We were lucky to catch up with Lorraine Connell recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lorraine, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I started pickling with my Dad when I was in my early 20’s.
Almost all of our products are his (my Dads) recipes. There were 14 kids in his family and surviving the cold winters in Maine you did a lot of canning to get through.
Helping him I found I enjoyed the process myself. Over the years I canned for family and friends as gifts then in 2016 I was meditating and the name “Pretentious Pickle Co”. popped into my head. I decided to take it to the next level. So I went about the process of getting certified through my town. Then I got my products out there by attending local farmers markets and events. It didn’t take long to go from markets to a brick and mortar.
Our opening day was planned and highly anticipated but my husband passed away and we had his celebration of life on the day we planned on celebrating our grand opening. 2 weeks later the store did open and I worked 174 days straight to get through his loss, better to stay busy.
Almost 6 years later I’m now preparing another store for opening in April (fingers crossed) located in Mashpee Commons in Mashpee Ma.
I truly, truly love to make any and all canned products. I’ve earned the reputation of supplying pickle lovers with products that are delicious, I sourced from local farms as mush as possible and it fills me with an enormous amount of pride when people tell me how much they enjoy my pickled everything. My nickname has become Nana Pickles, given to me by my daughters and my grandchildren and now called by that name by many of my customers, young and old. To me, there is no better life than to enjoy what you do and I’m blessed to be able to do what I love.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Well as I stated these recipes are almost all my Dads so I quess he was my inspiration.
Keeping to his recipes and commitment to quality is what I believe has gotten me to where I am today and kept my customers coming back.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Fortunately funding was never a problem for us. We source locally and luckily I didn’t have to invest thousands of dollars in machinery, our products are all hand cut.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Covid taught us all a lot. We were blessed to have a product that was/is considered sustainable and we were able to stay open during those months that were so difficult for so many and doubly blessed to have a loyal customer base.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://pretentiouspickle.com
• Instagram: pretentious Pickle Company
• Facebook: Pretentious Pickle Co.