Chilli Project hot sauce wins again!
By Helensburgh chilli sauce entrepreneur Michelle Walsh When the Covid-19 pandemic hit Australia and the country went into lockdown, The Chilli Project was instantly impacted. All markets and events were cancelled for the foreseeable future, and our...
By Helensburgh chilli sauce entrepreneur Michelle Walsh
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit Australia and the country went into lockdown, The Chilli Project was instantly impacted. All markets and events were cancelled for the foreseeable future, and our tried-and-tested way of selling face-to-face was gone in an instant!
Australians were hit with uncertainty, financial strain, and no idea if or when the situation would improve. Retail spending was down (except for the supermarkets and those unforgettable queues for toilet paper and pasta) and small businesses like ours, were left dumbfounded (my husband’s recruitment business was also decimated by the pandemic).
Overnight, parents like us were working from home, facilitating home-schooling and trying to be as positive as possible for their kids. It took multi-tasking to the next level! Eventually we found a routine – we would do schoolwork together in the mornings and then I would set my daughters up with activities so my husband and I could work in the afternoons. My youngest daughter had only just started kindergarten, so she needed a lot of assistance with her learning, but somehow, we survived!
It was a very stressful time, and for about two to three months, sales were slow, we lost access to our kitchen due to Covid restrictions, and the future of The Chilli Project seemed bleak.
There was, however, a lightbulb moment (after a glass of lockdown wine) in which I realised that we already had the systems in place to build our brand’s online retail presence.
I spent the following weeks re-designing our labels, doing a crash course in social media marketing and began to push our sauces online. We found a new production kitchen (in Helensburgh), created new products to expand our range, re-worked postage and courier costs and that’s when things really started to take off!
Thankfully, The Chilli Project survived and thrived in the second half of 2020 despite all the craziness and our future is looking much brighter!
We have just received another award for our sauce as well – The Chilli Project Habanero Hot Sauce was awarded 2nd Place at the 2021 Mr Chilli Awards (our 7th award in three years). We are so grateful for the acknowledgement for our delicious sauces which are handcrafted in small batches from fresh Australian produce.
We now have nine sauces in our range, from mild to extreme heat, and all with their own unique flavour profile, so we like to think there really is a sauce for everyone!
We would like to thank the 2508 community who have stuck by us and given us so much encouragement over the past 12 months –
we honestly could not have done it without you!
Our sauces and chilli gift boxes are continuing to sell to customers nationwide via our website, and we are on the shelves in more than 20 stores across Australia. Head over to our website for more details.
