Icebreaker - Pure Merino

Following a fantastic bake off in our head office in Wellington last year, yesterday we held the 6^th annual Great Icebreaker Cake Bake Off.

This years competition was our biggest event yet with 15 cakes entered, and the standard of the entries were truly scrumptious.  Entrants had gone to huge lengths to take out this years title and trophy (a wooden rolling pin with winners names engraved on it).  Cakes were baked just prior to submitting so they were warm; there were beautiful cake stands, decorations and name cards designed; and one entrant even spent half of his Sunday testing and getting his cake ‘just right’ for judging!

Congratulations to the following Wellington staff members (as judged by the famous NZ chef Ruth Pretty):

1st PLACE – Rebecca Toomer and her Lemon Drizzle Cake
2nd PLACE – Heidi Anderson and her Schwarzwälder Torte
3rd PLACE – Tracey Davies and her Caramel Apple Cupcakes
BEST PRESENTATION – Christina Stanley and her Magpie Meringue Cake
PEOPLE’S CHOICE – Di Clapperton and her Sticky Date Cake

Congrats to all who entered, bring on next years comp!

Lisa Thompson’s preferred title at Icebreaker is Princess. Not that you’d know it from her work style. An inspirational team leader, Lisa has worked for Icebreaker since our earliest days. She started in 1999 as our fifth employee, a few months before her 21st birthday, filling the roles of receptionist and office manager. We had just two product ranges at the time.

Through the years, Lisa has adapted to whatever roles Icebreaker needed from Australian account manager to general manager of our New Zealand market.

Lisa moved to Portland, Oregon, as vice president of US sales in February 2010, and became president of Icebreaker USA shortly thereafter. Now, at the ripe age of 32, SportsOneSource has chosen her as one of the athletic industry’s leading “40 Under 40“.

Lis (“Lees”) as everyone calls her, has helped foster a wonderful team of people in the US. She says, “Our relationship to nature is why we’re here as a company, but our relationships with each other will allow us to thrive.”

Congrats, Lisa, on your award, we’re all very proud of you!

Ole!  What better way to celebrate a successful planning meeting than to make delicious Spanish food with friends, accompanied by a Gypsy Kings soundtrack and plenty of Sangria?  Last month, members of the Icebreaker US Market team got to experience just that when we ventured over to Portland’s Hipcooks to learn how to make tapas.

With locations in Portland, Seattle, and L.A., Hipcooks hosts group cooking classes for the beginning cook to the Top Chef wannabe.  Our teacher Nick got us started with the most important part of the meal – the Sangria course!  Over the next hour, he had each of us make some component of every meal.   We each got a chance to stir, season, chop, flip, and mix and he showed us techniques to make our cooking more efficient and fun.  The dishes we made ranged from a simple, spicy caramelized nut mix, to a complex flan.  And they all looked delicious!

After the cooking was finished, we all set down at Hipcooks massive dining table for a group dinner.  Eating a meal prepared as a group was so much better than just going out to a restaurant!  As we passed around the food and drank the last of the Sangria, we talked about the techniques we had learned and laughed about the crazy cooking skills that some of us had displayed, especially Mike, with his amazing bottle flip while making Sangria (we think he was the inspiration for Tom Cruise in Cocktail).

If you’re looking for a great group activity, team cooking classes are the way to go!  Our night at Hipcooks is one we won’t soon forget!

- Matt Hazel, Icebreaker US Customer Service Rep