Sydneysider’s $1m side hustle leads to Coles, Woolies deals

A Sydneysider’s clever idea for a tasty treat at market stalls has led to Coles and Woolworths offering her lucrative deals. But her recent success is tinged with tragedy.

Sydneysider Pimarada Watcharadechmontri, known to most as Pamela, is a bit giddy.

Just hours before she spoke to news.com.au she received an email from supermarket Coles informing Pamela that after trialling her range of Pam Pam vegan steamed buns, dumplings and spring rolls in two Coles Local small format store, the retailer now wants her to supply 10 full sized supermarkets.

“It’s very, very exciting. Coles asked are we ready to supply more stock and of course we said yes.

“Pam Pam started so small – I wouldn’t have imagined we could have come this far.”

It comes just days after rival Woolworths signed onto sell Pam Pam products in 10 of its Metro stores.

A Woolies’ exec told news.com.au the food was “scrumptious” and he was “delighted to have teamed up with a Sydney favourite”.

In just three years, Pamela has gone from a side hustle selling steamed buns at western Sydney markets to being stocked on supermarket shelves nationwide.

With these deals, she said, Pam Pam could be on the way to revenues of more than $1 million in 2022.

From market stall to supermarket shelf. Pam Pam founder Pimarada (Pamela) Watcharadechmontri (right).

Pamela with her products in store.

Good news comes after family tragedy

But Pamela’s happiness at her thriving Pam Pam business is tinged by recent tragedy.

Right now, rather than overseeing her factory in Riverstone, near Windsor in Sydney’s north west, she is in Thailand.

Both her parents, who helped her set up Pam Pam, recently died of Covid-19.

“The past few months have been very bad for me personally,” she said.

“I had to leave Australia to visit my Dad in his hospital bed. Unfortunately my mum had passed before I could get here.

“Covid-19 has been heavy on Thailand. I’ve had to be here to attend to everything.”

The only child will return to Australia soon, once her parents’ affairs are in order, but in the meantime credits her “great team” back in Sydney with keeping the business running smoothly and indeed cranking up production of Pam Pam’s new lines.

The flavours are a nod to her late mother, says Pamela, who was an accomplished cook.

“Food is my passion because of growing up in Bangkok. Mum was so good at cooking and used lots of vegetables and fruit”. Indeed all Pamela’s family are vegetarians.

Pamela arrived in Australia in 2007 to study marketing at the University of NSW.

“I thought it was a very cool country so I wanted to stay,” says Pamela.

As something of a hobby she set up a market stall close to her home in Windsor selling, among other things, custard buns to locals. But the feedback about the custard wasn’t great. So Pamela changed gear wholly to savoury buns.

Pamela Watcharadechmontri with Vitawat Srichaiket at one of her early stalls in 2018 at Carlingford in Sydney’s north west. (AAP IMAGE / Carmela Roche).

Other veggie food was ‘boring’

She stalked the supermarket aisles and discovered there were very few steamed buns and dumplings on offer – and even fewer for vegetarians and vegans.

“The ones that were there were, the flavours were so boring,” Pamela says.

So she set about creating plant based Thai dishes that even meat eaters would froth over.

Punchy green curries with rice; rich and aromatic massaman buns and meat free pork and basil dumplings.

She sampled scores of different plant based meats to find exactly the right texture and taste that would hold the flavours but also satisfy customers used to pork or beef.

Pamela said the recipes were a legacy to her late mother who loved vegetarian food.

Ingredient that was too much for Aussies

The flavours are authentically Thai but Pamela did have to make one change to suit the Australian palette.

“Originally I did put too much chilli in and people said it was too spicy,” she laughs.

The new direction was a hit. As well as fresh from the market she began selling the buns in clear wrappers for people to take home and heat up later.

Next stop the big supermarkets, assumed Pamela.

“I thought it was going to be easy, that I’d go straight into Coles and Woolworths.

“But I was naive – I knew very little about the retail industry.”

She learned quickly that there was a huge difference between running a market stall and running a commercial kitchen.

“I came from an office background so I did an internship in a hotel for free so I knew how a kitchen would work”.

With the help of her parents in Bangkok she set up a factory in Riverstone, far larger than she needed at the time.

“I planned big,” she said. “I got machinery that would allow us scale up. That cost a lot of money but I was very confident in my product.”

She built her team with “the right people with every person having a different skill,” including a chef finessing the recipes.

The Pam Pam range is all meat free with many of the dishes containing plant based meats instead.

The range now includes steamed bun, curries, heat at home meals, dumplings and spring rolls.

‘Getting into the first store is the hardest’

Even with an untapped niche, a tasty product and an existing customer base, it was still a struggle to attract the attention of the big boys.

“Getting into the first store is always the hardest,” said Pamela.

But eventually Pam Pam got onto its debut shelf – a Thai supermarket in the Sydney CBD district of Haymarket in 2019.

One store down, she then persuaded a Foodworks in Newtown in Sydney’s inner west and later her local IGA supermarket in Riverstone to stock her buns. Gradually she built a head of steam.

She struck a deal with NSW based Harris Farm Markets stores and found her way into more than 100 IGA and independent stores nationwide.

“When I had 20 stockists, I got into Harris Farm Markets and that’s when the ball really started rolling and Coles and Woolworths came along.

“Initially I was in two Coles Local stores with them using these small stores as a testing ground.for products.”

NSW based chain Harris Farm Markets was an early stockist of Pam Pam buns and curries.

Woolies and Coles are now on board with Pam Pam too in a select number of stores. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Mariuz

Woolies now stocks Pam Pam curries in 11 Metro stores in Sydney’s inner suburbs.

“We’re proud to support small Australian suppliers across our store network,” Woolworths Metro general manager Justin Nolan told news.com.au.

“With many of our customers looking to incorporate more plant-based protein in their diets, we’re delighted to have teamed up with a Sydney favourite, Pam Pam.

“In good news, we’re looking forward to rolling out Pam Pam’s scrumptious plant-based buns and frozen meals later this month,” he added.

Pamela reckons that the deal with the big grocers as well as her existing contracts and a burgeoning buns by post business could see her still fledgling business hit the million dollar mark.

“This year we were approaching $500,000 in revenue and next year I’d like to see if we can double that to $1 million.

“And if we do grow by more than that then we may have to then look at moving the factory and scaling up because we’ll need it.”

Pimarada hopes to have revenues of $1 million in 2022 following the supermarket deals.

Business a legacy to mum and dad

Every Pam Pam dish eaten in an Australian home is a link back to Pamela’s late mum and dad and their love of home cooking.

She said her parent’s passing has motivated her even more to make the business a success – to provide a legacy.

In Thailand, Pamela hasn’t hand the chance to see all her products cropping up on shelves in new locations in Sydney and Melbourne.

“I actually get one of my team to go and take a picture and send it to me.

“And when I see it I’m so proud of that journey I’ve been on from my first shop all the way to the supermarket.”