This month we interview the makers and creators of Jacques Kitchen. Jacques Kitchen, the most popular dip brand we stock at The Health Emporium, are gaining popularity for their smooth creamy texture and delicious flavours across the entire range. We proudly stock and love their Beetroot and Walnut Hummus, Smoked Almond Hummus, Spicy Moroccan Hummus and Original Hummus.
Jacques Kitchen was started in 2007 by Jacque and Heidi when they initially began as a market-stall based business. Jacque’s Lebanese background and Heidi’s love of cooking was a perfect combination to bring out a range of dips and foods to please the palate of the most discerning customer. As Jacques mentions to us, “Our hummus is a firm favourite with many young children who now often ‘refuse’ any supermarket brands.”
From the humble beginnings of making just 10 kilos of hummus per week in their home kitchen they now produce over 200kg every week in a production plant, distributing and retailing to farmers markets, selected cafes and speciality stores such as The Health Emporium.
The Health Emporium love locally sourced products like yours. Please tell us about your ingredients.
We use premium produce (locally sourced when possible) and follow our family recipes
and strict quality control measures to bring our customers the best possible product each week. Most dips are gluten free and vegan.
What’s your typical day at Jacques Kitchen like?
Our typical day at the production plant includes:
Carefully measuring ingredients into mixers and double checking flavours after adding
spices. Once the batch is completed and approved, packaging and labelling is now done by machines instead of labelling by hand like when we first began. It then sent out to our distributers.
How did you come up with creating such tasty flavours?
The flavours of hummus have come about from experimentation. Finding popularity with our customer base, including positive feedback is also been taken into consideration.
What is your most popular selling item?
Our biggest selling item by far is still rOriginal Hummus, however the Smoked Almond (by Heidi), Beetroot and Walnut, and Moroccan Spicy (by Jacques) are also growing in popularity.
Do you plan on introducing any new flavours?
On occasion we add new products to our range. Although lately we have been busy
keeping up with the production of our regular dips.
Will you be becoming plastic free with your packaging?
Due to heat sealing our containers we have not yet found a plastic free option. We are open to becoming plastic free if we can source a good, viable and a practical option.
Your hummus is super creamy and so moreish. How do you do it?
Our recipe is in different to how most people would make hummus at home.
We ‘whip’ our batches of hummus in big 100 kg mixers after they have been cooked and not just soaked as most people would make at home. I obviously can’t give you all our secrets…however even our tahini is superior quality and creamy on its own. One of the secrets of our success is how we blend things at specific temperatures.
Thank you Jacques and Heidi!
Written by Charlotte Ivey.
