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A Pretty Pickle
What do you get when a local food personality pairs up with a brand and design expert? You get Pickled — a new product range, with a cheeky vibe, that tastes as good as it looks.
What do you get when a local food personality pairs up with a brand
and design expert? You get Pickled — a new product range, with a
cheeky vibe, that tastes as good as it looks.
We’ve pickled pretty much everything you can think of!” laughs Cherie Metcalfe, co-founder of
the new jarred pickle company, Pickled.
Cherie, owner and all-round powerhouse behind the fantastically successful Pepper & Me, has
now teamed up with Campbell Attwood, owner of Afternoon, a design and branding studio,
to launch Pickled. We had many late nights drinking wine and making pickles,” says Cherie. “
Campbell has wild ideas — he’s just, ‘Let’s pickle this!’ So we just gave anything a go.”
“We had some wins — the pickled pineapple and the fennel were actually really good,” says Campbell. “But we pickled a bunch of fresh coriander with spices and onions, and that all kind
of fizzed and went rank as,” he laughs.
“We got quite pickled so that became the theme to everything,” says Cherie, pointing out the cheeky product names, such as ‘chopped’ and ‘oiled’. She describes the two as “mad scientists” during their early pickling sessions, often getting carried away and forgetting to write down the exact recipe for the experimental pickles. “We’d open them up after two weeks and have no idea what went in the jar.”
“I also lost the tips of both my thumbs on the mandoline,” Campbell recalls (rest assured, they
won’t be found in any of the retail jars).
The pair are kicking off with five base products, plus seasonal pickles. “We’ll try and work with
local growers to see if they have an excess of something we’re interested in, then we can do
limited-edition pickles, keeping it fun,” says Cherie.
Pickled’s launch products are: Oiled Garlic (confit garlic — slowcooked and squishy), Cheesed
Pickles (thinly sliced cucumber with a little chilli, dill and onion), Sizzled Onions (Mexican flavours
with a spicy kick), Chopped Onions (with aromatic Chinese spices), and Yellow Trees (cauliflower
with curry flavours). “We’re also doing this idea where we’re pickling all the off-cuts of the veges
— it’s called 4am Pickles,” explains Cherie. As the packaging states: ‘The Last Call Bits’.
“The products are so delicious and we reckon they’ll take any dish to the next level. And obviously
the branding Campbell has created is really playful and will get people excited too,” says Cherie.
“We know there’s definitely place in the market for creative, New Zealand-made pickles,” says Campbell. “So we’ll keep experimenting, pickling and bringing people new flavours, and of course have lots of fun at the same time.”
pickled.co.nz @heypickled
Pickled will be available online in late February.
