A year on and we are back in Lockdown! A year on since I launched Orchardlea Occasion Foods, this year was meant to be alot different to what it has been but it isn’t all bad.
In April last year a friend asked me if i could put together a cheese hamper for her Sister which of course I was more than happy to do, I then posted it on social media and that’s how the hampers started and they have gone from strength to strength since!
We have since been asked to do lots of different types of hampers not just cheese, and I love doing bespoke hampers when Customers can choose what they prefer and if they have a budget I can work to that too for them.
Our hampers range from a classic cheeseboard, Cream tea, Sweet & Savoury Afternoon tea (one of the favourites!) , Devon Picnic, Pub Lunch which was our special for Father’s Day last year and was very popular so we kept that one.
Our niche really is bulk as we are part of a Wholesale Food Company Isca Foods, so aswell as doing single hampers as gifts/family treats we can also supply in bulk
We have done 3 larger orders in the past year which included 99 Sweet & Savoury hampers for a Summer Social for Accountant Firm Simpkins Edwards
and 17 Winter Warmer hampers for a Christmas Staff social for Devon Communities Together
The most recent one was for a 30th Birthday party zoom get together, which I did 10 x hampers which included Mini Prosecco, 2 x scones, jam and cream 2 x mini brownies and cake pop truffles, the scones, brownies and cake pop truffles all hand made by Kate at Kate’s Kakes
Kate has been a big part of all of the bulk orders we have done, she does all of the fresh sweet baking for the hampers, I get to try ALOT of her bakes and I must admit I do enjoy sampling the goods – all of her cakes and bakes are amazing, checkout her website for more details www.kateskakes.co.uk
Her speciality is bespoke occasion cakes, she can also be found on facebook and instagram.
The hampers have always been on the website but they weren’t able to be purchased directly, but we have just updated the website so that you can now purchase our hampers directly via the website, at the moment it is just the priced hampers you can buy online but we are working on a ‘Build your own hamper and Build your own buffet table so watch this space on those to come later this year.
This past year has been so different to what it was going to be like but it has actually worked out for the better in alot of ways.
I have spent the past 4 months covering Beth who does most of our Admin for our Wholesale Company Isca Foods as she has been on Maternity Leave, this included our busiest Christmas ever it was a record breaking Christmas this year in fact this whole past year has been the busiest we have ever been, we have had the most new Customer enquiries we have ever experienced, we are so fortunate that we have been able to continue to trade over this pandemic and it mainly is due to complete luck that we supply the right Customers who have remained open these include Farmshop’s, Deli’s, Local Community Shops, Garages, Cafe’s doing takeaway, Garden Centre’s all across the South West.
Aswell as the Isca jobs, taking customer orders over the phone, invoicing and banking, I have also been doing the Social Media for both Isca and Occasion Foods and blog writing aswell as having a young family to look after and home school for part of the week for the past 6 weeks, but I have been lucky and have been in work for 3 days a week so have had abit of normality/routine aswell which I am very grateful for.
I honestly don’t know how parents have done home learning aswell as trying to work at home.
To say this last year has been hard is a complete understatement but it has also been a real learning curve, I have realised I am stronger than I thought i was, but my patience as a parent has definitely been challenged!
Lets hope this year is something we never have to repeat.
Onwards and upwards, signs of Spring, daffodils, lighter mornings and evenings, more people getting vaccinated every day.
Hopefully i will be able to supply the buffet food for some very patient Bride and Grooms very soon and some new ones I am working on quotes for at the moment.
The purpose of my new business venture is to supply high quality, locally sourced and competitively priced buffet food for any event or occasion big or small and I can’t wait to get stuck in!
