My favourite BACK TO SCHOOL fridge, freezer and pantry BASICS!

I’m not ready for it. My kids aren’t ready for it. We don’t want the summer holidays to end. I can’t guarantee that the emotional transition back to school next week will be an easy one for you either, but I can assure you that with some basic fridge, freezer and pantry staples, you'll be well prepared to tackle the early morning rush hour with less haste and more ease and grace and ensure that your little chimps will be well fed with nutrient-dense foods that give them the energy and building blocks to learn, play and concentrate all day without energy dips. 

Here is what I make sure I have on hand at a minimum:

1. Rectangular and square leak-proof stainless steel lunch boxes with removable dividers
2. Nesting trio of 3 round leak-proof stainless steel lunch box containers
3. Insulated food jars to keep food cold (e.g. yogurt) or hot (soups, broth, stews)
4. If permitted, activated nuts (especially our 30g nut packs which are the perfect snack size) 
5. Refined sugar free treats such as our medjool date sweetened white chocolate bliss balls or our 2 ingredient carob bears (totally sweetener free!!)
6. Gruyere raw milk cheese (perfect to team with fruit for morning tea or can be the protein part of lunch)
7. Preservative-free cured meats from Bundarra Berkshires eg Capocollo and Little French Ham
8. Wild smoked salmon (delicious with lemon juice and capers folded through salad)
9. Kooee beef jerkey made from 100% grass fed meat

These are all available from Broth Bar & Larder in Bronte. We are open 7 days a week 8am-6pm. We can also ship these out to you if you email orders@staraniseorganic.com (cold items only for Sydney and Wollongong residents). 

To become a lunchbox pro, book into one of my school and work lunches WORKSHOPS that I am running in early Feb where I will share with you my secret tips and tricks, school lunch and morning tea “formulas” for success, discuss over 1 hour of nutritional theory and 2 hours of prac, and showcase how to prepare a nutrient-dense grain-free, processed food free lunch in 5 mins flat -I kid you not!

And don't forget to check out my social media posts to see what my monkeys are taking with them to school each day. 

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For more (grain-free and processed-free) lunch box inspiration check out my SCHOOL LUNCHBOX INSPIRATION ebook.

INSPIRING PARENTS TO RAISE VIBRANTLY HEALTHY KIDS ONE NUTRIENT-DENSE MOUTHFUL AT A TIME!

10 P's for Success

The first birthday of Broth Bar & Larder afforded me the opportunity to pause and reflect back on the most intense year of my life. There is no doubt that having a dedicated bricks and mortar retail store catapulted my business to the next level in ways that I never expected but with it comes incredibly hard work, hard falls and long hours, also in ways that I never expected. I have learnt more valuable lessons in the past 1 year than I have over the past 6 years when I first started Star Anise Organic Wholefoods as a hobby from the garage in my home. 

Many people keep asking me “How do you do it?”, “How do you juggle running a business as a single mother?”, “What’s the secret to success?”

I have no idea how to define “success” but the definition that resonates with me the most is from Dick Smith who once said  “I believe that someone is successful if they have managed to place themselves in a position where they have the freedom to do what they want to do”. 

And I must say, that even with all of the sh#t that I have to deal with (Every. Single. Day.) that comes part and parcel of running a small business, I am doing exactly what I want to do and can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing. My life is far from perfect, but even with 2 young kids, I managed to create a business from scratch, set up a retail store, pay all my bills punctually, employ 10 staff, have 40 odd stockists, run my cooking school, do private health coaching sessions and see my business grow slowly but steadily. And just like life, the business is not perfect. It’s a moving feast with things that always can be improved upon, but, if I stand back I can honestly say that I’m proud of what I have achieved (especially given how late I started it all – at age 37 when most people are at the height of their established career). So I guess that given that my business and I are still alive and kicking in the circumstances that I find myself in, I am “successful” in the loosest sense of the word. I still very much feel that the business is in its infancy and the best years are ahead of me #watchthisspace ;-)

So what have I learnt to date? What’s the secret? Like robust health, there is no one panacea, but a collection of millions of little things that make it all tick and thrive and come together.  But if I had to pick, and really distil it down, the 10 most poignant qualities or lessons are those that I set out below. 

