Artisan baking sisters cook up growth plans with new grant funding

Tarte & Berry, the Leeds-based artisan bakery, has seeked out the support of a regional business programme and secured a £15k grant towards relocating to a larger facility.

Owned and managed by sisters Jane and Lucy Batham, Tarte & Berry has more than doubled its turnover since it was founded in 2014, to £150k.

The business bakes and supplies artisan cakes, flapjacks and brownies to coffee shops and restaurants with its treats available online, at food festivals and to trade supply.

Jane is a Cordon Bleu pastry chef, having trained at the Tante Marie Culinary Academy and Lucy’s background is in PR and marketing.

In search of support to help with their business growth plans, Jane and Lucy attended a pop up business café delivered by the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership in November 2016.

During the event, the duo were introduced them to AD:VENTURE, a business support programme backed by the European Regional Development Fund, which delivers grants and support for new start businesses and existing businesses in the first three years of trading.

The programme offers one-to-one mentoring, help to develop business plans, support to access finance, peer to peer mentoring, academic expertise, workshops and events.

The business was operating from a 650 sq. ft. unit, which included manufacturing, storage and office space. With plans to grow all three arms of the business – selling at food festivals and pop-ups, selling via its e-commerce site and wholesale over the next two years, Tarte & Berry needed a bigger premises to capitalise on growth potential.

Lucy said: “The move to our bigger bakery unit is fundamental to the growth of our business. The new premises have been designed to meet SALSA (Safe and Local Supplier Approval) accreditation, which we should achieve by October 2017.

“This accreditation means that we, as a small food manufacturer, are able to target larger retailers and launch our products into a much wider marketplace. We simply had outgrown our first unit in terms of size, space and capacity and we wanted to prepare for growth in a sensible way, so that we could plan ahead and target potential future customers.”

Jane and Lucy learned they could access grant funding worth up to 50% of project costs through AD:VENTURE and received £15k over two phases.

Jane added: “The grant support has been so beneficial to our business and has allowed us to capitalise on our growth plans much faster than we ever expected. The refurbishment of our new unit to meet SALSA standards ensures that we can target those high-end independents and retailers; which suit our products perfectly.

“Investment in our mechanical cutting machine will improve efficiencies in our bakery considerably, improving workflow and also freeing up time to focus on driving new contracts. The new trade website will allow us to expose ourselves to the wider UK coffee shop and café market and be seen as a key player and supplier to those independents.”

Councillor Mohammed Rafique, Leeds City Council’s executive member for employment, skills and opportunity, commented: “We are undertaking a range of work both as a council and through the Leeds City Region to provide a package of support to existing and new-start businesses.

“The AD:VENTURE project which is funded through the ERDF is one of the programmes that is helping us to achieve these aims, and it is fantastic to see a business like Tarte and Berry, receive support to develop their plans for expansion.”

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