For most budding entrepreneurs, the ingredients of success are things such as cash flow, market position and effective staff. For husband and wife team Eric and Jeanette Watkins, it’s vital that more literal ingredients are right, as they attempt to take the UK cake industry by storm.
The couple’s firm, Fresh Eric’s Cake Company Ltd., was named the Micro Business of the Year at the recent Startups Awards, and it’s easy to see why. Despite having a young family and minimal funds, the couple have overseen an explosion of interest in their tasty treats since the creation of the business in late 2003.
Eric and Jeanette felt that the main suppliers were serving the UK public up mass produced, additive-packed cakes. The duo believed that a focus on fresh ingredients, strong flavours and moistness would enable them to take a slice (no pun intended) out of the UK’s £1.2 billion cake market.
“My wife ran restaurants in the USA for about 10 years,” Eric recalls. “In terms of cakes, they have something quite different over there. The recipes are richer and moister.
“We had a ‘I think we can do better than this’ moment in our local coffee shop one day. What spurred us on was that there were voluntary redundancies on offer at the company I was working for and we had a baby. We wanted to do something that involved the family.”
The couple’s first step was to try out recipes on friends and family, based on versions of classic cake flavours – chocolate, carrot, lemon and apple and spice. The feedback from these tests convinced Eric and Jeanette to take the plunge.
“We had a team of tester who all got lots of cakes to try over the course of a couple of months,” Eric explains. “The gave the best ones to a local café on the high street – that was basically our test marketing. We then did some cold calling. The response was so good that we knew it was something we could take further.
“We never really knew if it was always going to be a home business that would be a bit of pocket money if I got another job or if it would turn out being a business in itself.
“The response gave us the confidence to go for it properly. I always had an ambition to make something bigger out of it, but in the back of our minds we thought that at the worst, we would have a little home bakery business that would make a bit of money.”
Giving up his job at a large pharmaceutical company, Eric used his redundancy payout to establish the business, with much of the money spent on ovens, mixers and other kitchen equipment. After nine months, the business became too large for the Watkins’ home, and they moved the operation into commercial premises and took out a small bank loan.
But it was just a couple of weeks into trading that Fresh Eric’s enjoyed its big break – one that led to its cakes being stocked in 20 franchised cafes.
“We took some samples into one of the BB’s shops in our local mall, not even realising it was a national chain,” Eric says. “They said that their area manager was looking for some new products, so we were given his ‘phone number.
“We gave him a call, he came and tasted them bought the cakes he’s tasted on the spot for a shop in Chatham and then asked us to supply for another half a dozen shops from Chelmsford up to Evesham in the Midlands.
“It was a bit of shock to us, as we’d just sold out car to fund the business, so we had to buy another one. Our first cakes were delivered by a pram!”
The Watkins’ direct approach to marketing their cakes has been supplemented by regular appearances at trade shows. The Great Taste awards bestowed five gold medals upon Fresh Eric’s Cakes this year, with local and specialist press articles helping to raise interest.
