| Need-a-Cake in Woodley has just
celebrated 10 years of successful cake making and
decorating, buoyed up by a dramatic growth in its
services to companies looking for something
different – and edible – to mark their own special
occasions or promotions.
“In the last 18 months, our corporate special
event cake service has really taken off,” said
Rachel Brown, who originally started Need-a-Cake
from home before snapping up nearby retail premises
in Ravensbourne Drive to cope with the local demand
for birthday and celebration cakes. “The business
had been founded on the domestic market but when
Comet found our website and ordered 395 celebration
cakes for each of their stores, we saw an
opportunity.
“The Comet work was a real learning curve as we’d
never managed that quantity of cakes before, and we
had just two weeks to do it,” she went on.
Now cakes for companies accounts for almost 50
per cent of Need-a-Cake’s overall business, with the
other half made up of individual birthday and
wedding cakes, cake making classes and sugarcraft
supplies and equipment. The Woodley team of five are
all qualified to City & Guilds level in sugarcraft
and are managed by Dawn Kelley.
Rachel has added a specific corporate section to
the Need-a-Cake website to market the company’s
corporate capability.
“Our website has been a key factor in bringing in
company business,” she added. “It promotes the
service to any business in the country looking to
celebrate an anniversary, reward customers and
employees or add something different to an office
party.”
Companies choosing Need-a-Cake include Corgi
die-cast models (100 oblong celebration cakes for
retailers to mark the company’s 50th anniversary),
Mecca Bingo with 750 cup cakes for club members at
Wandsworth, independent financial advisers Towry Law
and the L & Q Housing Association.
Cup cakes individually iced with the company logo
are particularly popular as they can be handed out
to customers or staff. The biggest order to date has
totalled 5000.
But it has not all been plain sailing. An
additional Henley shop failed to bring in enough
customers and became an expensive service point for
internet orders. Rachel closed this outlet earlier
this year to concentrate the business on Woodley,
reducing the retail area there to expand the kitchen
and provide extra space for cake making, decorating,
packing and dispatch.
“Woodley goes from strength-to-strength,” she
said. “With an active web presence, we can meet all
our challenges from just the one, well equipped
site.
“Add to that our established track record and we
have everything in place for the next 10 years and
more.”
www.needacake.com
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