I think these 10 drivers apply not just for business success but also personal goals, whether it’s in the realm of sports, music, dance or the performing arts.  

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1.

PASSION

So this is where it all began for me. From a very young age I was fascinated about the human body and what makes us hum and thrive, motivated by the desire to be the very best version of myself. I instinctively knew that surely nutrition had to play a massive role in our health (even though mainstream doctors would say it makes no difference). Forever searching and experimenting with various dietary regimes (from blood type diet, to vegan to vegetarian) it wasn’t until I stumbled upon the works of Dr Weston A Price (through my beloved friend and naturopath Anthia Koullouros) that I learned, quite simply, that the answer is eating what we are biologically designed to eat based on our evolutionary past (which is universally an omnivorous diet rich in nutrient-dense whole unprocessed foods) as tailored to individual physiology (to take account of things like gut dysfunction, allergies, chronic infections, immune dysregulation and genetic polymophisms...ultimately with the goal of fully healing oneself so that the full plethora of nutrient-dense traditional wholefoods can be consumed #goodtimes).  

Anthropological evidence tells us that we evolved to eat wild seafood, pastured animal products, natural fats (such as olive oil, coconut oil, egg yolks, the fat on pastured and wild meat), organ meats, bone broths, fresh and cultured vegetables, and nuts and seeds properly prepared. We also know that we are NOT designed to eat processed and artificial foods (refined sugar, refined flour, industrial seed oils) and nor are we designed to eat large amounts of grains and legumes and if we do eat them in  small to moderate quantities they should always be properly prepared (through soaking, sprouting and fermenting) in the way that all traditional societies prepared them pre industrialisation. Illness and disease occurs when there is a mistmatch between our biology (what we are designed for) and what we actually eat or do with our bodies (our environment). 

Marvellous! Simply, marvellous! Except for the fact that this turns the conventional food period upside down and inside out. We are told by modern dietetics to avoid saturated fat like the plague, to avoid cholesterol rich foods like coconut oil, egg yolks, fatty meat and full fat dairy. We are told that low-fat, skim and fat-free foods are best. We are told to eat grains until they come out of our ears (with no reference to refined versus properly prepared). We are told to eat “heart healthy” vegetable oils like canola, cottonseed and margarine. And we are not educated about the source and processing of food at all because the diet dictocrats don’t think it matters. 

When I found out that the conventional food period that I had been strictly following for the vast majority of life was a complete and utter farce, I experienced emotions not dissimilar to hearing about the sudden death of a close friend:

• Disbelief (“no way, it can’t be wrong! I mean how could the government get it wrong?!?!”). 
• Then anger. And lots of it! (“I’ve been eating the exact opposite of what I’m supposed to eat!! You mean to tell me that I’ve been lied to all my life and it’s the been the cause of all my health problems?!?! Are you freakin’ kidding me?!?”). 
• To then depression (“Woe is me. My health is f#$ked. I’m never going to get better. I’ve stuff it all up. I’m a walking mess. I’m forever spending money on my health”). 
• To then feeling stressed and overwhelmed to piece together and comprehend a whole new dietary paradigm (“Ok, so how does this all work again? Please explain it to be one more time Anthia!!”)
• To then acceptance of what is. (“Ok I can’t change the food pyramid and being angry and stressed is futile, and my partner and friends think I’m crazy for even considering a nutrient-dense unprocessed ancestral diet but I have total control over what I eat and this stuff really resonates with me so deeply so maybe, just maybe, I can do what I think is right regardless of what others think and let’s see what happens….”)

