Launching a sauce business from an island during a pandemic!
March 2020
After 2 years of development, shelf life testing, lots and lots of mistakes, we were SO ready to launch Slàinte Sauces our cocktail inspired drizzles. Markets were booked, gin festivals were booked, excitement was building everything was set, samples, leaflets, fancy wee gold shelves for our market stalls it was all going to look so marvellous.
Then, Covid 19 turned out to be more than just a flu, herd immunity wasn’t going to cut it and along with most of the world Scotland went into lockdown, everything was cancelled.
Our great plans of launching and selling at the markets gone, as well as our main incomes! We were/are in the midst of a pandemic, locked down on our glorious wee Scottish island surrounded by sauce! Our only solution was to sell online not something we’d planned, however as with many unplanned things it’s turned out to be one of the best decisions. With online sales set to skyrocket it’s obviously something we should have planned for! And in hindsight it seems crazy we hadn’t.
The island has a great daily postal service (which on a side note I find it really bizarre the islands get charged so much more for delivery by the majority of companies though it doesn’t cost more to post out..mmm) anyway even though the island shop had to shut as the owners needed to shield they did a kinda click & drop service, so we could still get our groceries and drop off our parcels for posting, truly a life line for the islanders.
Lismore stores, with the horse box acting as our pick up & drop off for groceries and post during lockdown, May 2020
Of course now we have to get to grips with social media, seo, tags blogs!!! every day is turning out to be a school day.
July, four months on we’ve been featured by food bloggers and the press, best of all we are now getting the sauces into the shops. Maybe we’ll get to the markets next year and will be able to get our fancy wee gold shelves out!
In the meantime look out for Slàinte Sauces with cocktail flavours the range includes Spicy Tequila, Rum&salted caramel, White Chocolate & Raspberry Martini Gin&tonic Port Cherry & Black Pepper delicious drizzled over with seafood, burgers, salads even dessert
Slàinte (slan-cha) a Scottish cheers, bringing the celebration to your table!
and for more on our island check www.isleoflismore.com