Lisa Smith Podcast Transcript

Melody Moore [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the Secret Resume podcast, hosted by me, Melody Moore. In this podcast, we explore the people, places and experiences that have shaped my guests, those which have influenced who they are as people and where they are in their work life today, or as I like to call it, their secret resume. Before we dive in, I want to tell you about something that I’m really excited about, about which is our being free membership. We’re developing an online community which is designed for people who are interested in personal growth. If you’re navigating career transitions, maybe feeling stuck or burnt out, or simply seeking more meaning in your life, then this is for you. Membership gives you access to a range of resources, a supportive community and monthly group coaching calls. It will allow you to explore what free freedom means to you on your own terms. Head to www.liberareconsulting.co.uk being free to join the Waitlist.

Melody Moore [00:01:04]:
So, my guest today is Lisa Smith from Ginger Bakers. So, Lisa, do you want to just introduce yourself and tell us who you are?

Lisa Smith [00:01:14]:
Yeah, sure. Well, firstly, thank you very much for inviting me onto your podcast. I feel quite honoured in that. Yeah, I’m Lisa and I have a business called Ginger Bakers. We’re based in the Lake District, so we’re just outside Kendal. It’s where we’ve always been based. We have actually moved locations a couple of times, but in the same town or just outside. We are a wholesale majority wholesale cake manufacturer and our customers are a broad brush of delis, cafes, farmers, farm shops and that kind of thing.

Lisa Smith [00:02:01]:
We do also supply to larger establishments, some chains, but they’re sort of more. They’re small chains, not huge supermarket chains, nothing like that, because we make a very handmade product and we couldn’t supply large chains, but we supply some bigger stores as well, so retail as well as hospitality industry. And then also we have our own retail side of the business, which is our own website, which we sell through and we do food events and food markets and farmers markets and things like that.

Melody Moore [00:02:40]:
And I have to say, I am an enormous fan of your cakes. I think my favourite favourite is. Is it pistachio and rose? Is that right?

Lisa Smith [00:02:50]:
Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing.

Melody Moore [00:02:56]:
Best thing ever. Yeah. Question, actually. Do you just supply locally in the Lake District or are you. Do you have national clients?

Lisa Smith [00:03:06]:
We supply national, nationally and internationally when requested to do so. So we’re a bigger business than just supplying locally. I mean, we’re still classed as a small business, but with 10 members of staff, but we need to supply nationally for that sort of Scale. You know, making cakes is a really competitive market. You know, there’s, you know, I can reel off quite a number who are our closest competitors and, and for that reason we try and make our cakes different to them. Quite different. And, and also the way we do business and the way we talk about our story, you know, I think that’s really important. And that doesn’t only attract our local customers.

Lisa Smith [00:04:00]:
I mean, that’s great because we do use a lot of local ingredients, perhaps twists on local recipes, but also that does attract our more national customers as well, that they, they. I think it’s, excuse me, really important to, to hold on to that story and give the business personality that people can understand and buy into.

Melody Moore [00:04:26]:
Now, speaking of local recipes and ingredients, you have a. What is it? Is it a pepper cake?

Lisa Smith [00:04:33]:
Yeah, we have. Yeah, that’s right. We have a Westmoreland pepper cake, which is actually the favourite cake of mine that we, that we make. So that a few years ago, in fact it was 10 years ago now, we were approached by the slow food movement, of which we are members of that movement. And their ethos is all about slow food as opposed to fast food. And they approached us because they have a programme called Forgotten Foods and that programme gives foods or recipes or ingredients a sort of level of status or they try and promote that particular thing and hope that it won’t be forgotten. They deem it of enough importance, either national or regional, local importance, that they want to make sure that that product is not forgotten. And it’s an interesting story because they approached me because we are members.

Lisa Smith [00:05:36]:
They knew of the business and they knew of our approach to our production approach. They asked me if I would consider remaking or introducing back to the market a biscuit. Now that biscuit was a, a well known Lancashire biscuit, well, less well known. They wanted to make sure it was well known. Called the Goosener Biscuit. It’s a, it’s a shortbread with caraway in it. Now, we’re not in Lancashire, we’re in Cumbria, very much in Cumbria. So I didn’t think that was appropriate really at all, that we would start to promote and give our backing to a Lancashire biscuit.

Lisa Smith [00:06:14]:
Not that I wanted any cross border competition or I didn’t, you know, nothing against Lancashire, but, but Cumbria itself itself has an amazing wealth of food history and really good quality products, ingredients and recipes. So at that time I’d heard of a pepper cake. It’s got a couple of names, either Westmoreland Pepper Cake or Kendall Pepper Cake. And Kendall is in the region of Westmoreland, this, this part of Cumbria was known as Westmoreland. And so I’d seen it in old, old cookbooks and so I did some research, found out that not many people have remembered it really. And I thought that was worthy of remembering because the. It was, it originated. That recipe originated when spices came into the west coast of Cumbria and were exchanged for wool.

Lisa Smith [00:07:15]:
And at that time we had a. Recipes that were developed from those ingredients that came into the west coast of Cumbria. So we have things like, well, the pepper cake, which contains cloves and ginger as well. We have Cumberland rum, Nikki, which has fruit in it, has rum in it, has a dark sugar in it, which came from, from that into our port there. We have Grassmere gingerbread.

