(This was originally drafted as a newsletter, but I’ve decided to post it as a blog article to cover constant enquiries about my business)
If you could sum up your last 12 months in one word, what would it be and why?
Mine would be “tumultuous” – though to be fair, you could probably say that about the last 15 years of my life since leaving my IT consultancy to get into this “food thing” (as it’s disparagingly referred to by some, ie. family).
The latest change on the horizon is that my business partner Nick is quitting the day-to-day of the markets as of February. (In the chaos of my life I forgot he was graduating from his nursing degree this year – I thought he had another year left in his studies.)
Also, after years of being waitlisted, my special needs baby, Noah, has finally reached the front of the line as far as early intervention services are concerned, so he’ll be quite busy attending therapy and childcare.
These two major changes mean that I’ve had to make a call to get rid of my labour-intensive warehouse. As of February, I will no longer have storage for the bulk of my equipment and food.
What does that mean for you?
1) My current range of products that require freezer storage (ie. my curry pastes) will be phased out. I may develop a premium made-to-order range once the dust settles – we’ll see.
2) My Orange Grove Market menu will be drastically scaled back – to items that can be produced fresh on the day itself, using equipment that can fit into one vehicle (ie. sans Nick’s 4WD+trailer). This means basically CKT and maybe one other dish. I’m not even sure if that is logistically doable so please take this as forewarning that my days there may be numbered. (Yes, I’m aware of the irony after the previous OGM debacle.)
3) My Concord Hospital Market stall on Thursdays will happily continue to operate since I only sell CKT there – ie. nothing that needs warehousing.
4) I’ll also continue to do –
– cooking classes/workshops and demonstrations (in person and via Livestreaming)
– pop-up restaurants
– charity fundraisers for Down Syndrome associations and other causes
– recipe research and development – eg. Southeast Asian Thermomix recipes
Make sure you sign up for my Newsletter to keep up with my announcements about all these events and more.
If you’ve been following me for awhile, you might have picked up that this is actually the next, calculated phase in the direction of my business. Over the last few years I’ve been gradually moving away from physical food production and towards –
– content creation (in the form of TV, videos, podcast, cookbooks and blog)
– food and digital media consultancy
– brand ambassadorships
Just to reiterate, I’m NOT closing down the Jackie M brand; I’m moving away from non-scalable activities towards those that I frankly think will help me make the best use of my time and allow me to give Noah the attention he needs.
Thank you so much for your ongoing support and I look forward to impacting more lives through this Malaysian “food thing”.
Jackie M.
Baby Noah at Wired for Wonder, Sydney, where I was a brand ambassador.