Philippa Askham, co-founder and director of Sweetpea Pantry, explains why the business should win the home business category of the Guardian Small Business Showcase competition:
Sweetpea Pantry was started by two best friends (of 35 years) Tanya and Philippa who were frustrated at the lack of healthy baking options on the shelves for their families. With four children between them, they decided to start a business based on the premise of ‘getting the goodness in’ and making it easy for busy parents to involve their children in the making and eating of healthy snacks and meals.
Sweetpea Pantry began with a range of healthy, wholegrain, natural mixes for biscuits, flapjack, pizza dough and pancakes. This was very much a home designed and run business with the two us having to be innovative in terms of our space, our time, our scaleability and our work/life balance, as well as our friendship.
Our recipes were designed in the home kitchen, and until we got our first mainstream retail listing with Ocado we even blended the mixes in our kitchen. Our home office and storage is in Tanya’s home, forcing a creative juggle of time.
We became fast adopters of mobile technology and external systems, working in coffee shops and wherever spare minutes presented themselves. We used our situation to our advantage connecting through social media to other parents who also felt the time pressure and juggle of family/work time and formed a loyal group of influencers for our brand.
Fast forward to today and we have proved that great brands can start in humble places with listings in Marks & Spencer, Selfridges, Ocado and many food stores around the country.
All entries which meet the competition criteria are published and our judging panel select a shortlist of the top three for each category. Winners are announced at an awards ceremony in summer 2016.