And then ultimately passion. Passion in all its glory. Passion in the full sense of the word. Passion to take back control of my health and my life. Passion to restore the health of my baby boy who, on a grain-based low-fat conventional food pyramid diet, ended up in hospital at 11 months with bronchial pneumonia and rounds of antibiotics. Ok, so let’s get cracking! Let the healin’ begin!!! BUT! The wholefoods scene in Sydney 10 years ago was a very different story from what you see today. No one was making and selling pastured bone broths, chicken liver pate, broth-based soups and casseroles, slow cooked meals, raw fermented veggies, kombucha, beet kvass, water kefir, raw treats without refined sugars or agave, or super crispy activated nuts. No one. Desperation breeds creativity. What did I do? I got back in the kitchen and started making from scratch the very foods my family and I needed to not just to survive but to thrive. And thrive we did. Within a matter of months all our health problems “vanished”. Anti-depressants were redundant, my periods resumed, I stopped breaking bones and needing constant osteo-skeletal support, my kids and I stopped getting sick, my energy levels and mental clarity soared. All this just from changing our diet! From simply fuelling ourselves with the very foods that we are designed to eat, the mismatch between genes and environment diminished and we could start firing on all 6 cylinders. And what did I want to do? SHOUT MY MESSAGE OUT TO THE WORLD. FROM THE ROOFTOPS. LOUD AND CLEAR. FOOD IS MEDICINE!! That’s passion. It was the little spark inside me that ignited that thought “Hey, there’s nothing unique about my family and I. If we can heal our bodies through changing our diet, then so can you and I want to show you how to do it really easily and I want to share with you all that I have learnt to make it super simple for you!” So I started selling the nourishing foods I was making that was surplus to my family’s needs to my friends and then friends of friends and the circle kept expanding and expanding until 1 stock pot turned into 2, then 3 then 7, and 1 dehydrator quickly turned into 11, and 1 helper turned into 10! I then started running cooking classes to show busy time poor mums how to make ferments, bone broths, pate and other nutrient-dense wholesome fare for their family, and I started sitting down with people in one on one health coaching sessions to demystify all the confusion around nutrition so by the time they walked out my door they were crystal clear.  

Passion is the fire that burns inside you that no one can smother. There may be nay-sayers in the process that will try to side-line you. A partner who thinks you're into “quack science” and resists any change that conflicts with the mainstream (because it's very safe and comforting to follow the crowd). A friend who belittles you for being the only person in the entire cinema to be drinking bone broth instead of coke zero (“Just you watch me make a business out of it” I told her, to which she rolled her eyes “As if!”). And another friend who says that with my 2 degrees and a university medal in commerce and law I am “above bagging nuts for a living”. So why did I continue bagging nuts and walk away from a successful 10 year legal career? Passion. Some relationships broke down in the process of living my truth. True friends will support and champion you no matter what. 

Follow your passion. Always. 

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2.

PERSISTENCE

While passion is essentially the thing that lights you up, persistence is the fuel that keeps passion alive. Persistence is the glue-factor. It makes passion stick. It’s persistence that motivates you to keep going and going even when the going gets bloody tough. I will be brutally honest and say that over the past year there were numerous  times when I felt that the odds were so clearly against me that I wanted to throw in the towel and go back to the safe haven of being a lawyer. To have less headaches and responsibilities, earning a handsome wage with 4 blissful weeks of annual leave.  One of my favourite mantras when I felt this way was to repeat over and over “If it was easy, everyone would be doing it”. Yet only those who persist, succeed. 

Remind yourself that there will be bends in the road, and don’t lose sight of your long term goal. Slow and steady wins the race. 

For some time I was really concerned that my social media following was not growing. Other businesses that started a mere nano second ago would miraculously have 12K followers overnight, while I have been plugging away for years and years. What the?!  I no longer pay attention to any of that. It’s not real. Do all of those tens of thousands of followers and “likes” translate to genuinely real, loyal customers and patrons? Perhaps they do but more likely is that only a mere fraction do. Don’t get distracted by what others are doing. I merely play in the realm of social media but I no longer get bogged down by it. You can end up spending more time looking at and ‘liking’ other people’s dreams rather than actually pursuing your own. 

Keep your head down and persist with your own dream. Own it. No one else will. 

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3.

PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH

In order to change the lives of others I believe that you need to change your own life first. You need to be a living, breathing example of what you are saying and selling. In the health and wellness industry, when you exude robust health and vitality, people will sit up and listen and naturally flock to you. It’s infectious. And for good reason. We all want to be healthy and happy. It’s our birthright. But many of us take different paths to that end. 

I live and breathe my philosophy. I can not promote the virtues of the 8 foundations of health to my clients in my health coaching sessions if they are not deeply engrained in the very fabric of my own lifestyle. 

