Buy Australian: Home cooks prove the perfect ingredient to Barossa Valley business Careme Pastry’s winning recipe
Barossa Valley fine food producer Careme Pastry has bounced back from an initial COVID hit after an unexpected shift in focus from locals.
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After planning for the worst back in March, Careme Pastry managing director Claire Wood admits she’s been pleasantly surprised at how 2020 has so far panned out – thanks in part to a strong community desire to support local producers and manufacturers.
The COVID lockdown initially hit the Tanunda-based business, established in 2005 by Ms Wood and husband William to supply home cooks, chefs and food service professionals with quality packaged butter pastry products.
But buoyed by its domestic retail sales – primarily from home cooks making the most of their lockdown time to get busy baking – Careme Pastry has since bounced back to be ahead of last year’s figures; while several new staff members have been appointed to help cater for demand.
“Back in March, we were preparing our business for the worst-case scenario but things didn’t quite turn out like that for us,” Ms Wood said. “During those first couple of weeks (of lockdown) the food service area – which is about 50 per cent of our business – went into freefall and that was really quite a frightening period.”
She said thankfully many of those businesses had been able to adapt and “pivot” into new models allowing them to continue.
“It didn’t take long for a lot of hospitality businesses to figure out what they were going to do, and within two or three weeks distributors who had sent stock back were reordering it back in again … so we were back to our normal level of sales by the end of June,” she said.
“Meanwhile, our retail side went absolutely crazy and we had 150 per cent growth there, which certainly caught us quite unawares. We were working hard just to keep stock on shelves. We really benefited from people being stuck at home – and the uptick in baking at home.”
Sales have since plateaued, but the business remains ahead of last year’s figures. Three new staff members have been employed to help deal with production demands, while a full-time administration person was also set to be appointed soon.
“We feel very fortunate that we’re in a position where our business is thriving and we’ve really benefited from the push to buy local,” Ms Wood, who is also the chairperson of the Barossa Farmers Market, said.
“There’s a strong sentiment out there to support local … for us, the growth just hasn’t been our usual customer base buying more product – these are new customers, trying Careme for the first time.
“We’ve always had wonderful support from our local Barossa community – and we’ve seen that wider desire to support local growers and producers at the market too.”
Originally published as Buy Australian: Home cooks prove the perfect ingredient to Barossa Valley business Careme Pastry’s winning recipe