Small Enterprise sat down with Katie Cross, director of vegan bakery Cake or Demise, thought-about one in every of many three winners of the Small Enterprise x Sage pop-up retailer rivals.
Cake or Dying was one among three worthwhile companies chosen by our professional panel to occupy a pop-up retailer residence in London’s busy Oxford Avenue earlier this month.
The Devon-based bakery creates luxurious brownies delivered by your letterbox in iconic pink leopard-print packing containers. The Impartial named the mail-order bakery Greatest Letterbox Deal with in 2020.
Lifelong baking fanatic Katie Cross began her vegan cake enterprise in 2019 promoting on to bakeries, cafés and consuming places. She pivoted the enterprise to promoting direct all by means of the pandemic.
Earlier than her reinvention as a star baker, Katie Cross beloved a worthwhile occupation as a fundraiser and marketer contained in the charity sector, working for the NSPCC and Greenpeace UK, amongst others.
The place did the thought-about Cake or Dying come from?
It developed over pretty a few years. It began as quickly as I utilized for The Good British Bake Off. I acquired fairly far by the audition course of though I didn’t actually get onto the programme, which was an unbelievable disappointment. Nonetheless I think about it confirmed me that I had a ardour for baking, and that I wished to pursue it as a occupation. So, over the subsequent yr I experimented with baking and some occasions and that acquired me to the intention the place I used to have the flexibility to stop my day job.
How extended has Cake or Dying been in enterprise?
We’ve been working for four-and-a-half-years now. We began as a wholesale cake enterprise, however we’d have favored to pivot sadly firstly of the pandemic due to most of our wholesale prospects wished to shut their doorways. We determined to ship our brownies, which had been our hottest product, by the submit in letterbox-sized packing containers and now a number of of individuals ship them as presents, largely to household and associates.
What made you resolve to enter the Small Enterprise x Sage pop-up retailer rivals?
Two years so far, Cake or Dying moved from its kitchen in London to sunny Devon, which was a private change for myself and my household. We’ve set up a bakery in Exeter. The thought-about getting a presence in London for 4 days was really thrilling. An entire lot of my prospects are based totally in Londoners, and I knew I’ll get them to return once more and see us contained in the pop-up retailer. It was really thrilling to be in such a busy a part of metropolis.
What’s your expertise been of being contained in the pop-up retailer?
I do suppose that footfall is admittedly excessive on the highway, nonetheless it’s been extra sturdy than I believed to get of us to return once more in. People won’t be too optimistic about what the thought is. We’ve discovered possibly most likely essentially the most worthwhile concern to do is to present tasters on the highway and stage of us throughout the course of the store. People are fairly reticent about strolling proper right into a retailer as quickly as they don’t know what’s occurring.
What would your recommendation be to anyone coming into subsequent yr’s Sage pop-up retailer rivals?
It’s best to go for it, however you want a straightforward retail-able product, and it’s necessary to truly actually really feel that the consumers on Oxford Avenue are your type of purchaser. It’s worthwhile to have put some thought into selling and promoting and PR. We laid some groundwork by performing some PR work and a radio interview forward of time, and we reached out to Instagram influencers to return once more and see us on the primary day. We’ve furthermore been priming our prospects for per week to return once more and see us. Doing that groundwork is admittedly crucial.
Extra on the Sage pop-up retailer rivals
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