So I told you last week all about how I first started conversations with Harrods about stocking my biscuits. If you missed last week’s post then do go back and read it first. So January 2015 came round and no news from Harrods. The Christmas design brief didn’t materialise. I chased a few times and finally got a reply to say that the brief would be circulated in April. Spring arrived, it was a busy time for me, I was running my business from home but this was becoming really difficult. I was regularly turning down large orders of 1,000’s of biscuits. I’d done all the right things to ‘play big’ and it was starting to pay off. But I couldn’t meet demand. So I was planning a move into premises, which in itself was a massive undertaking. I was researching equipment suppliers, thinking about recruiting staff all while still doing the day job of baking & shipping biscuits. When the Christmas brief landed in my inbox, I was so excited. There were lots of really interesting designs that were right up my street. I worked up the designs, made up samples and sent them in. Food buyer v food technologist
Harrods loved them. But one of the issues that cropped up was around natural food colouring. Harrods I can be very strict on only having natural food colouring in its own label products. A lot of the designs they’d put forward had bright christmas themed reds and greens. It was really difficult to achieve these colours with only natural food colours. I spent about 4 weeks going back and forth between the buyer who was sourcing the biscuits, and the food technologist who knew all the technical stuff to see how we could come up with a solution.
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AuthorHey I'm Nila. I make beautiful iced biscuits and I'd like to help you launch or scale your baking business. Welcome to my blog. LET'S CONNECT
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