OUR STORY SO FAR
I am Megan Charnock, Founder of Mini Miss Ltd.
Jump back to the middle of 2016. I do that thing that many people only ever dream of doing - I walk. I get up and walk out, away from my desk in a corporate events company, into the car and drive to a nearby residential street and sob. A lot. I have no idea what I am going to do next but I know I will not be going back to 9-5.
But that's ok. I can do this. I can survive. I'll strip back the luxuries, focus on the essentials and it will be fine.
Six months later, I've found a job in a local cafe allowing myself some breathing space to work out my next steps. But money is very tight and I'm getting itchy feet. I've decided I need to be my own boss. I want to do something creative. I want to build a brand and I want to be in charge of its future. I never want to work for someone else's business again.
I spend time thinking about what is missing in the local, food market. There's a gap for decent, handmade bread. I start experimenting with yeasted bread which then soon leads me to sourdough. I play around with logos and set up an instagram account using my childhood nickname to chronicle my progress. I give away loaf after loaf after loaf, asking for feedback. And then one day my neighbour insists on paying for her loaf. And so it begins. I have a business. I take the leap and register myself on Companies House.
By the middle of 2017 I'm making 40-50 loaves a week from the home kitchen to sell to locals. It's going well and my new business is building nicely, even though it's far from earning me an income.
I get a call from my husband, Jeff. He's been made redundant. Far from ideal.
But we pick ourselves up, strip back the essentials even further and somehow carry on. We are fit, healthy with two amazing children. We are lucky.
We hit the start 2018 and Jeff is still out of work but MMB demands are growing. It is a now or never moment. MMB can't grow without more resource. Jeff is only finding work involving a four hour round commute. The two will not work side by side. So yet again we hold our breath and take the jump. Jeff joins MINI MISS.
We have a little pot of redundancy money which goes towards our first commercial oven. And at the end of 2018 we sign the lease on a dilapidated property to get us out of the house and into a dedicated space for the business that we convert ourselves: Mini Miss Bread, 2a Church Street, Saffron Walden.
Since then MMB has grown and grown. Cinnamon Buns have become as popular as our sourdough and we now have a small range of our own in-house deli produce. We survived lockdown and came through the other side having kept the business open, supplied flour to the residents of Saffron Walden and beyond and raised £6000 for a local farm's crowdfunder (see here for more on that story!). We now have three ovens and many fridges. We still do things in a 'home kitchen' way which seems like madness in many ways but we believe shows (and tastes) in the results of the bread and buns we produce. It's really special.
We are doing business our way. We have built it around us and our family (despite Jeff and I splitting in 2021 we still work together and happily co-parent our children). The MINI MISS approach to running a business isn't for everyone. But it's working for us and we have a lot of happy customers.
We are always striving to improve, move forward, evolve and keep things interesting for us and our customers. We never know what is around the corner. We grow organically based on our family needs, the needs of our team and our customers' preferences.
Something is working. And we're loving it. We hope you do too.
