Main Ingredient is an online retailer, supplying rare and hard-to-find gourmet ingredients to South African food lovers.
The company is operated by a couple, John and Lynne Ford, and their shop caters to enthusiastic and adventurous cooks, offering a wide variety of products which are not usually available in a single supermarket.
Main Ingredient products include salts, spices, preserves, vinegar, sauces, chocolate, luxury goods and South African products like Protea Hill Farm’s wonderful herb and fruit vinegar.
“We opened our Sea Point shop in December 2002,” – said John Ford, Main Ingredient Founder – “because the limited range of food products available in the supermarkets frustrated us. Then we moved the shop online in 2010. Our customer base is food and wine lovers from all over South Africa, and they come and visit us whenever they are in Cape Town. We can post small items to destinations all over Southern Africa and other countries as well. We also have a wine tourism business, Adamastor & Bacchus.”
“We needed a program that would maintain the confidentiality of our subscriber base, and we selected SendBlaster as our email marketing software” – said Jon Ford.
These days, Main Ingredient uses SendBlaster to send MENU, their weekly newsletter, which includes recipes, reviews, and news about food and wine.
As John puts it, “SendBlaster has helped us to produce and distribute menu with minimal effort and maximum efficiency”.
Their database now includes over 5000 email addresses and is still growing. Those email addresses are collected through the online shop, their blog and at local events.
“We definitely recommend SendBlaster to anyone”.