Wee Vegan Bakery

Wee Vegan Bakery, a start-up business founded from home in 2020 during lockdown, supplying our local customers with fresh vegan baked goods. When lock down lifted we expanded our business into a high street café.

Founding this business gave me a soild understanding of business operations, as well as insights into potential goals and objectives. It underscored the significance of consistently prioritising the needs of customer.

Problem

I noticed an opportunity in the market - our town lacked a supply of fresh vegan baked goods. I had the idea to open a shop, but in 2020, COVID-19 restrictions limited social interactions, making it impossible for businesses to operate as usual and welcome customers through their doors all at once.

Consequently, I needed to devise a strategy that would enable the customers to connect with the business while ensuring their safety.

Research

I examined customer research to gain an understanding of the size of the vegan market in the UK. I discovered that there was a gap in the local market. This presented a unique opportunity for me to fulfill a demand that no other businesses were catering to at the time.

Competitor research

"Around 108,000 people in Scotland, considered themselves to be vegan in 2019".

Article by The Vegan Society
https://www.vegansociety.com/news/news/scots-show-strongest-support-plant-based-diets-compared-rest-uk

Online survey

Next I conducted an online survey to better understand users needs. Gathering quantitative and qualitative data allowed me to determine:

Is there a need for a vegan bakery?
How often they buy baked goods?
What baked goods people desired?

Findings

The survey results revealed that residents in the area showed a keen desire for a vegan bakery. They expressed dissatisfaction with the current options, which primarily consisted of non-fresh baked goods from supermarkets.

The majority of individuals adhering to a vegan diet reported purchasing baked items approximately once a week. Interestingly, among the baked goods, doughnuts emerged as the most popular choice. The local community clearly demonstrated their enthusiasm and interest in this venture.

Creating our recipes

I set to work on the task of developing my recipes, meticulously substituting ingredients with vegan alternatives. This involved a time-consuming journey of experimentation and refinement.

Eventually, we achieved the desired outcomes, resulting in a collection of recipes that were prepared for market testing.

Product testing

The next step involved dispatching samples to prospective customers. A social media post was shared, leading to many individuals eager to sample our products in exchange for providing candid feedback. I distributed the samples and gathered the feedback received.

Analysis

After completing the research phase, the next step was to consolidate the information gathered from competitor analysis, the online survey, and product testing. It became evident that we possessed a sought-after product in the market. However, the challenge at hand was to establish a system that would facilitate customer purchases and convenient product collection.

Solution

I discovered an e-commerce platform called Shopify online, which allowed me to design and create a tailored website and app. Through this platform, I could integrate the option for customers to select specific collection times after placing their orders. This feature proved invaluable in ensuring that customers arrived at different times, keeping them safe and enabling them to collect their orders.

Conclusion

After a successful period of conducting business online, the decision was made in February 2022 to open a physical café on the high street. At the café, we offered a selection of teas, coffees, hot meals, and our popular vegan baked goods. Furthermore, we supplied local cafes and stores with our baked products at wholesale rates.

After being in operation for eight months, we encountered a significant setback. The soaring cost of living led to an alarming increase of over 200% in our expenses for raw ingredients and electricity bills. As a small business, it became financially unfeasible to sustain operations, and we faced the difficult choice of closing our doors in October 2022.