About our Founder

Our founder, Lydia, is a longtime food enthusiast with deep roots in the rolling hillside country of Hawke’s Bay, where her family has been involved in farming and food production for generations. Her early interest in human nutrition, combined with these family roots, has shaped her passion for improving the quality of our food supply.

Lydia's career path wasn't always centered on food production. After graduating from Otago University with a BSc in Human Nutrition, she completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Health. This led to a ten-year career in health promotion for communities and workplaces.

In 2019, while working in the Public Health sector in Melbourne, Australia, Lydia learned about the crucial impact of soil health on nutrient value. This revelation called her back to her food-producing roots in Aotearoa / New Zealand, sparking a desire to understand the mechanisms for growing healthy, nutrient-dense food in harmony with nature. She realised that the journey to nutritious food starts with soil and making good compost.

sprinkle bokashi starter in Pickled bucket

Quality compost and soil require a diversity of beneficial microorganisms, and using Bokashi or 'pickled' food scraps is recognised as beneficial because of its probiotic power. This understanding led to the conception of Pickled and making the Bokashi starter herself in 2020.

Because Lydia saw so much nutrient value in all food scraps (including bones, meat, citrus, seafood scraps), she wanted to harness the magic of microbes to ensure that these valuable food scraps were not wasted in landfills but used to enrich the soil.

As a NZ Registered Nutritionist with experience in market gardening and composting/Bokashi, Lydia has made it her mission to address both the food we eat and the use of food scraps to build soil for growing nutritious food.

She emphasizes the importance of locally sourced food, supporting farmers and growers who work with nature.

Why so important?

  • Food grown and accessed locally is generally more nutrient-dense due to low intensity growing practices and fewer travel miles.
  • It is also often less processed, containing minimal added ingredients; maintaining the integrity of the food.

The more processed food becomes, the less integrity it has, and food with its matrix intact is where true nutritional value lies.

Producing high-quality food requires significant energy and time, especially when it is human-powered.

Given the energy that goes into food production and the high cost of food, Lydia wants to ensure you have the basics covered in accessing nutritious foods, while also getting the most nutrition out of your food to meet you and your whānau/family’s health goals.