Welcome to FoodBlog: the one stop shop for food in Malta & Gozo 👋
So where to start? With an introduction I guess? Hi, Andrew here, I’m the Founder of foodblog.mt, the Instagram blog I set up some 500 days ago without the slightest idea that it would turn my life on its head. So let’s go back, to the end of March 2019, shall we? 🔙
I was bored at home, binge-watching Chef’s Table on Netflix and scrolling through food pages on Instagram. I found myself salivating over a photo of a burger with cheese sauce oozing out of it, and that’s when I realised just how powerful food photography can be.
I was inspired to start my own food blog, a concept that did not yet exist in Malta. It was just an idea. I had a stash of 30 food photos on my phone just from regular foodie life - I’m also an avid lover of phone photography. That night I edited my first photo, did a tonne of research and set off on a new adventure.
The start of the FoodBlog Malta journey
My first ever post was a home-cooked beef wellington! Luka’s Delicious Welly kick-started my Instagram journey. My friend Luka made a beef welly the weekend before which I had (obviously) photographed. I hadn’t warned anyone about my new project and got a message from Luka in the middle of his Uni lecture saying, "dude, some random FoodBlog just shared my wellington… wtf?" Little did he know that wellington would eventually be seen by more than 14,000 Instagram followers… talk about pressure!
I started reaching out to local restaurants, chefs and foodies to help me out by sharing my content and collaborate with me. The local support and encouragement the local foodie community gave me lead to FoodBlog reaching its first milestone of 1,000 followers in the first month!
The good, the bad and the ugly: logo evolution
FoodBlog's first ever logos! Magical to say the least.
Remember these logos? If you do, you’re a true O.G. Don’t judge me OK, this is why we have a full-time designer on board now… thanks, Jon!
FoodBlog started off as a one-man show. The first few months were tough, I used to spend hours on my phone researching hashtags, reaching out to restaurants, building relationships, editing and uploading content, hosting and running giveaways, designing amateur digital artwork and researching how to make my blog bigger and better all by myself.
FoodBlog Malta’s first big milestone, 5,000 followers!
Luckily, my hard work paid off and I reached 5,000 followers. But reaching the milestone was bittersweet; I knew I could not handle all the work that was going to follow this success and I began to worry. Until… I found Justin, a foodie with a background in management, design and social media marketing. Very soon, he became my right-hand man and FoodBlog began to grow exponentially on multiple channels. He worked on everything from content creation to client on-boarding, design, organisation, operations and keeping me calm!
Together, we hit 10,000 followers! But of course, at FoodBlog we always strive for more. We brought in 2 more members to the team, Jon and Andy - two talented individuals with an eye for growth and creativity. And, of course, you guessed it, they're both foodies too... despite Jon's serious gluten allergy. Don’t worry, he won’t be writing the reviews. 🤣
Today, Jonathan is the Head of Design, his role is to handle anything design-related from proposals to social media artwork, and he designed this website from scratch too! Andy is the Head of Growth - all FoodBlog content must be SEO’d by Andy himself before publishing, to ensure that Google will always be our friend, oh… he’s also a creative with a great eye for business opportunities.
How FoodBlog coped through COVID-19
You may be wondering how a business that relies on restaurants, chefs and restaurant-goers could survive during a country-wide lockdown. We had the same question. It was a tough time for the food community, with a lot of our favourite establishments being forced to shut down. But we refused to be defeated. It was time to innovate. We decided to use our platform to help struggling food businesses stay alive. This included running creative campaigns to promote deliveries, delivering treats to doctors and nurses at Mater Dei Hospital, giving marketing and social media advice to restaurants, filming videos with local chefs to encourage foodies to #SupportLocal, running giveaways; among many other exciting projects.
Quickly we began to see a gap in the market in Malta’s Food & Beverage industry. We realised that the industry lacked a reliable, loyal, engaging platform to help foodies here in Malta understand more about the local food scene. Through COVID-19 we did our best, in any way we could, to help restaurants that were struggling, but soon we realised that our help is not enough to save these businesses – so we pushed further and further until we came up with the idea for a website. A one-stop-shop for all things food-related in Malta and Gozo. It had the potential to help restaurants, food brands, foodies, chefs, you name it… the possibilities are endless!
First, we re-branded, and this time it wasn’t a makeshift logo I made at 1am in my bed, but by Jon who spent hours creating and versioning the hell out of it. Next, we searched for team members as passionate about food and content as we are.
We were contacted by Kristina, a loyal follower who was interested in learning about our vision for FoodBlog. She is a foodie and writer. What could be more fitting for our new project? She was originally meant to be our first-ever content writer, however, after a couple of weeks, we realised she was way ahead of our league. We wanted to include her in any way that we could and now 5 months later, she is our Editor and has her own team of five brilliant content writers (Baryn, Emily, Shanice, Jade and Joelle).
Finally, in August, we had our first team event - we visited La Buona Trattoria del Nonno - this was the first time we met in person as a whole team. Check out my dog, Giulio - the FoodDog! He’s a cutie, isn’t he? 🐶
We also had James, our main man behind the lens with us that evening. We all had a blast!
The future of FoodBlog: the launch of our brand new website
Our website idea came to life with the extraordinary help from a good friend of mine, Jeremy Scalpello - he’s a mastermind in his line of work and no one can even come close to his level at the age of 20.
So here it is! The official FoodBlog Malta website has launched and we’re ready to tickle those taste buds, spread that content and educate all you foodies in the most engaging, fun and drool-worthy way possible. Welcome to FoodBlog, the home of food content across the Maltese islands. 🥳
We hope you enjoy our blog and don’t forget to tag us in your food content for a chance to feature on our Instagram feed.
As always, thank you all for your continuous support!
Should you wish to get in touch please reach out to the team here.
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