Hello soup chums,
I hope you all had a marvellous festive period and ate as much as your tummies could hold. I know I did, and so do my jeans…
With still another week till Union opens again on January 7th, here are some highlights of our souper year to tide you over.
Throughout the year we added an array of new soups to our repertoire. Now firm favourites, Ghanaian Chicken, Moroccan Harira and Leek, Potato and Pear were but twinkles in the eyes of our soupmongers this time last year.
We were thrilled to welcome two new permanent additions to our team, Jani and Cheryl. We are also grateful to the many wonderful people who dabbled in soupmongering when we needed an extra pair of hands throughout the year.
We had a lot of fun at two Yelp! events, the Spring Time Spectacular and the Winterfall Wonderland, making new friends and meeting many of you who can’t get to the shop during the week.
We celebrated our first birthday in October with not one but two spectacular soup-themed cakes. The Lady Bakers at Lovecrumbs made us a a tomato soup cake and soup chum Nicola Hazelton fashioned us a soup-pot shaped cake with caldo verde-looking icing and a functioning lid. Nom.
We spread our wholesale wings and are now proud to have our soups served in nine outlets and eateries across the city.
We became Big In Japan when we were featured on Japanese travel show ‘Rainbow Jean’. Our Cullen Skink, Scotch Broth and Cock-a-leekie were a hit with toy puppet mascot Miss Jean. We’re practising our Japanese now for next summer’s tourist season. Arigato!
Not resting on our laurels, we invented primordial soup and served it at one of New Media Scotland’s events – Into Deep Space. Note the clean room suit: something no one ever said would be involved in soupmongering.
And last week we learnt we’d won ‘Best Soup in Scotland’ from the Good Soup Guide, the ultimate accolade for our wee venture.
All of which made 2012 quite the non-apocalyptic adventure for us soupmongers. And I’m quietly confident that 2013 will be even more of a wild ride. But we couldn’t have done it without the support of you, our customers and soup friends, online or in the real world. Thank you. We’re looking forward to spreading more soupy joy with you next year.
So we hope you had a very lovely Hogmanay last night and we wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.
Amy, Elaine, Bruce, Jani and Cheryl, your friendly neighbourhood soupmongers x