Future is sweet for expanding cake manufacturer

A Chorley cake manufacturer which has relocated four times in five years to meet demand will hit more than £1m in revenues this year with plans to go global.

Eat My Logo is a specialist bakery business that makes freshly baked bespoke cakes and biscuits.

It was founded in 2014 by Ruth Poar primarily as a sideline to her celebration cake business but after a customer requested a business logo on the cake, it led to a change of  direction and the business is now led jointly by Ruth with her husband Andy.

Due to rapid growth in demand, Eat My Logo moved premises four times in its first five years to expand its production and is expecting to hit turnover of £1.25m in 2022.

To manage growth and help pivot the business following the pandemic, the pair sought help from Boost; Lancashire’s Business Growth Hub and were paired with mentor and advisor Stephen Turner.

Ruth and Andy gained a wider strategic view on the business and Stephen advised them how they could expand through more proactive online marketing and also helped the business in relocating to a 9,500 sq ft facility at Yarrow Mill.

Andy said: “As a husband-and-wife team we spend an incredible amount of time working together but we don’t always manage to devote focussed time to discussing the future of the business on a regular basis.

“With each opportunity to move, we’d find premises, get a refit and move, but we kept underestimating what we needed and not thinking big enough.

“Stephen was a great match as a mentor because he understood our situation. Having started a business from scratch himself, he’d experienced challenges similar to ours. Stephen gave us the confidence we needed to take the next steps with the business.”

Following the mentoring, Eat My Logo experienced further rapid growth, hitting a turnover of £850,000 in 2019. Faced with a significant downturn in their market due to Covid-19, Andy and Ruth pivoted their business to offer a greater range of sweet treats and biscuits which could be delivered to companies’ staff by post.

This resulted in the company’s three largest orders to date, 180,000 biscuits for a catering business, and contributed to a 50% increase in turnover.

Ruth said: “Despite the challenges of working through the pandemic, it was still a great decision to move into the large bakery. The business is now back on track as the economy lifts out of lockdown.”

Even though they faced the challenges of Covid, 2021 was a record year for the business with temporary staff brought in to meet demand.

The business has continued to grow with an expected turnover £1.25m in 2022 and a team of 20.

Ruth and Andy now have ambitious plans to sell their branded baked goods direct to trade, and to expand their offering to the hospitality and catering sectors. They also plan to develop two new web portals and are exporting overseas.

Growth mentor, Stephen Turner, said: “As a result of building a fantastic business, Ruth and Andy were going through challenging growth pains. Together we scoped out the merits of scaling up and the risks of choosing not to. Thankfully, Ruth and Andy made the right decisions, increased their risk exposure and it paid off – as we knew it would.”