Why we print the batch number
Sample post — to be replaced
Turn over most jars in a shop and you will meet the phrase 'select ingredients'. It sounds reassuring and says nothing. Selected from where? By whom? Against what? The label is written so that the question dies before it is asked.
Our label is built the other way around. Every Pelkha jar carries the same three-part honesty panel: GROWN — what came off our own land, and where it stands. SOURCED — what we bought in, and where from. NEVER — what is not in the jar and never will be: preservatives, artificial colour, palm oil.
And then the batch number. It is a small thing to print and a large thing to mean. A batch number says: this jar was made on a particular run, from particular fruit, and we kept the records. If you write to us about your jar, we can answer about your jar — not about jars in general.
Honesty also means admitting what is still being confirmed. Where we have not yet verified an origin to our own satisfaction, the label says so plainly rather than borrowing a romantic place name. A blank filled honestly is worth more to us than a story we cannot stand behind.
None of this makes the achaar taste better, strictly speaking. But we notice that food tastes different when you trust it — and trust, like a pickle, is built slowly and ruined quickly. The batch number is us choosing the slow way.
— [Founder name], Pelkha