Pepper & Me - 6 months on! by Cherie Davies April 02, 2017
Reading back on my first post, its crazy how things can change so much in such a short period of time! Miss Pepper is walking! She’s loving daycare, sleeping through the night and self weaned at 8 months old - Which is rather relevant because I started this business with an aim of supporting lactating mamas… (this topic was pretty close to my heart and may need a full separate blog post)
Now we not only support lactating mums but whole families - with a goal of showing you how to include a wide variety of delicious, simple, and budget friendly meals in your day to day life. Our snap chat (pepperandmenz) has been an integral part of this transition, it’s so simple for me to snap as I cook, and show you guys how easy it is to make something a little bit special, making sure we use family friendly ingredients and super simple methods. It’s basically just us, and what we eat. A little baby spam thrown in and the odd yarn of the day. Shannon used to have a man review segment, but then he realized I had more that 20 followers….
We have welcomed so many new products to the family! Man rub has quickly become a staple in everyone’s pantry, and man rub mayo has just as quickly become just as much (if not more) of a staple in the fridge! Thanks to Katie in the Kitchens vegan version, its now suitable for everyone, including pregnant mums too. Man grind has become our most widely used seasoning, replacing salt and pepper in every dish. Cue the entrance of the Man Bag, our manliest gift option for that sneaky little gift you are actually kind of buying for your own benefit. We sourced the most beautiful glass Grinders to sell with our grinds, and have sent out over 500 of them across the country. Once Miss P had weaned, I enjoyed bringing a little heat back into my cooking, and as a solid long time fan of Tio Pablo’s products, we added the Chipotles with Adobo sauce to some of our packs. And of course you all know about Mother Dukkah, as we attempted to take over the internet with our March release of this awesome new product. As a business we have almost reached the point where its time to get some extra (very, very low) paid hands in, as Shannon and myself are starting to struggle with 4-5 hours each of packaging, paste making, bagging up, labeling, emailing and booking couriers each evening. My brother Lorne is on call constantly for website, design, social media and label making duties, while my mum Joc takes care of all my accounts, tries to rein in my generous discounts and giveaways and generally shows up just in time to pull my household together as it starts to burst at the seams. My dad Paul is a business mentor, he writes down numbers and comes at me from a sensible business like angle - sometimes I take that on board! We decided in December I would get a part time job, so that I could use Pepper & Me’s small amount of profit to be put back into growing and promoting the business, so in January I started work as a cook at Peppers daycare. Pepper absolutely LOVES daycare, and I enjoy seeing her learning, playing and developing in these awesome new surroundings. You may or may not hear me yelling "make good choices Pepper" from the kitchen (stage 10 clinger much). Also using my brain for something else each day is good, and it gets us out of bed and dressed at a reasonable hour. Its Main purpose is supporting my online shopping addiction TBH, although some days leaves me pretty drained come 10pm. With Pepper's first birthday scarily looming just around the corner, and an enormous snap chat following that’s growing everyday, I thought it might be time to (hopefully) give this blog a bit more love, and share a bit more in depth, some parts of our lives that you all seem interested in. As I shared above about my family, and how much they do for us, I would love for the Pepper & Me family to become a similar thing. A support network if you like. I was thinking Food, babies, relationships, kids, non-judgmental parenting, good yarns, some sarcastic humor and the odd whinge. Just don’t be a dick though, I’m a big fan of the old block and delete buttons. I hope to be able to support and share other NZ small business with you as well, I’ve become a crazy fan of shopping small, local and NZ made. You have probably figured out by now that I am an over user of exclamation marks, I am not that funny, I eat way too much and I don’t care for kale or his friends. What you are yet to learn is that I am quite passionate and emotional in my head, but I very rarely come across that way whilst speaking. I also have a super wild pre mum/wife life side that no one knows about, (Shazza) As she is known, sometimes still itches to come out…
I also have the worst spelling and grammar, which is a potential issue, but we will deal with that along the way. Welcome to the fam. Hopefully I don’t offend too many people along the way…
X Cherie
