Manna From Heaven had its origins in a tiny flat in the Sydney seaside suburb of Bondi in 1991. It all began with our special Chocolate Crunch recipe, which is guaranteed to make a chocoholic out of anyone! We started selling small amounts to a few specialist delis and cafes, but the news spread and before we knew it people all over Sydney were enjoying them.

Since all the cooking was done in a small flat, things soon became a little sticky, to say the least. We were lucky to find a fantastic disused harbourside kitchen at Pier One with panoramic water views. Manna From Heaven then started in its first commercial kitchen.

Demand for our Chocolate Crunch at the nearby Wharf Restaurant provided us with the opportunity to develop our second product, Pistachio and Almond Shortbread. We soon branched out even more and began distributing interstate.

Our beloved kitchen at Pier One inevitably became too cramped for our growing business, so we swapped the fantastic views for larger premises in inner-city Surry Hills. There, we further expanded our range of biscuits, including the delicious Savoury Oatcakes.

In 1998 we created a Manna From Heaven logo and a beautiful range of boxes. Now Manna From Heaven had a new image - and the logo and the boxes went on to win two design awards. It was all go - we delivered our first large interstate order to David Jones on the same day Rachel gave birth to her baby, Olive!

The next biscuit created at Manna From Heaven was Cheese and Olive - inspired by Rachel's new baby, of course. These were an instant success, especially at the new Growers' Market at Pyrmont. The market, organised by the Sydney Morning Herald , was the perfect opportunity for us to show our biscuits and cakes to a wide cross-section of people. On the first Saturday of every month we set up shop, testing our new products, chatting with our customers and gaining some feedback.

Inevitably the Surry Hills premises proved too small, and in 1998 we moved to a bigger space with a fabulous kitchen overlooking the park in the inner-west suburb of Marrickville.

In 2001 we made our first Manna From Heaven organic product - a rich, whole-fruit Christmas cake presented in tins with a quirky Christmas tale printed on the label: a great Christmas gift. The year 2002 was a busy one for the company. We made our first delivery to Qantas First Class; joined forces with new business partner Peter Schutzinger; launched two organic products, and made cakes for food-writer Charmaine Solomon. During 2003 and 2004 the emphasis of our business moved from biscuits to little cakes, which now accounts for 70 per cent of our production. We have a magnificent new oven that can cook 640 cakes at one time and we are constantly developing the range. On another note, the packaging for our retail biscuits has been redesigned by Egg. These boxes sit well on the shelves, have a window so you can see the biscuits and are in a range of bright vivid colours.

Kathy Snowball has joined the Manna team as a partner and looks after sales and marketing. Peter Schutzinger has had a baby boy called Jackson and just loves being a Dad. Rachel continues to conduct workshops at the Manna kitchen and around the town, always emphasizing the use of the best organic ingredients where possible.

Olive has recently had her eighth birthday and you can keep in touch with Rachel and her movements from our monthly newsletter.
In March 2006 we moved to bigger and better premises and feel very grown up in our brand spanking new kitchen and glamorous office space.

Manna from Heaven has set up a sister company,The Sydney Biscuit Company, to manufacture less expensive, but high quality machine made biscuits. You will find our Lavosh Crispbread in David Jones and good food stores and a range of crispbreads, sweet biscuits and dip packs is soon to appear under that label in supermarkets.