Olive Magazine

We're very excited here at the Scarlett and the Spotty Dog Cakery as we're in Olive Magazine this month (October issue)! Attached below is a link to the picture in the article (the Spotty Dog looks exceptionally sweet!). The article is all about people who've 'ditched their day job and turned their passion into a profession' and I was one of the lucky 5 who got to talk to Emily Kerrigan about my business. Excerpts from the article are below but go and grab yourself a copy of the brilliant mag for loads of great recipes, restaurants and food related travel pieces!

The biscuit maker

Armed with a knack for baking and

a mascot in the form of her pet Jack

Russell, Rebecca Scarlett Hedley gave

up life as a lawyer to start Scarlett & the

Spotty Dog Cakery in 2010. Within

months, delis were selling out of the

old-fashioned goodies she’d baked in her

family’s Northumberland farmhouse.

1 Be true to yourself

I was 26 when I started my biscuit

business. It took nerve to concede

that after years spent qualifying, law

wasn’t the creative role I craved. If I’d

listened to doubters telling me the market

was saturated, I would have lost faith. But

I knew my brownies and flapjacks would

stand out because I used free-range eggs

from my hens and best-quality chocolate,

and wrapped my biccies with scarlet

ribbons and spotty-dog stickers.

2 Accept all offers of help

My family was fantastic. My

parents suggested I move home

and run the business from their country

farmhouse – I earned my keep helping

with DIY. My brother, an accountant,

offered gratefully received advice.

3Set achievable targets

I stuck to small goals – the first

was persuading my favourite local

café to sell my biscuits. Bit by bit, word

spread and the Spotty Dog made its way

onto deli shelves across Northumberland.

The ultimate dream is to open my own

shop – in the meantime I’m slowly

working my way further south.

4 Get online

The internet is a tremendous tool.

The biscuits are sold in cafés as a

direct result of contacts made on Twitter,

and two of my biggest stockists – loveyour

larder.com and notonthehighstreet.com

– are online retailers. I only wish I’d had

the confidence to approach them sooner.

5 Get the right kit

I struggled to meet demand with

my little Kenwood mixer but with

support from a brilliant small regional

business fund I’ve been able to invest in

an industrial-sized one. Everything else is

the same – me, my ethics and my dog

– except that these days, the baking sheets

are bigger and the order book a bit fatter

Olive Magazine October 2011