More Food manufactures high quality cakes employing traditional, handmade baking methods.

Caron Howe, founder and managing director, knew she had a great idea when customers started queuing around the block for her chocolate caramel crispy cake from her café in Chichester.

“Nobody was really using handmade production,” she explains. “Competitors of similar products use mass production techniques that, inevitably, damage quality.

Having sold the café to concentrate on supplying a local wholesaler, Caron found herself baking cakes out of a small manufacturing unit using one oven, a microwave and a single table. The cakes were delicious and very soon the More Food name was synonymous with quality. It wasn’t long before a second wholesaler came on board with an order for an additional 200 cakes a week.

Before long, she was supplying nationally to Budgens and Waitrose stores and the business itself really started to grow.

Given her lack of experience, Caron received advice that she should look at high growth coaching support.

“At first I really wasn’t sure I had the time to commit, but looking back I don’t think I could ever have done without it,” she admits.

More Food started as a family business and quickly outgrew both its core competences and premises. “We were not financially efficient and had no idea how to source, negotiate and perform a major relocation,” says Caron. It is here that Andrew Cross, More Food’s high growth coach, has added such a tremendous value.

“Caron’s innovative recipes and determination to use only the finest ingredients, allied to the use of traditional baking methods, is the key to her success,” explains Andrew. “But the financial reporting, costing and margin management wasn’t getting sufficient attention in order to support such rapid business growth.”

Andrew’s advice was to find a finance director working part time, which enabled Caron to have a clearer picture and control over the company’s financial matters.

“This would never have happened without Andrew’s involvement. My passion was for baking cakes, but if you can’t afford to run the business, you haven’t got a business.”

Finding new premises is crucial to More Food’s continued growth, and demand for its products remains very strong, even in the current recession.

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