Guest Post: A Cleanse That Started a Business

Several months ago, I received a lovely email from Patti Flynn. Patti participated in the “Crazy Sexy Vegan Cleanse,” that I coordinated in 2012, which involved no meat, sugar, dairy, gluten, alcohol or coffee. During this cleanse, Patti discovered lacto-fermentation of vegetables. This discovery soon developed into a hobby, which has now turned into a business! I was so inspired by Patti’s story, that I asked her to share it. Read on to learn how Patti went from participating in a cleanse, to developing a new business venture. – A.M. 

I have been making soap since since early 2001 and I started my soap company in December, 2001. In my previous life, I was a vastly unhappy chef; I loved the actual cooking, but found everything else about restaurants detestable: the hours, the customers, the pay, the other staff, and the owners. You might say I was an absolute curmudgeon, born to work for myself! The stress levels were constantly insanely high and the remuneration, paltry. However, the skills translated amazingly well into a soap making business. After a time, I was grateful for my years slaving away over a hot stove….they were excellent training for the next 13 years of slaving away over a hot soap cauldron.

And so, we all commenced. There was a lot of swapping of ideas and recipes. I started reading a lot of raw vegan blogs. We started to feel pretty amazing, so we kept on going….for six months. Somewhere in that time, I realized kimchi and sauerkraut were raw food. We bought some and added it enthusiastically to our food. I began reading more and more about the benefits of lacto-fermented foods and how the lacking they are in the modern western diet. Apart from homemade yogurt, I wouldn’t have known a probiotic if it jumped up and bit me.

So I began to experiment with fermenting vegetables. I read Sandor Katz’ excellent books: Wild Fermentation and the Art of Fermentation, plus a dozen more by other authors. Within two years we were eating a serving of ferments every day, brewing kombucha and jun, and I was fermenting everything I could think of. The sour, salty, complex, original flavours were a revelation to us, and moreover, to all the friends and family upon whom I foisted samples.

 Upon my return, I got to work. A business name: Picklish. Graphic design. Labels. A bazillion jar samples….my ferments are going out in solid american-made glass, thankyouverymuch. No plastic here! I had to obtain a food licence which meant I needed to do a food safety supervisor course, which meant brushing up on some old skills. Fortunately I live in the middle of an amazingly diverse farming community, so the raw materials are local, abundant, top quality, and well priced.

Out of the blue, one of my very good soap customers offered to distribute for me. This was a stroke of fantastic fortune; they are a large and reputable certified organic and bio-dynamic dairy producer, with a national supply chain in place. As Picklish is a living raw food, it requires refrigeration from me to the end consumer, so having this amazing dairy network has really made it all possible. I’m currently in a very soft launch phase, with a hard launch planned for early 2015. After the first week, it was painfully obvious that I had woefully under-calculated and needed a lot more volume. So, I have fermentation crocks being made in Poland, as we speak.

The whole thing has been a surprising turn of events and it all started really because of Anne Marie’s proposal. In hindsight, I can definitely say that was the trigger. So as I delivered my first order in early November, I thought of Anne Marie and sent her a note to say: this is what you have done! In the meantime, I continue to throw the soap pots around. But really, who knows what will happen next? I suppose we could always ask Anne Marie!