The Start of Our Story!

Hi!

If you’ve made it onto this page, you will hopefully know that we are Erica and Christina at Oak and Ash Hampers. Just to be clear, the person writing this specifically is Christina, but I write on behalf of both of us (and Erica has full editorial rights!)

I wanted to share with you some of the story behind us here at Oak and Ash, and in a more in-depth way than our ‘About’ page can do. Not everyone wants to hear us wax lyrical about our products, or get to know the creators of such an amazing product – but seeing as you’re here, you just might!

So to get us started, I guess I had better introduce the two of us. We are two locals of Far North Queensland (FNQ), who live in the small rural town of Mossman, about an hour north of Cairns. Erica grew up in the region, whereas I came to town in my early 20s, starting my career as a teacher. So my claim of being a local is still somewhat in question!

Erica has an amazing family, with her hubby and three small children, while my nuclear family consists of my partner and our dogs! We love our little town and are very proud of the things that we produce. Which really leads us to our business idea.

The Local Hamper Idea Unfolds

I had recently had a career change – hanging up the whiteboard markers and classrooms of teenagers for a kitchen. Erica and I would see each other every other day when I would stop in to buy fresh fruit and veg. It came about slowly, but in the weird way that the world works, it turns out we had both been investigating the same concept.

Gift boxes that were entirely local and showcased unique produce from small businesses.

And just like that, it became pretty clear we could do something we didn’t really see anywhere else. We knew competing with big corporate hamper stores, where the boxes were sleek and shiny, just wasn’t in our sphere or something we would find interesting. We wanted our boxes to look handmade, eco-friendly and feature the produce we were seeing, in our very own region!

Finding Our Products

We knew there was a wealth of small businesses in our region, and one of the hardest things for a lot of artisan businesses is getting the word out and finding their market. We hope to be able to help our locals by providing a platform for people to grow their businesses. But just as importantly, we want our customers to have an amazing gift, one where every product in the box is admired for its uniqueness.

Our products are sourced from the greater Cairns region. From Atherton to the Daintree we have searched for the finest produce.

All our producers feature on our ‘Meet our Producers’ page, where you can find more information about each small business. But also, what we will be doing in the blog is going in depth, looking at the production of each item, the story and the family.

Recipes and Flavour Pairings

One of the reasons many people steer away from foods they don’t know is that they aren’t sure exactly what to do with them. Whether that’s how to use a vanilla bean pod or what dragon fruit tastes like, we will be doing some heavy work behind the scenes to find as many recipes and uses for every product we include in our boxes.

To get notified of these recipes or when a new blog post drops, sign up for the newsletter, and you will get to see everything we post before we post it, but also any new releases or discounts.

Thank you

Thank you for reading this far and for looking at our hampers. We promise that you will not be disappointed!

Chat soon

Christina and Erica