Byron Echo Newspaper Article - 24/10/2017

A portal to your picnic

By Vivienne Pearson

https://www.echo.net.au/2017/10/a-portal-to-your-picnic/

Love picnics? Sure! Well, everything except for the preparation, basket packing and lugging and finding the ideal spot. Oh, and the cleanup.

Your portal to an ideal picnic – one without all that stuff but with a fabulous location and great food – is The Picnic Portal. A new business, set up by Prue Rustean, who is inspired to share her love of picnicking. ‘I love having picnics each weekend with friends, especially in beautiful places that people don’t know about,’ she says.

Prue’s picnics are good for you as well as yummy. A stint working at The Health Emporium in Bondi was her introduction to food. She started making raw cakes, which are one of the options within the picnic range but are also available on their own. Prue, aged 28, recently completed the NEIS program (New Enterprise Initiative Scheme). ‘I thoroughly recommend it to anyone considering starting a business,’ she says. ‘It has encouraged me to be more prepared.’

Picnics are available for couples, friends, and small groups. Her style of food lends itself well to small-group catering also. ‘I’m doing a 5-day event at the moment,’ Prue says. Vegetarian, vegan and raw options are standard and any other dietary requirement can also be catered for. Prue can set up in a spot of your choosing, or can suggest a gem from her range of lesser-known perfect picnic spots.

The Picnic Portal also offers others another ‘P’-word service – Pantry Packing. This is for people coming to this region on holiday or for a work trip. Rather than arrive in this beautiful place only to immediately head out food shopping, you can send a list to Prue, who will shop up a storm so you can get into holiday mode straight away. As she knows where to find the best produce locally, you’ll get the best of what’s on offer without eating into your break. If you’re a visitor reading this, make note of Prue’s Pantry Packing for next time. If you’re a local and are tired of picking up ‘just a few basics’ for friends who head this way for a holiday, head them Prue’s way for a portal to your (or their) perfect picnic and packed pantry.