A brief background to Honeybuns

Being just over halfway through our 25^th Birthday year, I’ve been indulging in a touch of Honeybuns nostalgia. Our business adventure started back in 1998 when I was studying in Oxford. To support myself I had a part time job in a busy sandwich and coffee shop on St. Clements. As with lots of food in the mid nineties, the cakes we were selling were mass produced and pretty uninspiring. Decent coffee was just getting started here in the UK but the cake world was yet to evolve beyond cheap ingredients, artificial additives and suspiciously long shelf lives.

I got to thinking that maybe there was an opportunity to bring delicious, home made style cakes to the rapidly expanding coffee shop market.

Once my studies were finished I’d made up my mind to give my business idea a go. I temped in an office to keep monies coming in and on the side I developed a range of cakes with a Mediterranean bent, Italian in particular. The late, great Elizabeth David was a massive influence on me. Her use of polenta, ground almonds and olive oil in cooking and baking was like sunshine in a bottle compared to the same old – same old margarine and plain flour. When certain customers asked me if I could ditch the wheat flour and the gluten altogether I researched coeliac disease and decided to launch Honeybuns as a totally gluten free artisan cake bakery.

I do not in any way purport to be a business expert. If I have a knack it is for sensing what people might be looking for in the near future (we launched our first vegan cakes 10 years ago for example). So please take my musings with a pinch of the proverbial. My comments here are heartfelt, real but purely anecdotal.

Things to consider before launching your craft business

• Work Backwards
  I find it helpful to look to your desired end point and work backwards from there. Imagining your ideal working environment, daily routine and work life balance will help direct you from the outset. Do you want to work solo or create a team? Work from home or rent a unit? Do you prefer a predictable routine or do you need more spontaneity? Then, bluntly, how much money do you need to turnover to attain this vision? You can then get a feel for how many cakes you need to sell, what to charge etc.
• Get your hands dirty
  Get some hands on, real life experience in a bakery. You will learn so much about what it entails. Making a few cakes at home is very different from the streamlined processes and heavy lifting involved in a busy commercial bakery.
• Scaleability
  We have gotten to know a lot of business owners here in Dorset and it’s interesting to see how varied their operations are. The artisans tend to want to continue creating themselves, to keep hands on. Those providing a service, say an electrician, are more apt to employ people and oversee operations. I too, was happier training others to bake and to build up a team. Our business needed to be scaleable from the outset in order to get to our desired endpoint. In reality, we experienced 5-6 years of real hard slog before we reached an optimal size of operation and things started to make financial sense. We needed to get to a team of at least 10 before we could sustain ourselves. Clearly, every business will be different but I think the early years are often the most challenging (and exciting though!)
• Points of difference
  Ask yourself why your customers would want to buy from you rather than the competition? I found it helpful to focus on either doing some different or doing something better. Either of these would be reason enough to stand out from the crowd. Critically, you also need these same customers to return to buy and to tell their friends. We repeat sell our cakes because they are delicious and, by the way, they happen to be gluten free and vegan too.
• Money matters
  Money will obviously influence direction of travel. We knew fairly early on that we did not want outside investors. We preferred to grow Honeybuns organically and relatively slowly and to stay independent. Free to make our own decisions and mistakes and learn from them. We are still a small, lifestyle business, answerable only to ourselves and our customers. Other companies we know prefer the input of investors and have been able to grow faster – “horses for courses” I say.

