Meet the Maker: In the Kitchen with Apostle
We’ve been huge fans of Apostle since we first started stocking your products in 2023 and it’s safe to say our customers feel the same - your Apostle Gift Sets were one of the most in-demand products last Christmas.
We caught up with Lydia & Mat, the creative minds behind these beautifully crafted sauces, to chat about the story behind Apostle, their design process, and what exciting things they have in store for the year ahead.
We’d love to hear the story behind Apostle! How did it all begin?
Mat was always tinkering around with different condiments at home which he would give to friends and neighbours. We moved up to Paekākāriki in 2018 and decided to take some hot sauces he'd made to the local monthly market to try and meet people. We had such a positive response from our community which really encouraged us to start something real. I (Lydia) was studying graphic design at Uni at the time and was always coming up with different business ideas, so we combined our skills in food and design to bring the brand Apostle to life.
Your packaging is absolutely stunning—it feels so thoughtful and unique. Can you share a bit about the inspiration and design process behind it?
When we were coming up with our brand concept, we knew it needed to be different, and we wanted to have fun with it. At the time we felt like the hot sauce market was really dominated by hyper-masculine imagery and had a culture of pain with chilli eating competitions and a "how hot can you handle" attitude. We felt like our product didn't really align with this and we wanted our brand to feel gentle and represent the love of food we had. Each label is inspired by Roman Catholic artwork and features a Saint to represent each flavour. Each label is hand illustrated by artist Juju and we've worked hard to combine aspects of their stories into each design. We use unexpected colour combinations and some visual influence of tarot cards to create labels that still feel modern and a bit edgy.
Making small-batch, locally crafted sauces must be a real labour of love. What’s one behind-the-scenes moment that made you think, ‘Yep, this is why we do this’?
Our fans are what keeps us going. We have the most supportive customers, both retailers like A&C Homestore and direct through our online store. We have a folder of nice emails we’ve received and if we’re having a bad day, I will read them and remind myself why we are doing this, it makes all the difference!
For someone new to your sauces, where should they start? And do you have any underrated pairings or secret-weapon uses that people might not have thought of?
Our Crispy Chilli Oil is our most popular because it pretty much goes on everything – think eggs on toast, dumplings, steamed veggies or fish. My absolute favourite is our Kiwifruit & Kawakawa Verde which is a super fresh and tangy salsa verde inspired sauce. My favourite way to eat it is on cheese and crackers, it might sound like a weird mix, but trust me it’s amazing.
Your range has some bold and unexpected flavour combos—blueberry and habanero, lavender and rosemary! How do you dream up these pairings, and do you have any exciting new flavours in the pipeline?
We start off with an idea and think about each aspect of what the final product might be. We’ll look at the key ingredients, flavours, colours and textures we want to incorporate, then pick complementary flavours to enhance the things we really like about them. As an example for the Blueberry & Habanero sauce, these are all very bright, delicate flavours so to give them a bit of a boost we add extra notes of citrus with ginger, lemongrass and toasted szechuan peppercorns. We absolutely have some great ideas that we’re testing at the moment but only the best will make it through so we can’t give anything away just yet in case we can’t get it just right!
If you had to pick just one favourite from your range (we know, tough question), which would it be and why?
For me it’s the Kiwifruit & Kawakawa Verde, but our Kimchi Ketchup is coming up close behind, I can’t eat regular ketchup anymore!
Fill the blanks:
Go-to drink: Gratitude Kefir in Otāki makes the most refreshing lemon and ginger water kefir which has been my go-to drink over summer.
What’s the best way to start the day: We are lucky enough to live close to the sea, so I always start my day walking our dog Ben on the beach and have a refreshing dip in the sea with our swim club The Paekākāriki Mermaids.
One ingredient you couldn’t live without: Salt! It really does make everything taste better.
What does your perfect downtime look like: A cozy night in watching a movie.
When you aren’t making delicious sauces, where will we find you: At the beach with our dog or pottering around home.