Chris Watson's Gift and Graze Company gains huge support for tasting hampers

The Chis Watson Travel owner has endured a tough time of late, but is now bouncing back via his new venture Gift and Graze Company.

Despite only just launching in August, it has gained huge support from the community and beyond, with orders coming from as far away as Wollongong.

Capitalising on the 'staycation' trend, the company is producing tasting hampers which are made of all locally resourced goods from the Tamworth, Armidale or Hunter regions.

"It came about by one of our good friends coming up with an idea of staycation packages for our clients that still wanted to support us," he said.

"So, sending them a taste of Fiji or a taste of Hawaii or a taste of European countries, or even New Zealand, or Tassie, and so it came about with that and it was very soft

"Then one of our customers said 'we'd love to support you more', and loved the idea of sitting around the campfire with food and grazing boxes, so that side of the business developed, and that developed very quickly."

In the past two weeks, the Gift and Graze Company has completed more than 200 orders.

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They are continuing to expand though, with 'awesome mum', Father's Day and even home school hampers being launched from Tuesday.

Local food delivery service Zoom has partnered with the company to help distribute the goods, and owner Ryan Blair said its great to see the community banding together.

"I'm all about supporting local, we're locally owned in Tamworth and we're set up on the belief of doing the best we can by local people and local business," he said.

"So I heard there was a local business that needed our help so we're more than happy to help in any way we can."

Mr Watson's travel company staff are working with him on the new journey, which he said is fantastic because it keeps them employed.

Plus, it gives them a break from the "monotony" of the travel industry at the moment, which he said is mainly made up of refunding money and cancelling and rebooking trips.

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