From age 10, Sarah, founder of Pie & Piper, has talked about and planned her own businesses. These were not childish fantasies, they were early business plans.
In January 2021 she took a Tuesday stall on the Salisbury Charter Market. "If I can make a success of it in January, when it is cold and dark, everyone is either broke from Christmas or on a diet, or both, then I can make a business which will grow and grow." And she did!
Baking from a domestic oven in a licensed home kitchen, Sarah started working her magic. Often having to bake until 1am in order to produce enough stock for the market stalls - first Tuesdays, then both Saturday and Tuesday, and now Saturdays.
Pie & Piper is built on two basic principles: first the cakes and pies have to taste as good as they look, or vice versa, and secondly, building strong and loyal relationships with customers.
The business has grown from strength to strength and in January 2023, Sarah's husband, Jason, joined Sarah full time. Jason had been Sarah's support, and muscle, from the outset and as demand increased, helped with the baking when not busy at his full time job or coaching one of the local football teams.
The small domestic oven was replaced by two industrial ovens which meant Pie & Piper could expand their range and their market. Already well known for their innovative, and delicious, cake pops and their magnificent celebration cakes, the introduction of a savoury range, including pies, sausage rolls and quiches, was highly successful. There were also links with local businesses: providing a regular supply of goodies to a newly opened cafe; producing 800 branded cake pops for a legal firm's annual summer party; baking an enormous cake, accompanied by 50 cake pops, for the long awaited opening of a well known clothing outlet in Salisbury.
And as the business grew, so did the loyal and unwavering band of customers. The Pie & Piper community spread across the country as people were transferred away from Salisbury or as they tasted a delicious wedding cake up in Nottingham or a box of cake pops in Cornwall.
From the 8 year old who saves his pocket money to proudly hand over his £1 for a cake pop every week, to the "regulars" whose entire wedding was catered for by Pie & Piper, "seeing the appreciation and pure delight on our customers, and now friends, faces is what it's all about" says Sarah.
Which brings us to our next steps... We are limited in what we can do by the size of our kitchen, our work space and our storage (or lack thereof). After all, this is our home which we share with Percy, our beloved dog, and to which we welcomed our precious daughter in June. Both mother-in-laws help when they can so it gets quite busy...
We have found the perfect premises in a unit on Churchfields Estate, but this is where we need your help, please. In order to move in, make the space fit for purpose, purchase some essential equipment and establish new arms to the business, we are looking for an initial £15,000.00
Ambitiously, if we could get £20,000.00 we could do all of the above as well as launch our "postal pops" and purchase a van for deliveries and markets across Wiltshire.