Wow! I can't really believe I'm writing this, well, I can, the idea of Nut Blend not existing has never entered my consciousness. But also you never know; I never thought I would be here (literally and figuratively) when I shared the news, at home in my dressing gown and not in an office in London surrounded by balloons and colleagues.

Ten years ago to the day, on the 26th November 2015, the BBC Winter Good Food Show opened its doors to the masses, and Nut Blend was among the other stallholders waiting to greet them. This was it, the big launch - the big reveal - my first ever showcase of the nut butters I had fallen in love with over the Summer. The weeks leading up to it had been chaos, having booked the show only in October; even now I don't know how I managed to do {health and safety, production, recipe testing, branding, marketing, ingredient sourcing, website set up} it. The subsequent weeks and months and years since that four day stint - gosh, it has been wild - I have learnt and experienced so much!

Call me biased, or naive, or delusionally optimistic, or all three, granted; when you fall in love with something, anything, all realistic expectations and rationale goes out the window. I was 22 at the time; I knew nothing of the world; I knew even less about business; having just graduated with a degree in English with Creative Writing I was convinced I was going to be a magazine editor. When I had this genius idea to set up Nut Blend, my two only thoughts were, a) if it makes me feel this good then surely the rest of the world will feel the same (how can anyone in their right mind not?), and, b) this is my calling - my destiny - if you will. From the moment I tasted it, and felt it, I knew this is what I am supposed to be doing. The stars will align! Give me five years, tops, Nut Blend will be in New York; I will have an office full of colleagues, maybe a cookbook; definitely I will have a range of new nut butter products - bircher muesli, porridge, trail mix - and they will all be on the shelves of Waitrose, Whole Foods Market, Holland & Barrett and Selfridges.

So I will be honest and say that today I have both a heavy heart and a full one. Compassion, mainly, for the product that I love so dearly and yet has proven so hard to integrate into society and supermarkets. I am not where I thought I would be at this stage (and age), and the last ten years have been testing, to say the least, personally, and professionally. Equally, I am as in love with Nut Blend as I was on day one, when I first tried that blend of almonds, hazelnuts, cinnamon, vanilla and raw cacao powder; to me, albeit the change of recipe, name, and design, it is (for want of a better word - and apologies in advance) crack. I am my number one customer, still, which is annoying at times, the main reason I can and probably never will stop or give up the business.

Anyway, to celebrate this milestone, I thought I would share my top five favourite highs and lows from along the way. I hope you enjoy reminiscing, and perhaps laugh along with me, and most of all appreciate your involvement in making Nut Blend into what it is today. The stars of the show; thank you for making me realise it is not just me. And happy ten years baby!

Highs:

1. 'Deliciously Ella' being my first ever customer to shop online, December 2015;
2. Initial market days, circa 2016 - meeting so many people, sharing my passion, getting Nut Blend out there!
3. Being featured in Vogue.co.uk January 2016, The Sunday Times The Dish February 2016, and winning Women's Health magazine Best Nut Butter in 2018 (the very magazine I was interning at when I first tried almond butter, full circle, eh);
4. Launching in As Nature Intended and on Ocado in 2018;
   
5. Seeing the product packaging as it is today - I never expected to create a design that so perfectly visually depicts what Nut Blend stands for and how I feel about it;
6. (BONUS POINT): Helena Bonham Carter trying and buying(!) a taster pack!

Lows:

1. Markets in snow/ cold weather - having to build a gazebo, yikes;
2. Making nut butter at home after the initial two-years honeymoon period;
3. A networking event (dinner and stop-over) in Nottingham in 2018 that I forced myself to go to, and sampling nut butter at a wellness-app launch party on New Year's Eve, which oversold and underdelivered.
4. The persistence of chasing buyers - trying to get their attention - trying to get them to wake up and see how different Nut Blend is to the rest of the category (and ahead of the times) is my greatest challenge to date;
5. The dishearten I feel for Nut Blend not being where I want it to be - and where I believe it deserves to be - is hard to sit with, still. The mental resilience... let's just say I spend a lot of (time and) energy thinking!