We won Family Business of the Year at The Great British Entrepreneur Awards
What a year it’s been!
We only went and won Family Business of the Year at The Great British Entrepreneur Awards. This year has been tough for our brownie business. We’ve had our hearts broken several times and it doesn’t get any easier. When you own a small business, everything is personal. Which ever way you try to dress it up. It’s heart breaking when things go wrong. Pair that with the food supply issues and the price of cocoa rising- it’s not been easy at all.
We have worked so hard this year to continuously rebuild ourselves and at times it’s felt draining. What keeps us going is our passion for our product and our team.
To win Family Business of the Year in spite of all of these challenges has been a dream come true. It’s so easy to beat yourself up over the things that go wrong and focus on the losses, but we’ve also achieved so much in 2024.
In the last 12 months alone:
- Celebrated our 5th year in business.
- Nominated for 3 awards (including Family Business Entrepreneurs of the year which we won).
- Traded at some incredible festivals including Gone Wild with Bear Grylls and Latitude.
- We won an ad break on Holly Tucker’s phenomenal podcast.
- Did a sellout collaboration chocolate bar with The Chocolate Smiths.
- We were accepted to join the Buy Women Built community.
- Represented Brownie and the Bean at the Houses Of Parliament.
- We were invited back to the prestigious Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival and I compered the Main Stage on the Saturday for the 2nd year in a row.
- I recorded a podcast.
- We hired more team members.
- Reached the 10,000 follower milestone on Instagram.
- We appeared on the BBC news regarding our thoughts on the budget and how it will affect our business.
- I spoke at several business events this year with specific reference to women in business and mental health in the workplace (which triggered the thought behind the next big idea…)
- We have decided to donate 50p from every box sold from 1st January 2025 to Suffolk Mind Charity.
- And finally… We got a brownie cutter for Super Sue- hurray! This means that she can process lots more orders in a shorter space of time.
Wow… this all really happened in 2024…
All in all, an incredibly tough 12 months, with enormous risk involved, but we’ve also had an incredible amount of wins too.
I’m so proud of our team, the bakery staff, events team, delivery drivers. They are the biggest assets to our small family bakery!
Thank you all so much for supporting our family business, we really wouldn’t be here without you. Every single day that we get to do this is a blessing.
