Just Desserts New Venture is Icing on the Cake

After more than 30 years as a supplier to the foodservice market a Shipley-based bakery has launched its own retail brand of family sized cakes to supply a range of independent stores.

Award winning bakers and patissiers Just Desserts, have created a range of traditional, handmade cakes, including Victoria Sponge; Lemon Drizzle and its Salted Caramel Cake, which was awarded Best Bakery Product at this year’s Deliciouslyorkshire and Yorkshire Post Taste Awards to supply delis, farm shops, garden centres and high end retailers in the region.

All three cakes from the family run company are made to tried and tested recipes and their new packaging has been designed to portray the firm’s strong provenance message and reflect the handcrafted qualities of the product.

Established by husband and wife team James and Carol O’Dwyer in 1985 when they made their first cake at the famous Salts Mill, Bradford, the company has since won many awards and gained an enviable reputation among its hospitality and foodservice clients, supplying high street names, including Selfridges and Waterstones Café ‘W’.

The handmade desserts specialist has seen sales increase across its foodservice customer base in the last few years, which has led to expansion into a third unit to grow the footprint of the business by 50 per cent.  This move into developing a retail cake brand forms part of the company’s strategy to develop new channels for its products outside its core market.

James O’Dwyer, managing director, Just Desserts commented: “We bake more than 130 premium products for the foodservice sector, but recognised the opportunity to market a branded cake to high end retailers.

“We’ve already seen a surge in business for our foodservice products across garden centre cafes, so it wasn’t too big a leap for the business to use tried and tested recipes to develop a cake range that would be appeal to premium retailers.  Customers are enjoying our products in cafes, so we wanted to make our cakes available for them to enjoy at home.  We are confident that the new range will be well received.”