Title: Family from Osipovichi Prepares Semi-Finished Products by Order: Tatyana Omelyanchik's Story

Time spent on childcare during vacation often becomes for women a complex but unique period, capable of bringing interesting shades into one's life. For Tatyana Omelyanchik, this stage became the starting point for beginning her business. Realizing that she had enough strength and time not only for her daughter, she and her husband Andrey decided to take up preparing semi-finished products.

If an idea is formed

— We are a family of a depilation master on maternity leave and a railway worker — says Tatyana. — We wanted to relieve ourselves from cooking, but could not find a suitable person. There were candidates, however everything ended at the level of correspondence. That is when the idea appeared to help other moms like myself, and all women a little bit ease their daily life.

With these thoughts went to her husband, and he supported her. Naturally, it was scary, because cooking for yourself and ordering are completely different areas of responsibility. Moreover, they overcame doubts about whether Osipovichi residents needed semi-finished products. However, after three months of work they convinced themselves they chose the right direction: the number of orders is growing, and there are even permanent clients. In the kitchen we work together with her husband. We have no division of duties between female and male. One family means shared responsibilities as well.

Menu List

— The menu was formed based on personal experience. Preparing semi-finished goods for family needs has been done long ago and they understood that orders would be made exactly by such an average family that consumes ordinary home-cooked food. Therefore, the menu included positions familiar to most people: syrniki, fried meatballs, cutlets. Later they looked at which dishes are ordered more frequently and which ones, on the contrary, do not meet demand, and adjusted the menu accordingly. Despite working for a short time already, three most popular positions can be identified in the menu. First place unambiguously belongs to fried meatballs. Second are classic syrniki and those with sweet cream. The trio of leaders closes with cutlets with added mozzarella cheese and cutlets made from pork-chicken mince.

Where do products come from?

— Everything is purchased in Osipovichi stores. Meat is acquired from the branded store of the trade mark "Petruha," pork and beef — from the meat pavilion at the market. The most common question from customers — the origin of the mince. The mince is made by us, we never buy ready-made. For some clients this is crucial due to allergies or intolerance.

People tired of household chores

— From the mass of customers, two categories can be distinguished. The first is an ordinary family where both husband and wife work, there are children who require attention and time, and where the woman simply does not have the strength for a full household. The second is women passionate about work: now a woman can truly achieve everything she desires, and cooking is the last thing she will engage in.

Culinary geography

— We receive a lot of messages from residents of the capital. There were inquiries from Brest and Gomel, but, unfortunately, we only serve Osipovichi and the district, as we have no car of our own, therefore we have no possibility to organize delivery to other cities. However, if a person has the opportunity to pick up the order themselves, we always accommodate. For example, recently we prepared an order for a Russian who visited our city in passing and learned about us from his friends.

Safety first

— Like any private business, ours is initially built on pure trust. Social media have helped a lot here: subscribers see our daily life, how we live, notice order and cleanliness. Moreover, considering the specifics and possible risks, we adopt the basic rules of work from the food industry: we constantly treat the surfaces, equipment, and dishes involved, and use special clothing for cooking. Also, I and my husband have health books. Furthermore, we and our child eat what we offer to people: sometimes the weight of the order turns out to be more than declared, and the leftovers remain in our refrigerator. Thus, cooking poorly, without observing the established standards, brings no benefit. We are interested in everything being clean, safe, and tasty.

The key to perfection

— Reviews are the engine of development. For example, there is a family couple from Minsk who order semi-finished products in large batches. And recently the woman wrote that in the latest batch of cutlets, a bit more greens was added than before. Such remarks are always taken into account. I think that without such an approach any business is a game with one goal.

Focus on quality

— We are not trying to compete with anyone; we simply do our own thing. I don’t study the pages of local craftsmen, their price lists, or assortments. Only when we were setting up the first menu did we look to a colleague from another city for reference, but after a while we realized we were getting very little return. After detailed calculations we introduced a new price list with slightly higher