“I love working in restaurants and I love going out to eat and as soon as everything happened, those two things very quickly diminished.”
March 2020 will always be known as when the city of London shut down. Schools closed their doors for the remainder of the semester, while restaurants and bars were ordered to stop serving the public as sit down establishments.
Many people in the hospitality industry were left jobless. Creator and Founder of Oat and Co, Emilio Pyette took the opportunity to bring Original Artisanal Taste to life. Describing the shut down as a time where he lost his two passions but in turn, found his inspiration.
“I kind of just played around with the idea of bringing a little bit of that experience and joy into homes during these times.”
Photo by @oatandco on Instagram
Oat and Co
Also known as Original Artisanal Taste, began June 2020 after Creator, Pyette found himself without his sous-chef position and his passion of tasting fine foods confined to his home.
Marketing himself on the popular social-media app, Instagram, the self-taught professional used the pandemic as a way to grow his current skill set and keep his love for food alive.
“The main inspiration for beginning a brand during a pandemic was just, trying to keep the passion alive instead of you know, crawling under a hole and thinking everything sucks.”
Building an online presence has helped many businesses and individuals make a buck during the COVID-19 pandemic and Pyette says he is no exception. What started as a simple food blog to post his quarantine creations, slowly turned into the brand that would turn into his full-time gig.
Starting up
Beginning his journey, Pyette launched four products as a test pilot to see how Oat and Co would withstand as an online brand. Marketing the menu on Instagram as “Baked goods from my home to your heart”. Offering croissants, brioche buns, sourdough pizza dough as well as country-style sourdough bread at competitive prices.
The business took off so well that Pyette says he wishes he had done it sooner when things first shut down. But ultimately, the self taught professional says the timing was, “what people needed.”
Building a brand online
The Oat and Co creator says that if there’s any advice he could give to those looking to build online; it’s to put your ego in a box and don’t be hesitant. Describing the entire experience as pushing himself out of his comfort zone.
The idea of reaching out to people and putting himself out there didn’t come naturally however,
“As soon as I started using London food hashtags, I had like nine or ten foodie accounts reach out to me. Like I would give people some products and then they’d make a post, then I would get five or six new followers,” said Pyette, “Then maybe two or three of those people would order which would be great.”
After gaining enough traction, Pyette was able to expand his business to offerings such as donuts, pizza sauce and take home meal kits. He mentions that not only did this expand his clientele but it allowed him to practice his newly learned skill sets and reach out to his current following to ask what they wanted to see next.
“There’s a lot of food pages out there and a lot of restaurant pages that are very cut and dry,” Pyette explained, “I think for me, I try to be very personal with it.”
Saying creating his business online has allowed him to reach out to his customers and communicate with them openly, “…which is kind of the best strategy in my opinion.”
Photo by @oatandco on Instagram
Next steps
“Well, I thought at first this would be a food blog, a summer project. But I made a post about it and I quickly learned it may not be the right time to move on.”
Pyette says long term he’d like to open a shop but in the current climate, it may be best to continue to build his following and build his skills with people who have been so supportive of his start-up. Adding, there’s so much to learn about food that he has yet to learn and building a brand online has been a great opportunity to do that.
“Having a circle of people who like know your food and know you and stuff is really cool.”
