Some people get up in the morning and go for a run. Anna Cameron packs boxes of preserves to go out with the courier and then bottles another 60 and 100 jars of jams, jellies, chutneys or salad dressings before lunch.
The Lake Hawea kitchen whizz became one of Wanaka’s first home-based artisan producers more than a decade ago, to support herself and her three young daughters.
All the picking, chopping, grating, packing and carrying has been tough on her arms but she has loved every minute of it.
‘‘I started business in 2008 with catering for a fundraiser at The Lookout Lodge,’’ she said.
‘‘I did food for 100. That just kicked it all off.
‘‘It was after that event that people started calling me about catering jobs.’
Cooking and catering was a great home-based business to run while raising her daughters in Wanaka, she said, so through her business, Kitchen Window Catering, she worked winter seasons cooking for German and United States ski teams and catered for events, weddings and yoga retreats.
People started asking for her recipes, so she began producing seasonal preserves in 2010.
These are now sold online and at markets and stores all over the country.
As she was always a sole operator, as Wanaka’s events and weddings industry got bigger and busier, Ms Cameron decided to concentrate on retreat catering and preserves.
‘‘Retreat catering really picked up pre-Covid, with a lot of Australian and North Island groups coming down for yoga retreats.’’
Covid-19 restrictions on gatherings had meant some of her bigger markets, such as the Selwyn Fete, had been cancelled, but her online business had picked up, so she was concentrating on that.
Ms Cameron said local food producers were missing domestic and international visitors and looking forward to when more people could come back to local markets and fetes.
She is concentrating on getting Christmas gift packs ready to send to customers around New Zealand.
She had not experienced major supply chain issues, though it could now take an extra day to get parcels to Auckland, she said.
She sourced produce locally where possible and loved using traditional varieties with flavours that sparked people’s memories, such as Moorpark and Clutha Gold apricots.
Quinces came from the Maungawera Valley, stone fruit from orchards near Cromwell, herbs from her own garden, eggs from Luggate and honey from Lake Hawea.
Dried figs and lemons were the among ingredients she could not source locally, but she was thrilled local production in Wanaka was improving and impressed she now had competitors.
Ms Cameron believed artisan food producers had a good future in the district, which had always been known for stone fruit.
Local conditions were good for growing herbs and greens, but the season was shorter than in other parts of the country and gardens needed protection from the harsher climate, she said.
Recycling was important to her, so she reused cardboard boxes and gave customers a 50-cent discount off their next jar of jam if they returned jars to her at the Wanaka Artisan Market.
Her daughters, partner Bruce Jackson and sister Jude Cameron had all pitched in from time to time to core, peel and process fruit, screw on lids, label jars and pack boxes.
‘‘It is a bit hard on the arms,’’ she said.
‘‘I had both elbows operated on in 2018. So I had my eldest daughter Adelaide doing the preserving and markets for me.
‘‘She was so sick of apricots by the end of it ...
‘‘Bruce helps set up at markets and after years of heavy lifting he has a lifetime supply of marmalade.
‘‘That keeps him very happy,’’ Ms Cameron said.
