April 15th marks 5 years of The Host's Pantry! We are so proud to reach this big milestone, having built this business from the ground up.
The idea for Host's started long before 2020. And it might not have come about at all, if Scott hadn't made an impromptu decision to hop on a train to London aged 18. There he got a job at Belgo Centraal, serving mussels by the kilo dressed in a monk’s habit!
Eventually he went on to manage restaurants in the city and his passion for good food and wine grew. It sparked the idea for a new business...
His idea was to make hosting at home simple by bringing together all the quality ingredients needed to make a delicious recipe. It would be a solution for time starved foodies and also for people who wanted to grow their confidence in the kitchen with detailed cooking guides.
But at the time we were both working full-time jobs with long hours, so the business didn’t get off the ground for a few more years. It was the pandemic that gave us the space to start turning Scott's idea in to a reality.
In 2020 a friend designed this logo. To say thank you, we put together our first-ever recipe box. They loved the box and shared the result with friends, who ordered boxes too, and after 3 months, we were delivering so many boxes that our 2-metre square kitchen couldn’t cope anymore!
Here's the kitchen where it all started...
Having outgrown our little kitchen, we set to work converting part of a workshop owned by Scott’s father into a base for our new thriving business. By November 2020 the workshop, logo, website, recipes, and suppliers were all in place, just in time for our baby to arrive!
In the last 5 years, our business (and family!) has grown. We've launched an online food hall, taken on a member of staff, expanded our ranges to include a staycation service, and we've acquired the Shropshire Hamper Company as a sister business.
We can't wait to see where the business is in another 5 years! Thank you so much for your support - as a small business we celebrate each and every order.