Well, where do I start? is the start where I tried to conceive a baby, and went on to have a few failed rounds of IVF, or is the start the 16th January 2016 when I created Sarah’s Creative Kitchen Limited (SCK) ??
If we look at the journey of SCK first off.
I started my weight loss back in 2014 to lose some weight before my 4th round of IVF, well that round never took place as little miracle Alfie was conceived naturally.
After Alfie was born I found I had so much time on my hands from being on Maternity leave that I focused all my energy into looking after a new born, cooking and basically taking photographs of everything I ate.... strange, but people loved it so much. I joined Weight Watchers shortly after Alfie was born, as I knew I wanted to be fit and healthy for him.
Every day I would create wonderful dishes that supported my weight loss journey, which resulted in me losing 68lbs in total.
I was so luck in early 2017 to be approached by Weight Watchers to feature in a four page spread of my life story and lots of my recipes, and shortly after our local Echo and Daily Mail picked up on my story.
I found that I had a skill to talk and cook at the same time and soon turned my home into a cookery demonstration venue, and along came customers to learn to cook. It was around June/July 2016 that my passion really turned to sweet treats and I started to make my own chocolate, using a 90% dark chocolate, but giving them a funky fun feel. This is where my life changed over night really, well the start of it.
Friends and family started to ask me to make them some as well and the business changed from cookery classes to Chocolate making.
In November of 2016 I approached a few Instagram bloggers to see if they would be happy for me to send them some Chocolates to try and basically the rest is history!
Overnight we became a massive hit, I never forget the night we launched our online shop, we sold over 2000 packs in around an hour, the site crashed, I cried, as it was so so stressful, but I had a lot to learn... in fact years later I am still learning now.
We started making the chocolate in my home, the week would be something like this....
The week started on a Monday with Alfie being dropped off to my parents for two days, Honey the dog went to the kennels (which was her second family), staff would arrive and we would work away until 1-2am in the morning, and this then happened on Tuesday as well, we took up two rooms to start with, which then progressed to four rooms being converted.
By June 2017 myself and family had had enough of chocolate hell as we called it, it took over our home, life, it was everywhere around us, I couldn’t shut off at all. I decided I needed a premises, and the factory was found really quickly and we signed to lease in September, building works started and we moved in January 2018 to work, I mean who actually moves their already busy business at the most vital time of Valentines, then Easter, it was hard work, but we came our smiling... JUST!
As time as gone on, we have seen our social media rocket, to almost 94K followers on Instagram and 12k on Facebook. We have supported many many charities and one that we hosted ourselves, where we raised 5K for a couple to have IVF treatment, which we are still waiting to hear the outcome, as its not been straight forward.
In 2018 we were so lucky to be awarded as Essex Small Business of the Year, which was the best feeling ever, even though I did end up breaking my foot at the vital point of them announcing us as winners.
In 2019 we was also awarded with a Great Taste award for our vegan Biscuit and Raisin Fudge.
In August 2019 an opportunity came along for us to expand and we created our new Company Sarah's Chocolate Kitchen Limited, which sits nicely alongside our existing Company.
We have a funky new Eatery and Workshop classes at this premises, which can be found over on Sarah’s Chocolate Kitchen.
This year has been really tough, not only for the amount of orders, but all the changes to be made with making the two businesses work together, so lets see what the future holds for us now.
Sarah
