Container kitchen on the rise
Julia Warren’s organic wholefood crackers and bars are already stocked in 65 stores nationwide and she aims to launch in a number of North Island stores in the near future. Despite the business’ steady growth, operations are still based in a shipping container in her mother’s Canterbury backyard.
Make it Raw was founded by Warren partially out of necessity. After a stint in Auckland she and her husband moved back to Christchurch the week before the February 2011 earthquake. As an architect, her husband was soon flush with jobs, but Warren found herself out of work.
During her teenage years living in North Canterbury she was a track and field athlete and naturally developed a knack for making healthy meals. ‘‘Even then I was interested in food that is more nutritious and better for the body.’’
While working at a health food store in Auckland, Warren’s interest further developed when she was exposed to the concept of activating and sprouting foods to release their full nutritional benefits. In Christchurch’s post-quake environment she poured her energy into experimenting with wholefood recipes and Makes it Raw was born.
Warren found her start at the Ohoka Farmers Market where she tested her first product, an activated rosemary cracker, and locals confirmed she was on to a good thing. ‘‘But I truly knew I had something special when stores started calling me, asking if they could stock our products’’.
The business soon demanded a permanent space and her father-in-law Andrew Warren suggested a shipping container. ‘‘Shipping containers were being used for everything and anything in Christchurch at the time and it seemed like the right way forward.’’
So, in true Canterbury fashion, the family converted a 40-foot shipping container into a kitchen and parked it on her mother’s lawn in Fernside.
Now, a team of four bustle away in the container kitchen making raw crackers, triple nut banana bars, mousse tarts and ‘‘grawnola". She still attends the Ohoka Farmers Market, staying loyal to the customers who gave her her start, but with her sights set on expansion. By the end of this year Make it Raw looks set to be on the shelves of Farro Fresh, Huckleberry and New World supermarkets in the North Island.
Highly anticipated 5th Street open
The team at Christchurch’s much loved Hello Sunday cafe opened the doors to their latest venture,
5th Street, last weekend. The highly anticipated restaurant is directly across the street from Hello Sunday in Sydenham.
It has taken shape in a warehouse that was occupied by a greengrocer for almost 20 years. After
11 months of construction the industrial space has given way to a luxe lounge-styled restaurant and bar. Creating a night-time offering has been on the cards for co-owners Chris Penny, Jonathan Spark and Yasmeen Clark for a number of years, but finding the right character-filled space was difficult.
When the neighbouring warehouse became available the opportunity to claim their ‘‘own little corner of Christchurch,’’ was too good to pass up, Penny says.
In the kitchen is head chef Sam Stewart, who played an integral role in securing Hello Sunday the title of Cafe of the Year at the Christchurch Hospitality Awards the last three years running. He has crafted a ‘‘fun and interactive’’ menu based around sharing plates.