What Makes Our Relish Different?
What Makes Our Relish Different? A Conversation from the Trade Show Floor
Recently, we packed up our jars and headed to a wholesale trade show.
It was a beautiful few days of sharing our preserves with the very people who stock their shelves for you. The stockists who recommend, display, and proudly tell our story in their own stores.
If you’ve ever met us at a market or festival, you’ll know how much we love those conversations. We hand you a spoon, you taste, and almost always the response is the same:
“Oh my goodness…”
When someone tastes our relish, the hard work is already done. No hard sell needed. The flavour speaks first.
But this time, the conversations were a little different.
From Markets to Wholesale: A Different Question
At markets, you often ask us:
“What do you use this with?”
At the trade show, the question shifted.
Wholesale buyers are purchasing on behalf of their customers. Yes, they want to know where we’re from. Yes, they want to hear about our family and the women who came before us. But what they really want to know is this:
What makes you different to every other relish on the shelf?
It’s a fair question. A crowded market. So many jars. So many labels promising “artisan” and “handmade.”
Fortunately, this is something we have always known.
What Makes Our Relish Different? Taste.
When you strip everything back — branding, storytelling, packaging — what matters most is taste.
And our flavour comes from one thing:
Our refusal to cut corners.
Our recipes take two days to cook. They require real, fresh, whole produce. No shortcuts. No quick methods. No one-day compromises.
Time and time again we are told we could bring our prices down if we:
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Used tinned tomatoes
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Switched to imported produce
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Chose pre-cooked or frozen ingredients
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Modified our recipes to be a one-day cook
And we’ve thought about it. We’ve even tested it.
We once trialled our Ripe Tomato Relish using tinned tomatoes. It didn’t taste bad. But it didn’t taste like us. There was no amount of magic that could make it taste like our 200-year-old family recipe.
And then we asked ourselves:
If we did that… who would we be?
Our Defiance Is Our Difference
If we rushed it, we would taste like every other commercial condiment.
If we cut corners, we would lose our point of difference.
If we simplified our methods, we would no longer be honouring the clever women who stirred these pots before us.
What makes Women’s Work different isn’t just our story. It’s our defiance.
Our stubbornness.
Our insistence on doing things the long way — even when it costs more, even when it takes longer, even when it would be easier not to.
We purposefully build a connection between the work we do today and the work done for generations before us. That connection lives in every jar.
When Someone Says, “This Reminds Me Of…”
There is a moment we treasure more than any award or accolade.
It’s when someone tastes our relish and says:
“Oh my god… this reminds me of…”
A grandmother.
A family barbecue.
A Sunday roast.
A kitchen long gone.
That is when we know the extra time was worth it.
The extra cost was worth it.
The stubbornness was worth it.
Because what we’re preserving isn’t just flavour.
It’s memory.
Small-Batch Relish, Made the Hard Way
At Women’s Work, we believe traditional recipes matter. Local produce matters. Slow cooking matters.
We believe small-batch relish should taste like someone cared.
So if you’ve ever wondered what makes us different from other Australian relish brands — this is it.
Not trends.
Not shortcuts.
Not convenience.
Just time, fresh ingredients, and a refusal to compromise.
And we intend to hold onto that for dear life.
Shop Our Small-Batch Relish
If you’d like to taste the difference for yourself, explore our full range of handmade relishes here →
