It’s not every day you get invited to the Emmy Awards, and when it happened to Wellingtonian Anna Bordignon, she was convinced it was a hoax.
“A few months ago, I got an email saying we had been hand-picked to have our products included in the 2016 Emmy gift bags for celebrities and asking us to come to Los Angeles,” says Anna, whose company Munch makes eco-friendly, sustainable products for families, from teething necklaces to biodegradable lunch boxes.
Thinking it was spam, Anna (41) asked a friend, whose organic tea had been gifted to celebrities at the Emmys a few years ago, if the email was legitimate. It turns out it was.
“I asked them how they found us, and they said via our social media channels. They loved our down-to-earth brand and said celebrities are really into green products.”
Earlier this month, Anna and three staff spent two weeks in LA, where they got to meet actors such as Chris O’Dowd from Bridesmaids and various stars from TV series Game of Thrones and American Crime Story.
“I don’t watch TV, so I wasn’t really sure who a lot of the actors were,” laughs Anna, leaning into a sofa in the Island Bay home she shares with her husband Bruno and their three children, Luca (9), Oskar (6) and Edison (3).
“But it was amazing to be able to bring a bit of New Zealand to the celebrity world.”
The Emmy Awards are held every year to recognise excellence in the TV industry. This year, Munch was one of 20 international companies, and the only one from New Zealand, invited to present their products at what’s called the gifting suite.
“It’s a conference room in the five-star West Hollywood Hotel where companies are invited to give their products to celebrities in the hope that they’ll like them and tell people about them.”
Anna says she and her staff spent a day at the suite, giving away around 500 of two of their most popular re-usable products – a Munch Food Wrap, handmade from manuka and organic New Zealand beeswax, and a cotton food wrap from sister brand Nil.
“We could choose what we wanted to gift and although we took all 38 of our products to show people, the reusable food wraps were what went into the celebrity gift bags.”
Anna says she loved chatting with the actors, even if she hadn’t always seen their work.
“Everyone was lovely and almost every person who came to our stand said, ‘I love your accent.’ I think our company resonated with the celebrities because natural products are on-trend in the US. It’s interesting to consider that here in New Zealand, they’re not so much a trend as a way of life.”
Unfortunately, the Munch team weren’t given access to the awards ceremony itself but Anna says they used the visit to meet with potential distributors.
“Our products are available in the US via Amazon, but we had several meetings with distributors who are hoping to get our products into Whole Foods Market, which is a huge natural supermarket chain over there. That would be amazing exposure for us.”
It’s not bad for a company that’s only been going three years. It all started when Hawke’s Bay-born Anna left her corporate law job to have her first child.
“I’d been a lawyer for 10 years both here and in London, where I met my Australian husband [also a lawyer] when I hired him. But when I first got pregnant, I became really interested in the environment and what we feed our children. I wanted to create a socially-focused business to fit around my family. I completed an MBA part-time and started writing a seasonal cookbook for babies and families.”
Today, Anna employs 10 staff and contractors, all mothers who work from home.
“We’re not profit-driven but we are about empowering mothers to fit work around their children as well as working with charities to provide employment for women who are having trouble finding it.”
Fresh off the plane from LA, Anna has just launched her second cookbook, which focuses on children’s lunches. She has plans to develop the business, which has grown 200 per cent in the last 18 months and now exports to six countries.
“Munch is about products that are useful, beautiful and green. There’s a huge market that no other social enterprise, which focuses on the environment and what we feed our kids, is tapping into. The Emmy organisers were so pleased with us that they asked if we’d like to gift our products at the Oscars next year, so we could well be heading back to LA!”
Words: Sharon Stephenson
WATCH: Emmys after party gossip
