Our Story
Our story goes all the way back to the 1940s, in a little cottage in Newlyn, Cornwall. Where a woman called Fanny resided.
Fanny Strike-Matthews was no ordinary resident of the Newlyn community, she was famous throughout for her extensively well stocked and organised pantry.
During War time Britain, rationing successfully to keep your family fed and strong was key to keeping a happy household. Fanny made it her mission to excel at this, committed to keeping her family healthy. She grew vegetables in her yard in containers, preserved the food she grew and kept dry foods in reused jars.
Unsatisfied with just providing this for her own family, she then went a step further; offering her organisational pantry services to rest of the Newlyn community so that they could get their pantries in order and follow in her resourceful footsteps.
Years later, Fanny’s grown up son’s went on to have families; one of the children being Shirley, our super helper; who then went on to have her own family, one of her daughters being Leona, our director!
We now proudly have Fanny as our poster girl, if she were still alive today we think she would be absolutely chuffed to know her resourcefulness had inspired her family, generations later.
There is nothing new about the concept of paying by weight, before the 1950s it was the only way (pardon the pun!). This sentiment is what we want to revive in the 21st century, when food waste is at an all time high; drawing upon these ideas of the past, of rationing and being resourceful has never felt so important.
… So we give thanks to Fanny; for continuing to inspire us as we continue to refill, The Happy Weigh!