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Founded by PR expert and lifelong food-lover Pallavi Mathur, Crumb Wire offers Aussie cooks and food culture insiders a healthy dose of fresh food news, all while keeping it accessible for every budding cook and professional chef. Crumb Wire, at every level, is a welcoming hub for all food-lovers keen to learn more about the evolving industry, as well as the people shaping its future.
Currently in the very early phases of its operations since going live at the end of August, Crumb Wire publishes five times a week and is beginning to widen its audience base across a spectrum of casual cooks and diehard foodies.
The origins of Crumb Wire took root from a blog that Mathur used to run, called the Crumb Report. “I wanted to keep that brand because it was important to me,” she reflects today, “and it was part of that little dream I had of wanting to be a food writer someday.”
Above all else, accessibility remains a key focus point. “I’m trying to lean away from reviews,” Mathur says of the platform’s overarching content schedule. “You know, your standard reviews and recommendations; those types of partnerships. You don’t have to be a food writer or a full connoisseur to be able to enjoy a good meal.”
As such, Crumb Wire doesn’t follow the standard food blog template of where to eat and which celebrity food fad is lighting up TikTok in any given week. The core premise of Crumb Wire is to serve as a welcoming, down-to-earth source of food news and features on those forging new paths within the industry.
“Crumb Wire is very much rooted in food culture,” Mathur says, “and I really want to channel that voice.”
An exciting business venture as well as a personal milestone
Ahead of her launching Crumb Wire, Mathur admits she didn’t know very much about building a website from scratch. Aiding her in this process was her lifelong passion for food, as well as a few years of experience in PR and content strategy.
But this is the first time Mathur has worked on her own brand, and purely for herself.
“It’s been big; it’s been surreal,” she admits. “It’s obviously a chance to finally do what I’ve always wanted to do, in terms of food journalism, and a dream I’ve had since I was in college in India when I was studying journalism.”
Though still in its early stages, the intention is for the site to be intuitively broken down into more precise subcategories, including a city-specific breakdown of topical news and events. The website, as it stands today, is easily navigable and intuitive for those wishing to explore particular areas of the food industry, but Mathur wants to go one step further.
“I want people to know exactly where on the website they need to click, to find dining experiences and restaurants and things like that, or retail product news,” she says. “That was always the goal.”
An evolving industry with changing habits
Mathur’s drive toward creating her own website stemmed not only from a personal passion for food, but also from a keen awareness of a shifting industry. As someone who loves exploring new venues, enjoying the social aspect of food as a way to bring people together, Mathur often relies on social media as a discovery tool.
The way that people consume food today made the creation of Crumb Wire all the more pertinent. “When someone suggests a place for dinner for someone’s birthday, the first thing we’re all doing is looking it up on social media,” she says. “So we’re checking those reviews, we’re checking social media, and it’s just such a huge part of how we’re dining now.”
The influx of influencer-created previews of new restaurants and food trends gave Mathur plenty of material to highlight with the launch of her new website. With Crumb Wire, she wants to help diners stay up to speed with a markedly different industry.
“It’s changed a lot,” Mathur asserts. “Social media creators are now influencing how we cover food, what we eat, what we’re looking for at different cafes and restaurants.”
With this focused approach to presenting news and industry leader profiles to a dedicated readership, Mathur’s content strategy offers an appealing selling point for advertisers. In the short time since Crumb Wire has gone live, Mathur emphasises that their content has been generating the desired feedback in terms of the target demographic.
“We’re speaking directly to the average Australian foodie, highly engaged online; people who discover new brands, products, restaurants, dining experiences, digital platforms… These people are quick to try what excites them or quick to try something near them. And the feedback that we’re getting so far is those are the people reading Crumb Wire.”
Wherever Crumb Wire takes off in the months and years ahead, the first major hurdle is cleared and Mathur couldn’t be more pleased.
“If you told me at the start of this year that I’d have my own publication and it would launch – not without a few hiccups, obviously – but it would go live, and it would get a great response, I wouldn’t have imagined it. Of course, it’s just a week old at this stage, but there’s still plenty of opportunities in the future.”
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