My product quality control is that what I am selling is exactly what my kids and I personally consume. Broth Bar & Larder (where all Star Anise Organic Wholefoods products are made) is an extension of my kitchen. The food that is made there daily by my staff is the very food that I and my kids eat. There are no separate batches of broth or kraut or nuts that are made for or by me. It all comes from same kitchen so standards are, and will always be, uncompromised. For that reason the quality will never ever slip. Right down to the reverse osmosis filtered water, chemical free eco-friendly detergents, Dr Bronners hand soap, and sea salts with no anti-caking agents. No short cuts. Ever. If an organic ingredient isn’t available (and when it comes to organic ingredients at any given point in time there is ALWAYS one or more ingredients not available!!! Damn those pests and natural disasters!) then we don’t buy conventional. We stop selling that product and I lose lots of money on missed sales for an entire product line but that’s life and that’s my business model. And I think my customers ultimately respect that even though they can get pretty miffed at the time when I’m out of their favourite product. 

In the same week that Broth Bar & Larder opened a year ago, another wholefoods café opened down the road in Bondi. It opened with enormous fan fare, a very expensive and flashy interior design, and a social media following that gained enormous momentum, dwarfing mine. The owner came into Broth Bar the week he was about to open and we started chatting about his new café. I asked him what type of food he was planning on selling and he said “raw vegan”. I said “Oh so I presume that you follow a raw vegan diet yourself then?” “God no!” he answered. “Then why are you selling that type of food in your cafe?” I asked him. “Because that’s where the money is” he said. His answered didn’t sit right with me. How odd, I thought, to be investing so much money and energy into something that you don’t practice yourself. To be doing something just for the money without really believing in the cause. It didn’t surprise me when I found out some months later that that café closed down. 

Sell what you believe in and actually do. If you don’t, the truth will out. 

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4.

PLUG THE MARKET WITH GAPS

So you might have the idea and passion to launch a product or service into the market and are willing to persist tirelessly to market it, but whether or not it actually takes off depends on whether there is a genuine need for it in the market.  I starting selling my products because no one else was. If I see a need for that product, I thought to myself, then I guarantee that another mother will also see a need for it. Every single product that I make and sell came about simply because no one in the Sydney market was making it, or making it to a standard that I was happy with. 

I am constantly getting phone calls from people wanting to launch a new product and seeking my thoughts on if it’s a good idea. Let’s take the lovely young lady who called me last week. Let’s call her Mary. Mary called me absolutely bursting with sheer enthusiasm about her desire to launch a range of cold pressed juices on the market. She went into song and verse about the health benefits of them and the process on how she was going to make and sell them. After listening to her for quite some time,  I said “So explain to me how your proposed product differs from all of the other cold pressed juices on the market (of which there are many)? How are the existing juices deficient in ways that your product is not? What does your juice offer over and above the existing juices? In other words, how is your product unique?” Silence. She couldn’t answer. She didn’t know. She hadn’t thought about that. She just loved drinking juices and loved the idea of making and selling them. I told her that a lack of product differentiation doesn’t mean that her product isn’t going to be successful, but jeez its going to be a much harder slog trying to sell it into an already saturated market. 

The path to success will be a lot less cumbersome if you create what you want to see more of in the world. 

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5.

PEOPLE (CUSTOMERS & STAFF)

No matter your passion, and how great and unique your product is, your business will not persist without loyal customers and (when your business grows to a certain point) hardworking and trustworthy staff. Nurture them. Dearly.  Suppliers and consultants who help you along the way are also vitally important but for me the 2 groups of people that I am forever grateful for are my customers and my staff.  

How to deal with, serve and treat customers (even when they are bitterly unhappy with something- which happens to the best of us) is not at all cumbersome for me. It is one of the most pleasurable, easy and enjoyable aspects of my job. It comes naturally to me. I believe in integrity and benefits of my products so wholeheartedly that I am bursting at the seams to share that magic with others, for them to get a little taste of it, and to feel and experience the nourishment for themselves. I want them to feel special, appreciated and loved up. I try to treat all customers like my best friend or mother. I bend over backwards for them and go the extra mile. Nothing is too much trouble. I would appreciate that level of service if I walked into a store so I want to give that back to others. For customers who have a grievance, my philosophy is that the customer is ALWAYS right.  No matter what.  I intuitively know how to step into their shoes, and I will do EVERYTHING I possibly can that’s within my power to make their experience at the end of the day an overall positive one. To that end, I have lost or spent thousands of dollars to repair a bad taste in their mouth, but my reputation means everything to me. For I know, without it and without a loyal customer base, I have nothing. At the end of the day my products and services are designed to heal, nourish, satisfy and delight the consumer. So I want my customers to truly feel healed, nourished, satisfied and/or delighted. That’s what its all about.

