‘I’ve quadrupled my turnover!’
When we last met Rebecca Honeywell-ward, 36, from Northamptonshire, in November 2015, she was looking to expand the iced biscuits business she’d launched with her sister, Rosie. ‘Lots has changed in the past few years. Rosie has left the business to pursue her dream – supplying seasonal tray bakes to businesses on a subscription basis, allowing them to have delicious cake every Friday for the staff. I’m thrilled for her.
So I’m now in charge of Honeywell Bakes, even though I don’t actually make the biscuits any more, and now work primarily on development.
We moved into our new bakery, a converted barn, last year. Taking the leap to move into premises is a big one, but it has moved the business forwards by miles. It has allowed us to take on bigger contracts – including biscuit designs for international clients such as Cath Kidston, Elizabeth Arden, Olay and Superdry. We saved up beforehand so we didn’t need any loans to make big purchases, such as the oven and other equipment. We have such a wonderful team – I now employ three people and have temp staff at peak times.
The business has become more design-led, offering on-trend collections of biscuits that are quite different to anything else available. We had a commission from the breast-cancer charity Coppafeel!, when we made lots of boob biscuits, and we’ve developed a collection of fun, cute “pun” biscuits that have become extremely popular.
We’ve focused on growing our Instagram account and this is really starting to pay off, as we receive lots of enquiries. After we first appeared in Prima, we had lots of people visit the site. Then, our turnover was £35,000. Now it’s £150,000!’ Honeywellbakes.com