next day
• Delivery day #1 rolls around & it's an early morning flurry of final produce deliveries, meal kit bags being topped up & then the pack line swings into operation. It's a glorious sight piggos & anyone who has seen it from the windows up in the office is inevitably fascinated at the production line ensuring each box is packed beautifully.
• Drivers start pulling up, The Ginger Pig is moving at the speed of light organising stacks for the drivers & somehow simultaneously answering last min customer phone calls about their delivery coming that day
• Drivers hit the road, the pack team start cleaning & prep for the second delivery day starts all over again.

Phew! And that's just the high level breakdown friends - it's undoubtably the biggest, most stressful, fun & delicious pack of the year & this year there's a team of 34 amazing locals pulling all of the above together to make your Christmas incredibly easy & delicious. We love that it's this two way mirror of ease & calm for the customer & a flurry of amazing work behind the scenes to make it all happen so smoothly - something we have our brilliant team to thank for.

So if you're pondering (or placed) your Christmas order for this year, take a moment to give yourself a pat on the back for supporting a locally owned business that employs 34 great humans and champions some amazing West Aussie suppliers. We're pretty thrilled to be trusted with this most important of food days & can't wait to deliver deliciousness for the 11th year running - we'll see you on delivery day (don't forget your door pants...).

x Oink

Team TLPWTM

Haven't ordered yet? That's ok, the menu is live here until 9am on Friday the 13th of December. You can also see our Christmas blogs here for FAQ & festive tips or touch base with our pig of the people Chris here if you have any questions.

Don't forget that every Christmas order goes automatically in the draw to win the rather spectacular KitchenAid Evergreen stand mixer (valued at $1199) - drawn on December 13th after our orders close.