Managing people, on the other hand, is not my forte and of all the things I have had to grapple with in the past 6 years I would have to say how to mange staff is the most challenging. I have had no training in it, and fumble and fall in this area constantly. Even moreso because I am managing people from a distance and not at ground zero all day every day in the kitchen where the staff are working. I tend to whizz in and out, attending to the million and one behind the scenes things that need attending to and hence it is harder to forge relationships with people when you are not standing shoulder to shoulder toiling away with them in the engine room. The more people I speak to, the more I appreciate that a lot of small business owners feel the same way. Employing someone (my operations manager) who can take on board the bulk of this role for me has made a huge difference. Knowing where your strengths are, and outsourcing what you are not so good at, is one strategy. But as a business owner you can not absolve yourself of all of this responsibility. You still need to take every opportunity to get the team together for regular team building events, to invest in training them up thoroughly, to give credit where credit is due, to acknowledge their hard work, to gently push them to higher levels of excellence, to be available to them 100% of the time, and to ask them every day what more they want and need from you. One of the best pieces of advice that my business mentor gave to me is to “treat your staff like your best customers.” 

One aspect of creating a happy and cohesive working environment is not tolerating or accepting a culture of negativity. If staff do not respect you and start bad mouthing you, that is hardly a conducive environment for others to work in. My company was built on passion, wholesome food, love and care. Negative words and mindset spill over into the products and customer experience. There's simply no room for it and those who work for me know that I simply do not tolerate it. 

One hard lesson I learnt over the past year was to never ever allow anyone in your business to be indispensible to it.

Ask yourself, "if that employee left, would the company still be able to operate smoothly? Would I be able to get someone else in to step into their shoes and take over their job? And until I found the right person, could someone else in the company or myself jump into their shoes?"

If the answer is “no, I have no freakin’ idea how they do what they do” then as a business owner you need to put some systems in place pronto to rectify that (see point 6 below).  If you have allowed a staff member to place themselves in a position where they are indispensible to the business and they know it, you then allow them to treat you and your key people (customers, suppliers and other staff) disrespectfully and sadly you are too fearful to take action to do anything about it. The relationship can degrade to the point where it is toxic but you feel powerless to replace that person. No one should be indispensible to your business.  Nurture your staff wholeheartedly but know that if they have to or need to go (for whatever reason) you can and will replace them and the show will go on. 

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6.

 PROCESSES & PROCEDURES

As my business grew and I couldn’t be working alongside staff all day long directing them with exactly what to do every step of the way, it became more and more imperative to put documented processes and procedures in place to avoid mistakes, to provide consistency in output, to ensure everyone got their tasks done, and to avoid reinventing the wheel.  

For my business this means clearly documented recipes (which must be followed to the letter), morning and closing checklists for the store, checklists for staff induction training, procedures for how certain things must be done and processed, staff memos, company policies, suppliers tables,  and the list goes on and on. 

Like a system of governing laws for a nation, these processes and procedures evolved slowly over time in response to some spectacular f%#k up to prevent said event from happening again. The bigger the company, the more that can and does go wrong, so the more systems and procedures that need to be put in place. When I first started the business 6 and a half years ago as a one man band rollin’ bliss balls in my kitchen and activating nuts in my garage, it was a simple and straightforward affair. Nothing documented, other than some handwritten scrappy recipes. Wind the clock forward to 2017 with a retail store, 10 staff, 40 stockists and 50 odd different products in various sizes with numeous different raw ingredients, a LOT CAN GO WRONG and sadly often does. Processes and procedures exist to simply reduce the stuff ups. They don’t totally eliminate them, due to a pesky thing called human error, but they go a long way in reducing the errors. 

