Behind the Scenes at Basalt and Oak: Who's Actually Doing This
We talk a lot about being a small, hands-on team, so it seemed only fair to actually introduce you to the hands. There's no call centre, no fulfilment warehouse, and definitely no chatbot pretending to be a person. It's just a handful of us, doing our best, most of the time getting it right.
Meet the Team (Sort Of)
Shauna picks up most of the emails and messages, and writes the cards that go out with your orders. We'll be honest, her handwriting is not going to win any awards, but it's a real hand holding a real pen, which counts for something. She also reads every message left at checkout, so if you've ordered a gift and not added a note for the recipient, don't be surprised if she gets in touch to check whether you meant to leave one. She also has a notorious sweet tooth, so if the fudge stock is ever a bit lower than it should be, that's probably on her.
Pete is our No 1 hamper builder, and genuinely very good at it. There's a knack to packing a box so things don't shift about in transit, and he's better at it than the rest of us put together. He's also our photographer, so if you've ever looked at a product photo and thought it was nicer than it had any right to be, that's Pete too. One thing to know about Pete: he is not a morning person.
Lindy looks after marketing and planning, and is properly good at it, the kind of good that means things actually get done on time rather than just talked about.
The whole operation, our office, our store and our packing room, runs from a home-based set up rather than a separate warehouse or unit. We try to keep to a normal 9 to 5, but with a setup like ours, it's not unusual for someone to be replying to a message in the evening, starting early, or taking a call outside office hours, because that's just how it works when the business runs from where someone lives.
When things get busy, particularly around Christmas, we call in extra hands from the wider team to help build orders. Many hands, somewhat fewer late nights.
Can You Actually Visit Us?
Sort of, but it's worth knowing what that means. Because we're home-based, it's not a shop you can wander into and browse, there's no till, no shelves, no shop front. What you can do is collect an order directly from us if that suits you better than waiting on the post, and we're also able to deliver locally to nearby areas.
If you'd rather see and try the products in person before buying, keep an eye out for us at local markets. We turn up now and again, usually with samples, so you can actually taste things before committing to a hamper full of them. Most of these are run through NNCG, so www.nncg.co.uk is the best place to see what's coming up and where we might be.
We Also Built the Website Ourselves
There's no in-house tech team and no web developer or SEO expert on a retainer. We built and maintain the site ourselves, which we're genuinely fairly good at, but it does mean the odd typo slips through, or a link occasionally points somewhere it shouldn't or doesn't take you where you'd expect. We also now know more about Liquid code than any of us ever signed up for, and in the grand scheme of things it still isn't much. If you spot an error, or something just doesn't work the way you'd expect, let us know. We'd much rather hear about it and fix it.
We've Made Mistakes. Here Are Some of Them.
We're not going to pretend everything always goes perfectly, because it doesn't, and pretending otherwise feels a bit daft when you're a team of a handful of people rather than a faceless operation. We've sent the wrong product in a hamper. We've once mixed up two address labels, which led to a slightly confusing phone call and two customers ending up receiving two deliveries, which honestly worked out better than either of us expected. Both were sorted out as soon as we realised, but they happened, and we'll probably make another mistake at some point, because we're human and humans make mistakes.
We post a fair number of fragile items, jars, bottles, ceramics. Breakages do happen, Royal Mail isn't always gentle, but in fairness to them the number we've had has stayed in single figures despite the sheer volume that goes out the door. A good chunk of credit for that goes to Pete and his packing, who treats wrapping the way other people treat a fine art.
Christmas Is a Lot
We won't pretend Christmas doesn't put us under real pressure. Orders come in faster than at any other time of year, the same small team is doing all the same jobs, and there's only so much we can speed up before something has to give. It's the main reason we genuinely love when people order early. It's not just a polite line on a banner, it actually makes a real difference to how smoothly everything runs, and it means more time to get your order exactly right rather than rushed.
Why Lead Times Can Sometimes Be Slower
Most of the producers we work with are small operations, often one or two people running the whole show alongside a day job, a farm, or small children. They don't carry a warehouse of stock, so when something sells out, we're waiting on a real person to find time to make more. On our end, restocking also takes a bit of admin, placing the order, counting what's left, getting it listed online, and with a small team juggling everything else, that doesn't always happen the same day something runs low.
The same goes for bespoke or custom orders. Because everything is built and packed by hand rather than pulled off a production line, a custom hamper or a personalised request can take a little longer to put together properly than picking something ready-made.
None of this is us being disorganised, it's the actual reality of working by hand with small, independent makers rather than a factory that can turn the tap back on overnight. We think it's a fair trade for the quality, but we know it's occasionally frustrating if you're after something specific or in a hurry.
About the Price
We won't pretend we're the cheapest option out there, because we're not, and saying otherwise would be daft. A jar of something from a small Northern Irish producer is very rarely going to match the price of the supermarket own-brand version sitting next to it on a different shelf entirely.
There's a reason for that. These aren't made in huge batches on an industrial line. They're made in small kitchens and workshops, often by one or two people, using proper ingredients rather than the cheapest ones available. That takes more time, more care, and more cost, and the price reflects that rather than padding anyone's margin.
We're genuinely proud of what we sell, and proud that the price you pay actually goes somewhere meaningful: back to the producer who made it, and back into the local economy rather than out of it. If you're choosing between us and a cheaper supermarket alternative, we'd rather be upfront that we're not trying to compete on price. What we're offering is better quality, a fair return to the person who made it, and the genuine satisfaction of knowing your money supported a small producer rather than a shareholder. We think that's good value, even if it isn't the cheapest one.
So, In Short
We're small, we're human, and we get things right far more often than we get them wrong. If something's gone wrong with your order, or you've spotted a typo or a dodgy link on the site, tell us. Shauna will read it, probably feel a bit bad about it, and sort it out. And if you'd rather just talk to a person about your order, give us a call. You won't get put through five departments and three menus, you'll probably just get Shauna.
Being a small, human team cuts both ways. It means lead times can be a bit longer, and we won't pretend we move at warehouse speed. But it also means there's nobody between you and a real decision. If you've left it late and the birthday's in two days, tell us. We can't promise miracles, but we can shuffle things around, prioritise your order, and generally do what a bigger, more automated shop simply isn't set up to do. We'd genuinely rather try and help than watch you panic-order from somewhere else.
Honestly, the long hours and the home-based juggling are worth it because we actually like what we sell and who we work with. It's a nice problem to have, getting genuinely excited about a new batch of fudge or a restock of something that's been out for weeks.
Why Any of This Matters Beyond Us
Basalt and Oak is run by Seasons of the Glens CIC, a social enterprise rather than a private business chasing shareholder profit. That's not just a label we use because it sounds good. Our board is entirely voluntary, people who give up their own time for free to support, advise and help direct where we're going, because they believe in what we're doing rather than because there's anything in it for them.
Any profit we make gets reinvested, into delivering local markets that give small producers and makers a place to sell, into supporting people starting out who don't have the resources or confidence to go it alone yet, and into creating opportunities for people in our community who could really use one.
So when you buy something from us, even something as small as a jar of jam, you're not just buying a nice gift. You're putting a bit of money back into a system that's actively trying to help small Northern Irish producers get a foothold, grow, and keep doing what they do. That's the actual point of all of this, the team, the home-based chaos, the long hours included.
