Creating a new brand from scratch was a daunting prospect, especially on a shoestring. Other well known brands of pots and pans have huge marketing budgets, which seems a little unfair when you consider that so many of them are already household names.
I suppose we also tied one hand behind our backs with the decision to sell our wares through the independent, imaginative and often eccentric shops on your High Street, rather than going for the lure of the mega order from the chain stores.
This (still) means, as you probably already know, my filling up the car - the original Little Blue Van - has been replaced by a newer blue van - and touring the country looking for likely stockists.
These wonderful shops are, quite literally, our shop window and have done so much to bring our range to the public's attention. We love the fact that establishments as diverse as pubs, bookshops, farm shops and fireplace showrooms are just as likely to stock us as traditional cook shops and that all of these offer true individuality, a great choice of goods, genuine passion for what they are doing, great product knowledge and customer service.
I'm sure that the reps who go into some of the bigger department stores for meetings don't get a hug!!
They have supported us and we are doing whatever we can to support them - and the best way we can do that is to supply them with great British-made cookware, that people will come looking for.
Thank you to all of them. Please help us by visiting them - you can find them all listed here
And that is why we are so very grateful to the well known and professional people who have lent us their support.
We know that our pans are good, but when highly respected chefs say so, then people start to pay a little more attention.
First up is Stevie Parle from the Dock Kitchen in London - he spotted us way back and has been using our casserole dish and frying pans ever since. He created a fabulous recipe for the Sunday Telegraph, for whom he is a regular contributor and cooked it in our casserole dish
Since then his head chef, the talented Rich Blackwell keeps me posted with what's going into the frying pans.
Many of you will know James, as son of Dick Strawbridge and they took delivery of some pans to use on their hugely entertaining Saturday Farm TV show, that was filmed at Daylesford Farm.
James is now the proud owner of one of our tagines and if you look further down the blog, you will come across the special chicken recipe he created just for us.
On now to the stars of Shropshire and many thanks for all your support to......
Will Holland, who has now migrated to Wales and cooked this gorgeous Tarte Tatin in one of our oven safe crepe pans As far as we know, Will is now in Jersey
Marcus Bean has not only used our pans on stage at the Shrewsbury and Ludlow Food festivals, he takes them with him to all his demos and regularly uses them at the Cookery School.
He also included us in his Kitchen Saviours article for the Guardian, describing the usefulness of the Kitchen Companion, one of our most versatile products.
Chris Burt's prodigious talents see him running the stunning Peach Tree and Momo-No-Ki restaurants in Shrewsbury and he is so impressed with our woks, that they are the only ones used in the Momo-No-Ki kitchen Update: Chris is now cooking up a storm at the Mytton and Mermaid and still using Netherton pans
Suree Coates is a celebrated and award winning Thai chef.
Robert Swift, master baker has lent his support and expertise to the development of the latest addition to the Netherton range - these superb loaf tins will be available in February, complete with recipes by Robert.
But I've been saving the best news til last.............
Drum roll please..............
Showcasing the pans at Taste of London, was Michelin starred chef Adam Gray,from the Skylon restaurant. Adam is now at the Devonshire Club
Food writer and broadcaster par excellence, Diana Henry recommended us as her find of the year in her "must have" Christmas gift guide
And finally, as an early Christmas to both herself and us - the undisputed goddess of the kitchen, Nigella Lawson got her hands on one of our slow cookers.
As if all that weren't enough, we were honoured and privileged to be asked to present one of our hand painted tagines as a Shropshire gift to HRH the Princess Royal on her recent visit to the Shropshire Women and Children's Centre at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford. We were fortunate enough to meet Her Royal Highness.
Read all about the visit here...
Last week brought yet more excitement with our attendance at Theo Paphitis's #SBS event in Birmingham, where he told us that we all have to blow our own trumptes, because if we don't no-one else will.
Well, it looks as though he may have half a point there - because we have been blowing so hard, that we now have a backing chorus blowing along with us.
And that backing team includes his #SBS team who selected us as one of seven companies to be showcased in 10 key Robert Dyas stores.
We are not there yet, and there is still a long way to go, but we are certainly on our way to becoming a household name and giving the "big boys" something to think about.
So a HUGE "Thank you " to everyone supporting us on our journey, keep shouting, there are still some folk at the back that haven't heard (of) us yet.
© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015
www.netherton-foundry.co.uk
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