LAURA O’KANE: Caithness bakeries have the recipe for success!
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Laura O’Kane, operations and communications manager at Caithness Chamber of Commerce, gives a taste of the county's award-winning businesses
From shortbread to yum-yums and the perfect softie roll – Caithness has a long-standing love affair with bakeries, and with two national award winners here in our county, who could blame us?
With the excitement and anticipation of our own annual Chamber of Commerce entrepreneurship awards on our minds, I took the opportunity to speak with two of our business members who have recently achieved well-earned success at the Scottish Baker of the Year Awards.
In the middle of an extra busy dispatch of export orders, I was lucky to catch up on a conversation with third-time awarded Scottish wholesale baker of the year winners, Gary and Tracy Reid of Reids Bakery, internationally renowned for their delicious all-butter shortbread and crumbly oat biscuits.
Against big competition, winning wholesale baker of the year alongside their numerous bakery product awards is a huge accolade and credit to their business. Significantly, this award demonstrates not only an exemplary product, but is also praise for their business operation, level of customer service, ambition and professionalism.
The judging process is in-depth, requiring a great deal of commitment. It considers many aspects of a business, involving interviews and product tastings by leading and highly regarded industry experts, so winning is no small feat.
The team at Reids are rightly very proud of their achievements. Keen to show the accolades are a celebration of the whole business, colleagues are invited along to the event to take part in and collect the awards.
With their premium bakery products successfully exported across the world, Reids are certainly putting Caithness on the map, but locally the business has received great support following the awards too. In fact, their Gold Award-winning Jammy Hearts sold over 500 packets one week alone in just one of their local independent retailers.
Across the county, experiencing the cheery sunshine yellow décor, relaxed atmosphere and signature “too adorable to eat” prize-winning Highland Coo fondants – it’s not hard to see why Annie’s Bakery was awarded best bakery café in Scotland in the customer choice category.
Since opening her family-run café with views over Gills, Annie’s has become a destination venue for both locals and visitors to Caithness, even enticing NC500 tourists to deviate on their way to John O’Groats.
Baker Annie Body described the excitement the customer choice award had brought to her team, particularly the younger members of staff, who were all keen to encourage votes from customers and in return, customers were eager to help secure a win. Bringing the trophy home was the icing on the cake, but the relationships built with customers and seeing their personal investment in her business was the real prize.
Although grateful for the support of the retailers which she supplied at the beginning of her business, making the brave decision to pivot away from wholesale has allowed Annie to adapt her recipes towards more boutique “special treat” items. Despite numerous requests, Annie keeps her cakes and bakes exclusively for sale in her own café so the experience is unique.
Of course, somewhat removed from the glittering ceremonies and press-worthy photos is the dedication, grit and determination to bring a successful product or service to market. The long hours, teamwork and sleepless nights which go into turning a business dream into reality are indeed remarkable in themselves.
Awards are not the only marker of success, but certainly, they are signifiers of excellence and indeed reason to celebrate.
Our flourishing food and drinks industry in the north Highlands is certainly something we can all be very proud of. Huge congratulations to both Reids and Annie’s on their well-deserved successes – we look forward to seeing what’s in store for the future!
