Monday 30 January 2012

Ginger Pye - Reusable Sandwich Wraps





Ginger Pye is the brainchild of two sisters – Nicola Pye and Julia Hollis-Pye.  Together with friend Tammy Prescott they make Ginger Pye Reusable Sandwich Wraps.

Their wraps come in all sorts of funky fabric designs – mine features the Beatles, ensuring I get to eat lunch with John, Paul, George and Ringo every day.

Julia is in charge of marketing the brand and running the website, while Nicola and Tammy put the wraps together.

The name Ginger Pye came about from Nicola and Julia’s childhood.  With a surname like Pye and having red hair, all sorts of nicknames were made up.  When it came time to launch their business, the name Ginger Pye was pretty obvious.  It sounded good and had a “foodie” ring to it.  Tammy’s also a red-head.  There’s no official “red-head” policy within Ginger Pye and they accept customers of any hair colour!


Ginger Pye HQ is Nicola’s dining room table.  The company doesn’t have a dedicated studio/workshop space.  They admit that it would probably suit better to have a separate space because otherwise it takes over.  The biggest advantage to working from home is that the Ginger Pye team all have young children and as there are only the three of them working on the product, it’s so much more productive to work from home.



Julia finds it really convenient to work from home as she can work on the product while her 2 year old is asleep.  Nicola and Tammy both home school their children, so it makes sense for them to work from home.  When I ask about expansion both Nicola and Tammy jokingly wonder aloud if they can get their children to work on the range, and class it as part of their education!

The Ginger Pye product range consists of two types of sandwich wraps (large and medium), snack wraps and two sizes of snack bags.



The idea for the range came when Nicola was researching online for a pattern for a purse made from juice containers.  She made the wraps for her children and soon potential customers, starting with the parents from Julia’s children’s pre-school, were taking notice.

The wraps are an alternative to wrapping your lunch in plastic wrap.  The inside is made from EVA (ethylene vinyl acetate) and contains no chlorine.  It is certified food safe by the FDA and in biodegradable over time. 






There has been a good demand for the sandwich wraps, particularly from schools with a strong environmental ethos.  Currently they have sold more than 2000 – mostly in New Zealand, but in other corners of the world too, including Australia, America, England and Israel.



Facebook has been instrumental in getting new orders.  Julia notes the compound effect of “likes” – when one person “likes” Ginger Pye, their friends take notice and have a look themselves.  And every time Ginger Pye posts on their Facebook page, there is at least one new order – immediately.

Contact them throught their webiste www.gingerpye.co.nz by clicking here or link to their facebook page







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