Meet Joanna Bell - Owner of Norfolk Gift Box

Meet the Local Business Owner!

Hi I'm Joanna and myself and my partner Rob both I love Norfolk! As a child I used to spend several years living in Lincoln and coming to Norfolk for holidays, visiting beautiful areas such as West Runton, Wells Next the Sea, and Blakeney amongst others until we finally moved here.  I have many happy memories of these areas, so as adults, it was an easy choice for Rob and I to pick Norfolk to raise our family.

The concept behind our business, Norfolk Gift Box actually came from a company in Boston, USA, who had created a postage box with local goodies. It was cheap and cheerful, but what we really liked was the fact that it used local companies for its products. What a great idea, support your local community and build a business!

The idea then came to fruition after visiting a trade show outside The Forum, Norwich. After a conversation with Candi from Candi’s Chutney about how she was struggling for time to get a larger online audience, we thought that maybe we could help with this. So, we started tasting and sourcing many local delights that we had never tried before, and were amazed at the quality of these products, and the fact that these were being made right on our doorstep. So why not show-case all these hand crafted, award winning products in one place? So that’s what we did. 

That was 5 years ago, and we’ve sourced many fantastic local products, made good friends along the way, and learnt so much, from setting up a website, finding the right marketing strategy for us,  and most importantly building up a hugely supportive network. We wouldn’t be here today without your support. Thanks to everyone who supports local businesses.