What’s your business called?
Cinnamon and Sugar
Baking with Love
Can you describe it in one sentence?
Cinnamon & Sugar is about my love for Baking and my Portuguese roots.
When did you start it and what inspired you?
I started last year. What inspired me was my passion for Portuguese home cooked food, that I grew up with and my belief that there was a market for these products .
How did you fund your start up?
I started with personal funding and savings. Start up costs were minimal and I have been investing profits back into the business to help it grow.
How do you manage working around your children?
Not always easy but its important to organize time as well as possible.
Can you describe a typical day?
My days vary, however on a day before an event when I do a great deal of cooking and baking, I make sure I have all my shopping done the day previous to that. Once I drop my daughter at school I came back and I start doing all the cakes and biscuits and prepare what I will need to take to the event. Just before three I pick up my daughter and when I am back after preparing snacks and starting dinner I carry on with the baking. Most times I stay up until quite late finishing everything off and the next day I tend to be up before 6am to bake the cakes and savoury that need to be done on the day for the event.
What have you found hardest?
What I find the hardest is dealing with all the administration part specially the social media and website updates and getting my head around the marketing side off things. The main reason however I feel is the lack off time I have and as I don’t feel confident in these areas, these always takes me longer then it would otherwise.
What’s the best thing about being self-employed?
Being your own boss and seeing your idea develop and grow.
What are your plans for the future?
I would like to expand my business, at the moment I am trying to expand the Catering side, but in the longer future I would like to have a shop.
What advice would you give for someone just starting out?
If you believe in your product and are passionate about it try to find ways where you can test it to see how other people feels about it and develop from there but be prepared for the many hours and hard work that starting a business requires.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?
One lesson I think it is useful to share it’s the fact that sometimes we can have a misconception about who our client will be. For example, other than local coffee shops and deli’s, I also approached some restaurants even though I was sceptical about how responsive they would be to my products, especially given that restaurants will mostly do the cooking in-house. Initially the first restaurant I approached was not interested but I decided to try again and the next restaurant I spoke to have become one of my best clients.
www.cinnamon-and-sugar.co.uk
www.facebook.com/Cinnamonandsugarbaking
Instagram @cinnamon_and_sugarbaking
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