Processes and procedures also exist so that if someone left the organisation another person or yourself as business owner could step in and know exactly what do to. When your business gets to the point that can’t do physically do everything yourself and you have to delegate and outsource certain tasks and jobs to other staff members, this is where it becomes ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL to have their tasks well documented so that if that person left or you had to ask them to leave, you or their replacement would know exactly how to do their job.  If everything a certain staff member does is “in their head” and not documented, you have no visibility as to what is going on and how they do what they do. You don’t need to know the ins and outs of how to do all the things that a certain staff member does on a day to day basis, but you need to document their numerous jobs in such a way that you could step into their shoes and know where to access the information that clearly sets out how they do their numerous jobs. Document everything! Especially where you buy everything from! I learnt this one the hard way and spend a whole week going through 1 year of past invoices to work out who some of my suppliers even were when raw materials had run out. Nuff said. 

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7.

PERFECT IT (BEFORE YOU POPULATE IT)

Once the business gains momentum and you are high fiving yourself that people are actually buying your products (#pinchme) it can be tempting to fall into the expansive mindset of bigger is better. A desire to create more products, with new lines, and reach more people, with more stockists, and set up in new locations and ultimately conquer the world etc etc. 

My advice is to perfect what you do first before even considering moving to base 2. I remember I spent a year nailing my plain sokolata (raw dark chocolate) recipe before I allowed myself permission to add flavours to it. I only started a range of soups once I had nailed the basic broth recipes. I started various flavours of sauerkraut, only once I was bored with the original one. Once the wrinkles are all ironed out with a certain product and it’s packaging and delivery, and you are genuinely ready for a new challenge, then move onto another project (eg product line) that floats your boat. 

Someone once said to me that the whole point of a business is to make it grow and grow. This instantly reminded by of the famous Dr Suess story The Lorax when the Once-ler said 

“business is business!
And business must grow….
And for your information, you Lorax, I’m figgering
on BIGGERING
and BIGGERING
and BIGGERING…”

Well, we all know how that story ended. Which got me thinking whether this  “bigger is better” mentality, so prevalent in the West, serves everyone? 

Can we get a business to a certain point and say “You know what, I am happy with the business at this size. I don’t want to grow it further for it serves me well. I’m content.”

Igor and Ludmilla from Iggys Bread of the World (who leased the retail space before me) did exactly that. They moved to Bronte Australia for lifestyle reasons from overseas and got their business to the point that it was just big enough to serve their purposes. “If we grew bigger, it would impact our lifestyle. We wouldn’t make it to the beach as often and would be working longer. We are happy with its size and don’t want to expand and are not taking on any more stockists.” I don’t know about you, I but I think this is a bloody refreshing outlook on business. How many business owners do you know that are content with the size of their business? My dad purposefully cut his small business down from 15 employees to half that because in his words “the bigger the business, the bigger the headaches”. 

I don’t know at what point in my business I will be able to take a similar approach (if at all) but it is a noble aspiration that harks of peace and contentment. Iggys is a classic example of a business that really focused on nailing a product to perfection (they make the best sourdough bread in the world by the way!) and didn’t compromise that in the pursuit of growth. 

I am often asked if I plan to roll out other broth bars in other parts of Sydney, in other capital cities around Australia and even overseas. For me there is still much work to do in perfecting the smooth running of the Bronte establishment and the products we sell (in terms of their packaging in particular) before I even consider other locations. I don’t know what the future holds. I’ve never had a business plan, and still don’t. The business grew organically (for want of a better word) and continues to do so. Right now, all I know is that my focus is on continuing to provide premium-quality artisanal products made with care and integrity that honour ancestral wisdoms and traditions at a boutique location. And that will not be compromised in the pursuit of growth. 

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8.

PICK YOURSELF UP [WHEN SH#T HAPPENS…& IT WILL ALWAYS HAPPEN)

I have been flabbergasted at how many things can and do go wrong in running a business. Even more so in retail and even more yet again in the organic food industry where you are reliant on products at the whim of mother nature. There are so many moving parts, that one of those parts more often than not manages to break down every single day. Either a piece of equipment fails, or an entire batch of goods needs to be thrown out, or a raw ingredients is unavailable disrupting production of the entire product line, or a staff member doesn’t turn up, or the neighbour is complaining and I could go on and on. 

