From home kitchen takeaways to bistro and community space - The Blonde Beet Story
Jo has worked in sustainability for over 12 years and has always had a passion for food. Bringing those two worlds together was an important factor in creating The Blonde Beet.
Our Story
Taking redundancy from a career in sustainability education in October 2019, Jo took the opportunity to experiment with an idea she had been nurturing for over a decade - to create exciting, sustainably sourced plant-based food and inspire people to enjoy vegetables in a whole new light! After undertaking a vegan cooking diploma., the business started with a simple idea of running pop-up supper clubs form her own home in Stamford, inviting the public to share a meal round her kitchen table of a mystery menu of plant-based food.
The feedback was great, and after a quick rethink to be able to comply with the changing covid environment, she set about changing the model to offer her menus as hot food takeaways on a Friday and Saturday evening. Delivered by electric vehicle to Stamford and many surrounding villages and towns stretching as far afield as Nassington and Langtoft, the takeaways were extremely popular and allowed customers to try something fresh and different, and regardless of their stance on meat consumption were blown away with the flavours.
Starting a takeaway food business from scratch in May 2020, Jo managed to very quickly build a strong customer base, purely through social media and people trying her food and then enthusiastically recommending to their friends and family. It was a wonderful endorsement when neighbours would team up and arrange deliveries together to make the most of her limited availability! Juggling this alongside working 3 days a week as Development Manager for a local environmental charity and managing the cooks team and kitchen at Second Helpings Stamford through a tumultuous first lockdown was a real challenge, but enabled her to develop the skills and perseverance needed to develop and grow the business.
With demand for the food growing, Jo expanded the operation to include providing chilled meals ready for re-heating at home to the Oundle division of Re-Fill Revolution zero waste shop. Re-stocking the fridge on Friday for the Oundle residents to pick up their shopping and collect a delicious plant-based meal for easy re-heating at home from the Blonde Beet fridge.
In September 2020, Jo was asked by a colleague from her diploma course to cater a week-long residential yoga retreat in Anglesey, Wales. This was a huge undertaking, requiring Jo to curate a menu to meet the dietary, business and ethical requirements of the event. With 16 hour days creating breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner for 20 people it gave Jo a fantastic opportunity to expand her repertoire and gather wonderful feedback to grow her confidence in what might be possible for The Blonde Beet going forward.
Jo's determination to root the business as part of the local community took a huge step forward when she collaborated with The King’s Head, Stamford, to create a pop-up takeaway evening in November 2020. Using their kitchen, she cooked an incredible menu of curry pies and sides to sit alongside their own locally curated beer. With a fully booked evening, it was a great success, if a huge learning curve as her first experience of cooking in a commercial kitchen.
The success of this event led her to seek out other new opportunities, sticking close to her roots of sustainability by developing a ‘fakeaway’ menu for Refill Revolution Oundle. She jumped at the chance, and in December 2020 added deliveries of ready-to-heat meals to their shop, hugely broadening her customer base and experience of business growth.
With demand high but her capacity as a one-woman-band (with huge support from her husband and delivery driver, Nick!) limited, Jo innovated the model further for Christmas 2020. Listening to enquiries from customers, she created a freezer menu of mains, side dishes and desserts for her customers to be able to draw on as and when they needed to over the Christmas break. It was a huge success, the team delivering over 200 menu items across Stamford and surrounding villages in one day!
So with almost a year of experience, Jo and Nick decided it was time to take the plunge and invest their savings and a huge amount of time in creating the perfect space to bring her food, ethos and conversational style of sharing food to Stamford. Setting up the premises in a beautiful and historic building in Stamford, sharing a courtyard and community with other like minded start-ups, Jo has been able to create a pretty magical space which is a testament to the hard work and creativity of the year that went before it. Since opening in June 2021, the feedback has already been incredible. With over 1500 followers on Instagram and already a number of committed regulars coming to enjoy her food each day, The Blonde Beet feels like it's now on the cusp of something pretty extraordinary!
The plans for The Blonde Beet don’t stop at having a café space. Jo has already developed the offering to include a Friday evening dinner service. Fully booked since opening night, the demand is there to add further nights to the repertoire soon. She is working on supporting local groups and other start-ups to share and make use of the space during quieter times, opening up to community events in the evenings and days The Blonde Beet isn’t open, and developing a series of monthly pop-up supper clubs harking back to where it all began to share her food and ethos over a three course mystery menu. Alongside catering a wedding later in July and several parties and BBQ’s for customers who share her excitement for plant-based food, there is already a lot of scope for growth.
