Chloe’s cure for boredom is the icing on the cake
IN 2016, Chloe Davies was baking at home and posting her latest creations online when she received a message asking to order a cake.
This sparked an idea, and almost overnight the 24-year-old from Neath’s hobby had turned into a bespoke cake business creating dozens of celebration cakes and cupcakes to order every week.
In just four years Getcaked has transformed from an idea in her mum’s kitchen to a team of around 30 staff who now work round the clock to post delicious treats as far away as Scotland.
As well as this – and perhaps the team’s biggest success – Getcaked also run ‘Bake Boxes’ in towns and cities across Wales, with pride of place in Swansea and Llanelli.
And now the team have announced their biggest venture to date, opening their newest Bakebox in Cardiff’s St David’s Centre.
Last week they were also announced as one of the vendors who will be taking part in this year’s Swansea Bay Pop Up food festival.
Long days are par for the course when you’re running a company growing as fast as Getcaked, but it’s difficult to imagine anyone who’s managed to cram decades’ worth of business experience into a few short years as Chloe has.
“I can’t even explain how busy we are – there are not enough hours in the day,” jokes Chloe as she sits down for a chat.
“It’s been snowballing since we started, but it is amazing.”
Chloe began the business from her mother’s kitchen in Neath in 2016 after moving back to Wales from Scotland where her husband Oliver was a professional footballer.
“When we moved home I wasn’t working. It was only for about two weeks but I was bored to death,” said Chloe.
“I’ve always baked, I always used to do it for the family. My mum and nan used to bake so it was a natural family thing to do.
“As I had loads of time on my hands I was just baking and decorating and putting pictures on my Instagram.
“One day I put a picture up and somebody messaged me saying ‘can I order?,’ so from there I started thinking ‘I can do something with this’ and it went from there.”
Chloe then set up a dedicated social media page for the business. Her posts of delicately decorated cupcakes and unique celebration cakes gained her so much attention that they took off immediately.
So much so that even after two home extensions the business needed its own designated space, which prompted the pair to open a unit in Swansea.
“My husband had joined me by then too,” said Chloe, “we were supplying wholesale and things like that by this point and just thought now was the time to go for it. That was two years ago.
“From when we opened the unit it’s gone crazy. I feel like we’ve done 10 years’ worth of business in those two years.”
While the coronavirus pandemic has affected businesses all over the country, for ones such as Getcaked it allowed the team to focus on different ventures.
She said: “In a way it’s helped us in launching the website because nobody could go out and it’s helped speed that side of things up. We were planning to start a website anyway but the coronavirus sort of sped it up because we had time to work on it.”
Getcaked now offers a Uk-wide postal service for its treats and has had orders to be posted as far away as Scotland.
Last July the team launched their first Bakebox on Swansea’s Oxford Street near M&S. Here customers can pick up items from brownies to cupcakes to cookie dough without ordering online.
Proving to be such a success, their second location, in Llanelli’s Parc Trostre, opened in November, and their third in Cardiff’s St Davids will
open later this month.
“They’ve both been really busy since they’ve launched,” she said.
While they’ve been overwhelmed by the response to each of their locations, opening in the capital city is a new level of success for them.
“We’ve been quite shocked by it” said Chloe. “When you’re from Wales, Cardiff St David’s is one of the best and biggest places to be. It’s just amazing.”
Chloe now employs a team of 30 people from apprentices to full-time kitchen managers.
“Me and my husband are both self-taught – we pretty much make everything up as we go along in terms of social media, baking, the decorating,” she said.
“We’re really conscious of everything tasting amazing so as much as you can ice things and make them look pretty, we’re more concerned with making sure the product is really nice.
“We experiment all the time, Oliver is always experimenting in the kitchen and making things up.
“And we’re always telling our staff to share any ideas, or to get experimenting when they have a bit of time in the kitchen.”
Chloe added: “I still find it like a ‘pinch me moment’ when businesses like Cardiff St David’s say “yes, we want Get Caked”
“When we get a good reaction from something new, that’s when I do feel really proud of what we’ve achieved.”