Our story began when we, Lydia and Mat, moved to Paekākāriki in 2018.

Mat had been experimenting with sauces, ferments and spice mixes for years, so in an effort to connect with our new community we started selling Mat’s homemade creations at the village market.

Encouraged by an overwhelmingly positive response, we turned our hobby into a business at the end of 2019.

Combining Mat’s love of crafting unique sauces with Lydia’s background in graphic design, we launched Apostle — a way to create something beautiful together.

We use high quality ingredients from organic apple cider vinegar and cold-pressed, New Zealand rapeseed oil to locally grown chillies and Kawakawa from our garden.

Our flavours are inspired by the wonderfully diverse culinary landscape of Aotearoa. A melting pot of different cultures and styles of cuisine, we wanted to blend the very best of local flavours to make every dish one to enjoy.

Drawing on Roman Catholic artwork, Greek Orthodox iconography, Irish illuminated manuscripts and Tarot de Marseille for inspiration, each label is designed to be a miniature work of art — hand drawn by the remarkably talented Juju. We are so lucky to have her work with us so please check out her other amazing works here.

Today, Apostle operates from a dedicated commercial kitchen space, still based on the Kāpiti Coast as a team of three.

We’ve expanded our range to include other sacred sides such as hot honey, chilli oil and kimchi ketchup and are now stocked in more than 200 stores across New Zealand, Australia, Japan and the UK.

Our core focus remains the same: creating small-batch, lovingly crafted products that bring joy to your meals.

Lots of love,
Lydia, Mat & Ben