About Us
Welcome to The Spice Cellar – A family business
Our Mission
To bring you first class products with exceptional customer service, delivered sustainably. We take the gamble out of online shopping and ensure that what you see on our website is what you receive. We achieve this by taking our own photographs, testing the products, and writing accurate, detailed descriptions.
The Spice Cellar Journey
I started the business in April 2008 as a personal challenge to see if I could code myown ecommerce website and sell products I was passionate about, namely organic herbs and spices. Mission accomplished and the business started to grow.
For the first 10+ years the business grew steadily, organic herbs and spices, led to tea, sauces, blends, non-organic products as well as the weird and wonderful things such as camel milk. At one stage I had over 1000 different product lines and was even splitting 25kg sacks of spice into 25g bags. All very complicated!
As time rolled on herbs, spice and tea led us to oriental tea posts and infuser mugs as well as an opportunity to expand my long running interest in all things magical and mystical, not to mention Feng Shui.
Then came Covid! We sold 3 months of spice stock in the first 3 weeks of lockdown and then were unable to replace it; not to mention Chinese stock stuck for months on the good ship Evergiven. You must find positives amongst negatives and these difficult times gave me the motivation to rethink and now The Spice Cellar no longer sells herbs and spice. Why? There will always be people who can sell it cheaper. It’s a pain watching people sell herbs and spice for less than I have paid for it and they were buying from the same place. Another dirty trick is to buy organic products in bulk and then in your garden shed you split it into smaller quantities and continue to resell it as Organic. It isn’t! If your premises is not certified by one of the organic bodies such as the Soil Association and you repackage you have broken the certification chain and the product is no longer organic. The main marketplaces are full of this and customers online don’t understand why our prices were premium. Ce la vie!
So, with the help of a friendly bank and fantastic suppliers, I was able to expand our non-food range to include beautiful homeware and much more. At the same time, we have changed most of our packaging to more environmentally friendly solutions such as paper bubble wrap, sugar cane mailing bags and recycled boxes and I refer you back to the mission of The Spice Cellar.
People ask why I haven’t changed the name as “you are spice shop without spice” and my answer is “Does it really matter” how many shop names tell you what they sell – Think about it! Plus, I’m really attached to it and if you think of spice synonyms it leads you to Excitement, Guts, Liveliness and Zest all of which sum up the latest incarnation of the Spice Cellar, not to mention we are still “Naturally Good”
New developments
I have teamed up with my daughter India who runs a successful online floristry business called Thistle and String. India has a background in fine art which she uses to inspire her creations. With this also comes the ‘No design is too big!’ approach and she can turn your floral dreams into reality! Our two business now share some essential resources increasing our efficiency.
Occasionally I can be seen helping with floral creations, flowers, and scissors in hand. Really enjoyable and relaxing.
And then there is Sarah…..
My wife Sarah is a talented watercolour artist who has supported the business since the start and plays an essential role in managing the dispatch of goods, editing the website, testing items, and selecting new stock items.
Sarahs cards are available at The Spice Cellar
To bring it all together we have formed Acanthion Ltd, and The Spice Cellar and Thistle and String are trading names of Acanthion Ltd. As always, I have expansions plan so watch this space for more exciting developments.
