This day kind of snuck up on us, and if weren’t for our CFO’s eagle eye for numbers we would have worked our way past our Company’s birthday. We are not overtly sentimental, and usually don’t really take notice of such things, but the fact that it has been eight full years since we started made us want to take stock. To see what we were expecting and what we got.

So, when we started, the first real difference is that we didn’t really see a difference between us and our product. Our brand was Nata Pura, and there was no real separation between us, our product and the brand. From the start we knew we wanted to take the nata to the world market. That has remained always unchanged. So we also knew that the world market needed variety, so we stater developing our first flavour range almost immediately.

We had ideas about an international franchise operation, but quickly realised the the porduct needed more awareness. We were purists about the Pastel de Nata. We still are, but back then we thought Nata Pura would be our only product. It became apparent fairlu quickly that the Portuguese pastry cuisine had more to offer the world market.

It became apparent our nimbleness in adapting ourselves –  a byproduct of keeping things small and sticking to the essentials – was our strength. We got success in markets we wouldn’t dream of, but some old goals remain elusive to us.

Here’s to eight more years!