Business: Conscious Confections
Based: Manchester
Website: consciousconfections.co.uk
Conscious Confections has turned a small kitchen into a micro-bakery with an innovative use of space. Purchasing two extra oven shelves tripled our baking capacity, and rescuing a kitchen trolley made use of the space under the sink where a dishwasher should be. A single cupboard is given over to bakery ingredients while a double cupboard contains glasses and domestic use food, ensuring minimal chance of contamination. A fold-away breakfast table was repaired to provide a large surface area for rolling out biscuit and cookie dough.
The idea for the business was to combine a passion for baking with a strict sense of environmental and nutritional ethics. Customers can choose organic, fair trade, local and nationally produced goods to suit their dietary requirements and ethical ideals.
Conscious Confections regularly works with other food-based businesses in the south and south-east of Manchester, with some produce grown less than two miles away.
All road travel is by bicycle and trailer, including ingredient shopping and product delivery to customers. The result of all of this is a wide selection of sweet-baked goods that are portioned according to sugar and fat content, with ingredient traceability and varied diets in mind.
Clare Neilson is the head confectioner at Conscious Confections.
