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I love anniversaries as it forces you to stop what you’re doing and reflect. The first word that comes into mind is WOW (articulate I know) – but it’s been such a crazy 2 years. I’d actually even missed the exact anniversary as I had my head down; LinkedIn had to remind me and even then, it had passed by the time I’d noticed. It was a week ago! So for Founder's Friday today, I thought I'd be nice to share some special highlights of these 2 years.
Since coming up with the idea on a run during lockdown 2020 and running the business out of our flat in London Bridge where we threw away a bed to make space for 1, then 2, then 3 extra fridge-freezers, going at 4am to all the markets to hand-pick all the ingredients and delivering boxes to customers myself to…
Having 70,000 visitors on our website to date and 22% of you ordering 2 times+! Collaborating with the likes of Michelin star chef Endo Kazutoshi, launching our cooked food at Neyba in Notting Hill alongside Tony Singh MBE and Miguel Barclay, being featured on Sheerluxe, Evening Standard, TimeOut, to being a speaker at TimeOut Talks x SAMSUNG’s New Food Entrepreneur next to Shuko Oda from Koya – I’d have to say the pinch me moment above all though is having William Sitwell say he loves the kits! - It’s a surreal moment to look back at all that my team has achieved over the 2 years.
This team definitely could not have done all this without you guys supporting us throughout the journey and with both hands on my heart and bowing to you, arigatogozaimasu (thank you very much).
As my nearest and dearest will tell you (well I’ll tell you on their behalf) that nothing is ever enough with me. I sound positive here but I have had countless teary moments (sobbing and wailing more like), unable to enjoy the wins because something has gone wrong, yet again.
We’ve been let down many times with failed deliveries, couriers thinking it’s good enough to just ‘oops the driver forgot to pick you guys up’ forcing us to find a ZipVan to zoom over to Dartford to make sure they made their way over to you. Who remembers that idiot who wiped my website!? – Most recently it’s the big price rises of goods and as you can imagine, Japanese goods ain’t cheap (putting on a sassy American voice).
So yup, it’s all ups and downs and I have to say I knew it would be hard but I honestly didn’t quite realise how hard it would be (haha, awkward panic face)! BUT – we most certainly won’t let that bring us down and today I’m excited to show you our new jars of pickles, marinades and most popular nori butter! They're now live on our website. We hope to bring all those Japanese flavours you love to your everyday cooking and will be spending the next few months getting these (hopefully) into shops/deli’s around London.
Thank you SO SO much to each and every one of you for supporting my small business and I’ll continue to do my very best for you.