Hawkshead Relish is celebrating 25 years in business.
Mark and Maria Whitehead began making their first artisan batches of relish and chutney to accompany meals they served up in their small café in Hawkshead in 1999.
The sauces they served proved to be so popular with diners that they started getting requests to buy what they were making. So, after a little bit of deliberation, they decided to take the plunge and start making small batches to sell in the café.
In 2001, foot and mouth ultimately meant that the Lakes were virtually devoid of visitors and it forced Maria and Mark to re-evaluate their business to be able to survive, and in response, the couple hit on the idea of scaling up their production of preserves and condiments.
Twenty-five years later the couple’s initial response to those unique set of circumstances has seen the business flourish, with Royal visits, the production of Maria’s cookery book Embellish With Relish, marking the business’s 20th anniversary in 2019, now about to be reprinted for the third time.
Today the company produces a range of over 100 handmade products at their production premises near Esthwaite Water, including their classic Westmorland Chutney and their innovative, best-selling Black Garlic Ketchup. They now retail to over 500 outlets in the UK and export to over 20 countries around the globe.
Along the way, the team have also won countless awards for product innovation, including well over 80 Great Taste Awards as well as manufacturing products for the likes of Tom Kerridge, Harvey Nichols, Booths and Lakeland Ltd to name a few.
From small beginnings with just two staff, the company has grown to now employ 28 local people across three sites, becoming one of the UK’s leading artisan food businesses in the process and as ever continues to be a firm advocate for the Lake District and Cumbria.
But it doesn’t end there as Mark and Maria, keen to see things continue in the same vein, have been working to implement a succession plan to ensure the future of the company beyond themselves.
This has seen them begin to take more of a back seat, while managing director Jonathan Robb and their daughter Izzy Whitehead, who is the company’s brand manager, have taken on the day-to-day running of the business.
Izzy’s sister Abbie is looking after their flagship retail store in Hawkshead, leaving the business in safe hands as collectively Mark and Maria steer a course towards Relish’s next significant anniversary.
Maria said: “When we started out in our café in Hawkshead making a few condiments to serve with our dishes, little did we know what Hawkshead Relish would become a quarter of a century later.
“To say that we are proud of our whole team is such an understatement, and we’re looking forward to the next chapter in the growth of the Hawkshead Relish Company, as we step back a little more and let our MD Jonathan Robb and fellow director and youngest daughter Izzy take the business forward and develop it for the next 25 years.’’
