Mummy’s Yummys Homebaking
Growing up in a family with Mum, Dad, 3 older brothers and myself it appeared Mum was forever mixing up a batch of biscuits or a quick slice, whilst at the same time making dinner! The oven was always on, the cake & biscuit tins were always full (not for long with 4 hungry men in the house). My mother was and at 89 still is a wonderful baker, so I am forever grateful for her teachings!
No matter your age you never forget the favourites that your Mum baked & Nana or Grandma served up with your cup of tea, always in a fine china teacup on your regular Sunday visit. “Sweet Memories”.
I had my own family and enjoyed baking and sharing with them my favourites. Nothing better than some of Mum’s baking in your lunchbox. Our Caramel Slice became a favourite for our girls’ schoolmates, along with our biscuits. The dream that had been started many years earlier to provide good old fashioned, homemade baking using all the simple ingredients of yesteryear came true.
I floated my dream idea with a friend and thankfully, she agreed it was a good idea. To this day, I am forever grateful to her for believing in me and my dream. Giving me a lot of encouragement, time, and marketing expertise. A series of meetings, coffees & conversations followed.
What was going to be the name of my business? How was I going to market the business & the products? The need for a website and many other aspects of getting started began! The same friend suggested I go to a small business, new business mentoring group run by the BNZ.
This is where I met Stephen (Stephen with a ph). What a great guy, full of motivation, lots of good ideas and a guy who wanted to sell his web designs. This guy was warm, friendly & passionate. Not only passionate about his own business but about sharing & believing in other small businesses.
The excitement was real – we had decided on a company name. We met up again with Stephen & decided on a website design.
It was time to take things to the next level……….
Mummy’s Yummys Homebaking was born in 2009.
If we were to sell our product range to the public, we would need to bake our goods in a certified kitchen. Where would we find one of those?
The hunt was on – we hired the certified kitchen at our local community centre in Browns Bay and began selling through local markets.
What about putting gift packs together for Real Estate agents to purchase as their vendor & purchaser gifts, my great marketing friend suggested. WOW, what seemed like a million phone calls later & lots of cold calling we were given the opportunity through LJ Hooker to provide their agents with our varying gift packs throughout 10 branches.
As the business grew and the hired facility was no longer working for us, Stephen (Stephen with a ph) came up with another one of his out-there comments ”why don’t you guys turn half your garage into a certified kitchen?”. “No way, never”, was my reply.
Haha! A couple of years later & that is exactly what we did, then a few years on from the initial purpose-built kitchen began another extension. Our 2-car garaging become a full-certified A-Grade kitchen.
Our products needed exposure – where could we get it. We started with local markets and did many hours of cold calling by phone, emails & door knocking.
Farro seemed a good fit for some retail packs. I approached Farro who was the great New Zealand business that supported local Artisans. Yay!! Not long after our first meeting – we had our first listed product with Farro, Nan’s Jammy Tarts. Today we supply Farro with 14 different products. Our products are a range of cakes, biscuits, slices & of course, Nan’s Jammy Tarts.
In 2015, I was no longer a lone baker. My husband Darren joined me in the business. Then came our wonderful baking assistant Sharon. Sharon started with us 3 days a week and is now working 4. We have Jesse who works with us 2 days a week and Frances, who makes our deliveries, conducts tastings, looks after our Christmas Corporate orders and is a helping hand in many areas of the business. We have been fortunate to have people working within our business who are just as passionate as we are. We have a great team! We are a great team!
As I write this, I realise. This journey has been successful through risk, belief, passion, support & love. If you know the husband & wife team behind Mummy’s Yummys Homebaking you will know they are risk-averse but through their belief and the belief of the people around them, they have grown a small successful Auckland based family business.
They can proudly say they have come a long way from hiring kitchens & selling at markets.
We are forever grateful to those who believed & supported us way back in 2009 & those that continue to support us today.
Our point of difference in using old-fashioned staple ingredients, making every batch and every product individually handmade, has not changed.
Watch this space & check out where you will find us next……………