Long term followers of the FreeFrom Food Awards may remember a company call Inspiral – makers of amazing raw kale chips among other super healthy and delicious vegan goodies. They have been shortlisted many times and were winners in 2012 with their Raw Dehydrated Cheesey Corn Kale Chips – over which our nutritionist judges positively went into overdrive! We also felt a particular affinity for them as they operated out of a vegan cafe just down the road from us in Camden Lock.
So I was very sad to get an email yesterday headed:
End of an Era Sale as we are Closing Shop!!!
Despite working incredibly hard to launch awesome new lines and finally a new website we have been suffering from declining sales for some time now. Brexit added massive pressure from below as overnight most of our ingredients went up in price by 15% or more and the market towards high-end luxury health products changed – with more people now preferring cheaper and still ‘somewhat healthy’ products we struggled to remain competitive.
So we are very sad but can only congratulate Inspiral on what they rightly say has been a ‘wonderful ride’ with an impressive number of firsts to their name:
- We were the first ever company to launch fully compostable crisp packaging
- One of the first ever successfully crowdfunded businesses
- We became Europe’s biggest contract manufacturing raw food dehydration company
- We exported our products to 30 countries and beyond
- We became a much loved employer, serving vegan food for lunch and operating with teal principles where possible
Their shop is scheduled to close on Friday so you just have time to help them clear the shelves at bargain prices.
Very sad – and I fear among the first of many …