Tips on how to get a small bakery business started

• KISS (Keep things simple stupid)
  Keeping things simple is never a bad idea in my opinion. When I first started out I was so keen to please customers I would customise existing cakes to their requirements. One Café wanted the standard lemon cake but with a glazed icing, another one wanted frosting and I ended up with a sprawling product range which I had not costed out properly.
• Focus like a laser
  A decent core range is essential. We spend time now talking to our wholesalers and their sales teams about what sells best and it is always the simpler, classic products like brownies and flapjacks. Kit Kat don’t sell many of their Matcha green tea versions overall, rather they create publicity for the brand. Seasonal “pop up” products can be effective but the main focus needs to remain on your core lines. Focusing on improving them and making them more efficiently.
• Heavy Machinery
  Attending baking industry trade shows is a good way to familiarise yourself  with what is out there. Starting from home you can keep things pretty simple and use good quality domestic kit. You’ll be limited by single phase electricity – the commercial machines often require a three phase supply. Your key pieces are: oven, mixer, electric scales and tins.
• Back up needed
  Buying equipment can be a minefield. We always used to buy second hand kit and have learnt the hard way that there are some dubious operators out there! Try approaching commercial bakeries direct to see if they have anything for sale. As a fledgling business you’ll be no threat to them – we were greatly helped by Fudges bakery here in Dorset. Getting to know a decent equipment engineer is really important too. Equipment does fail and wear out and this can be enormously stressful. One way to minimise the worry is to double up on key pieces of kit – for us this came later when we had more space and some savings to invest in spare mixers etc.
• Local help
  Check out your local district council for any business support and advice on government grants. There are often incentives to encourage businesses to invest.

Advice on growing your business to the next level

As outlined in my introduction – these are just my own musings rather than professional business counsel. I found that the next stages of business were like giant steps rather than a smooth, comfortable slope.

• New Home
  Moving Honeybuns from a shared student kitchen to a basic business unit was a big move. I remember feeling reassured that it was an easy in – easy out rental agreement with no long term sign up. The rent was pricier but this flexibility was worth it to me. The landlords were super accommodating about changes we needed to make too. They helped us out by laying a food safe floor before we moved in and by allowing us to fit sinks and sockets.
• Wise spend of £120
  Joining the Federation of Small Business was definitely helpful when it came to employing people. To begin with friends helped me on an ad hoc basis but it wasn’t long before we needed to have things on a more formal footing. The FSB provided all the legal contract templates and legal advice over the phone. The membership is from £120 for the year and we’ve been members for over 20 years and we still rely on their employment advice.
• HR
  A highly successful director of a chocolate company once told me to hire an HR person as soon as the business could afford it. Naturally, this is only relevant if you have employees – but boy it has stood us in really good stead. Looking back on the earlier years the amount of hats I was trying to wear was ridiculous and exhausting. From being agony aunt to friend to disciplinarian, boundaries became muddled for everyone. I am the first to admit I’m terrible at paperwork as well and this is not an area that can be muddled through. Outsourcing HR rather than employing your own is also an option.
• Take time to reflect
  It’s such a good spend of time to look back on every 3 months passed to see what worked well, what can be tweaked and what aims were achieved. New objectives can be set for the next quarter. At Honeybuns we gather everyone up for our quarterly reviews where we look at HR, Finance, Sales and marketing and team matters (like training and socials). We, as the senior team, are reporting back to the rest of the team and answer any questions. This demonstrates transparency and business discipline. By adding cakes, tea and sandwiches it also morphs into a lovely get together with everyone once the business bit is done.

Advice I’d give to my younger self when I was starting out in business

• Don’t waste time and expend energy beating yourself up for your mistakes.
  Accept them as part of the process and learn from them. There will be plenty more!
• Listen to your gut instinct.
  Remember that person you had doubts about and you hired them anyway? It was a disaster.
• Don’t be too kind.
  So often we’ve danced around issues, doing favours and giving third and fourth chances. We now adhere to the saying, “hire slowly and fire quickly” thus giving us and the trial employee the best chance of success. If things are not working out it is the fairest thing to be upfront. They can then go find the right role for them. This applies also to service providers. You will be spending time with refrigeration engineers, plumbers and the like – it’s so much better when you can get on well.
• Set out your values and objectives from the start.
  People are not mind readers and will appreciate knowing what you want to do and how. Share this information and keep the values alive by routinely referring to them. As business owners we are responsible for the business culture.
• Don’t forget to have fun.
  Life and business can both be hard – seize opportunities to celebrate, laugh and be thankful.