 Sometimes all I feel that I am doing all day long is putting out fires (sometimes quite literally, I kid you not). It’s enough to wear the strongest of us down to a mere nub of a person. At times it has made me feel utterly exhausted and deflated and not what I signed up to be doing. I just want to make nice things and gets lots of sleep #humblegoals. I do NOT want to be dealing with some random wasp issue, or pigeons pooping on the back steps, or the freezer breaking down with the entire contents needing to be thrown in the bin, or the supplier delivering 10 cartons of expired chicken frames. I mean, really?!

When I first opened the retail store, I keep telling myself that “This is just a bad patch I’m going through. I will be happy when problems X, Y and Z get resolved” Then the next week I would tell myself that “I will be happy with problems A, B and C get resolved”. The weeks keep going on and on like this with a constant stream of issues. Then I started talking to other business owners. They all laughed and assured me that s#$t will always happen. Get used to it and roll with it.  I have now accepted that. I often wake up in the morning and think “Ok universe. What ‘ave you got for me today?!” 

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9.

PRIORITISE

I am still struggling with this one. Learning how to priortise my work and what to give my energy and attention to is tricky when you are spreading yourself so thinly with wanting to do so many things. When I’m working I feel guilty that I’m not playing with the kids. When I’m with playing with the kids, I feel guilty that my staff are toiling away and I am not. When I am serving customers all day long at Broth Bar I feel overwhelmed that I am not in front of the PC getting on top of my mounting admin or reading the countless nutrition books and articles on my bedside table. When I am blogging I feel too far removed from the coal face at Broth Bar & Larder. When I’m not blogging, I yearn for it. Add to that the responsibilities of running a household (and all that that entails) and raising 2 young kids. It’s enough to make a single mama break out in a cold sweat.  

For type A personalities like myself who want to create and do so many things I often feel overwhelmed and pressured by a trememdous sense of urgency to be all things to all people. The “so much to do, so little time” mentality.  I felt this from a young age. 

This year I’m working on the following strategies to manage my time:

• Delegate all the stuff that others can do that I don’t have to do. I have employed more staff at Broth Bar to serve customers and make all the products. I have a highly efficient and capable operations manager who can run the retail store and manage the staff. I will buy a company car for her to use so I don’t need to do any of the deliveries or purchasing of products. After being quite hands-on in nurturing the retail store from its birth for the past year, it is time for me to step back and allow my highly competent and trained staff to run Broth Bar & Larder largely in my absence; and
• Spend more time doing the things I love to do that nurture my soul: blogging, cooking classes, new recipe creation, health coaching, speaking engagements, starting my cook book #grandplan, working on the strategic direction of the company, meeting with potential new stockists, liaising with existing ones, and spending time with my kids (because in a nano second they will be all grown up!).

As set out in point 8 above, there will always be spanners in the works. Some pesky issue, great or small, that occurs on a regular basis that thwarts my time management plan for the day.  But being clear on what it is I want to do and don’t want to do, and setting out a plan for how I want to spend my day so I am not so reactive, is, I think, a great start. 

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10.

PLAY WITH IT - FINDING PLEASURE IN WHAT YOU DO

Above all else, remember why you started it all. Despite all the crapola that gets hurls your way as a business owner, and a monumental to-do list to plough through, try not to get so bogged down with the minutia of running the business, that you lose sight of having fun with it. Your work is meant to be enjoyable. Find the fun and pleasure in it. 

I still find pleasure in the things that made me tick all those years ago when Star Anise Organic Wholefoods was but a dream. 

I take delight in the freshness of the cabbages that will be used to make sauerkraut or the colour of the beetroots that will go into making beet kvass. I still get excited about how much fizz is released from a bottle of water kefir, or the sweet bergamot smell that pervades the Broth Bar when we make Earl Grey kombucha. I find deep comfort in an extra lemony cup of chicken broth and the way the meat on a slow cooked pot roast is so tender it falls off the bone. I love crafting new recipes and injecting existing ones with new flavours. I love it when my kids want to cook with me in the kitchen. I adore feeding numerous people and throwing dinner parties with fancy table settings. I love pouring over articles on health and nutrition to enhance my knowledge to help you more. And to top it all off today I opened a bag of organic rose petals and the smell and sight of them were simply intoxicating. 

I often capture these moments and share them with you on my social media accounts  to give you a glimpse of the beauty that surrounds us. 

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So there you have it! The 10 most valuable lessons I have learnt over the past year. 10P's to success. For those that have stayed with me to the end on what is the longest blog I have written to date, I thank you and hope that you found it helpful. 

Broth Bar & Larder turns 1!! Celebrate with 50% off broths this Friday 20 January!...and a new competition where you are rewarded with free meals.

Said just like the mother of newborn, I can’t believe that my baby is now 1 years old! This time last year Sydney’s first dedicated broth bar opened its doors in Bronte. The little hole in the wall that was once the home of Hanks Jam and Iggys Bread became the home to my birth child Star Anise Organic Wholefoods that I conceived from the garage of my home 6 years ago and ultimately outgrew. And man what a year it’s been! The highs, the lows and everything in between.

I have experienced every gamut of emotion in full amplified poignancy, but of them all it is heart felt gratitude that shines the brightest light. Gratitude for each and every customer that has walked through the door. Gratitude for your loyalty and patronage. Gratitude for followers of my blog and social pages. Gratitude for your feedback, comments and suggestions. Gratitude for your encouragement to keep going every time I felt like quitting. Gratitude for my amazing team who work tirelessly to support me and serve you. Gratitude for everyone on the path that has helped make Broth Bar & Larder and Star Anise Organic Wholefoods what it is today – a little dream that burned inside my soul that I had to share with the world so it could touch your soul too. A little bit of magic. Homemade nourishment that feeds the very fabric of our DNA. 

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Celebrate with 50% off hot broth this Friday!

I want to celebrate our first year by giving something back to you. 50% off all hot dine or takeaway broth this Friday 20th January. Come and enjoy a broth to celebrate with us! I will be at Broth Bar all day to meet and greet customers, new and old. 

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+ a new competition!

#fedbystaraniseorganic

I am excited to announce a new competition running from today where you get to share your photos of a Star Anise Organic product or meal that you are consuming and in return I select my favourite one and reward you with a free meal at Broth Bar & Larder. Over the past 6 years I have loved seeing how my customers and clients have been using my products in their meals or as handy snacks at work or out and about and I have especially loved seeing the photos you are taking of the meals that you are enjoying at Broth Bar & Larder. So I thought it would be nice if I gave something back to you for sharing these images – more of my food! 

All you need to do is:

1. Post on Instagram a photo of any one of my products that you are consuming at wherever you are. It might be a meal or a drink at Broth Bar & Larder. Or it might be a meal you have bought from Broth Bar or a soup you have purchased from one of our stockists that you are reheating at home. Or it might be a meal that you have made at home using one of our products as an ingredient.

For example:
> saukeraut as a condiment to a meal
> activated muesli as part of your brekky
> activated nuts thrown into a salad or as a snack
> chicken or veal schnitzel crumbed with our activated savoury buckwheat
> a cake, pancakes, biscuits or muffins made with our activated cinnamon buckwheat
> our water kefir or kombucha as a refreshing and healthy soft drink or as the base to a mocktail or cocktail
> our chicken liver pate smeared on cucumber rounds as an entrée or perhaps a jar of our pate taken to a picnic with veggie sticks
> a cup of our broth as a stand alone drink or as a base for your soup or casserole
> frozen broth cubes thrown into your morning smoothie
> tallow cubes to fry your meat
> our raw treats (sokolata, carob bears, power bars, bliss balls, choc maccas and gummies) as a nutrient-dense guilt-free treat...this one shouldn’t be too burdomesome ;-)

2. Tag @staraniseorganic and use #fedbystaraniseorganic in the post. That’s it!

Be as creative as you like! Every fortnight I will go through all of the photos with the tag #fedbystaraniseorganic and select my favourite one. That person then gets a free meal at Broth Bar & Larder i.e. either a free meal of the day or a soup of the day!

As a result, this competition is unfortunately restricted to residents of Sydney only (or those who can physically come into Broth Bar & Larder to enjoy their free meal!).

I hope to see as many of you this Friday to help me celebrate my baby’s 1st birthday and if I don’t I, then thank you again for your support and loyalty.

Kali Orexi (that’s Greek for good appetite!)
Soulla xx