Melody Moore [00:07:43]:
Love it. So, so, so there’s lots of Cumberland Sausage is quite spicy as well. Is that one?

Lisa Smith [00:07:50]:
Absolutely. I mean, there are other reasons why those spices were put into the meat as well, but those ingredients were available and of course, before all the transportation networks developed and we very much made what was on our doorstep using the ingredients on our doorstep. That’s where these kind of recipes developed. And so that’s why I went to that recipe. We tried it out, we had to do a bit of tweaking of it to make it more palatable for the modern palate. Not in changing the ingredients at all. The ingredients are exactly the same, but the ratios of ingredients. We needed a bit more of a commercial product that we could sell on because we’re a commercial bakery.

Lisa Smith [00:08:40]:
So we just tweaked some of the ingredients, making it a bit more moist, less dry, less crumbly, things like that.

Melody Moore [00:08:47]:
It’s kind of got a scary name, I think, you know, in pepper cake, but actually it’s delicious. It’s really. It’s not, not what you’d think if you just think, oh, I’m going to be eating pepper.

Lisa Smith [00:08:59]:
No, it’s absolutely delicious. Great with cheese, which is a very northern thing. In fact, that concept, cheese and fruitcake, because it’s a fruitcake, originated in Yorkshire, I think, really. But it, it, I mean, we were really fortunate last year that Nadia Hussein in, in her series, she had a series called Simple Spices and she scoured the country for small producers that were using certain spices that she was fond of and one of them was black pepper. And we were really lucky that I was able to. To do that on her show. And just. And the hope is that this recipe will not be forgotten and that it will be part of our local food culture and history, because you know, it’s in the food industry, it’s fantastic.

Lisa Smith [00:09:53]:
Coming up with great new concepts, new flavour combinations, that’s great. But also behind that there’s a lot of history and that’s really worth looking at and remembering. And, and, you know, there’s. There’s always history tips to all the food that we eat.

Melody Moore [00:10:11]:
Yeah. I saw that episode of Nadia’s show and I was like, oh, my God, it’s Lisa. It was really funny.

Lisa Smith [00:10:19]:
Yeah, yeah. Really lucky that we were able to do that.

Melody Moore [00:10:22]:
Yeah.

Lisa Smith [00:10:22]:
And give prominence to this very local cake. Yeah, yeah, brilliant.

Melody Moore [00:10:28]:
Well, let’s. Thank you for that. That was really interesting. And I. I am obsessed with cake, so I could talk, literally talk about cake all day. But let’s, let’s take a leap into your story and some of the people and places that have influenced you and what you do for a living. But let’s start with your paternal grandmother. Do you want to tell us a bit about her?

Lisa Smith [00:10:54]:
Absolutely. So, yeah, there’s always people, there’s always people behind everyone’s story and, and even if you can’t recall it, I think. I think everybody would be able to recall. Recall moments from their life that have been really influential. And. And my paternal grandmother, she had a huge effect on me growing up and remains having that impact now. So she, her name was Ella, Ella Smith, and she. She died at the age of 92, which I thought was quite an achievement.

Lisa Smith [00:11:29]:
And later in her life, she did quite a lot of travelling solo. Travelling. She had family in. In, you know, South Africa was one place, and I was always quite in awe of that because back then when I was, you know, she was probably. I was probably early teens at that time, and I just thought that was amazing that she’d go off to these places by herself in her later years, but. But that’s not really what was the only thing that impressed me. She was just tenacious. She was.

Lisa Smith [00:12:01]:
She. She really interested in me and what I thought about what I wanted to do with my life. She just showed a real connection and interest and that. That stayed with me. And one of. And I think. I think one of the most. It’s really simple, but it’s stayed.

Lisa Smith [00:12:24]:
Really stayed with me. When I went off to university and I came home, every time I went back, she sent me off with a parcel of this particular cake. And. Sorry, I get emotional about it, but yeah, she. It was. I. I ended up recreating that cake and called it Ella’s Treat, but it was, it. I mean, it was, it was.

Lisa Smith [00:12:48]:
It was probably what is known as a paradise slice, traditionally now, but so it was fruited in coconut and chocolate. But every time I came home, she’d send me back the parcel of that and so I started. Sorry.

Melody Moore [00:13:03]:
Making me emotional.

Lisa Smith [00:13:07]:
So when I started my business, that was. That was a real must that I included that in our product range. So I recreated that and since then it’s developed as products and ingredients development and ideas change. I have now, and it wasn’t a conscious decision, but looking back, it, you know, it has. Has real significance. I have turned that to product. I’ve slightly tweaked it and now called it Chocolate Nancy, after my daughter. So there’s a.

Lisa Smith [00:13:39]:
There’s a really strong link and thread through what I do and it’s probably only looking back, I probably didn’t realise it at the time, but it, you know, it makes me realise how significant particular women in my life have been. So, yeah, now we have a product called Chocolate Nancy and actually that is in a few recipe books. Just to add a little snippet, not to take away from my amazing grandmother, who was an entrepreneur herself. She had her own business, several of her own businesses, she was a Milner and then she sold and made women’s underwear. But so quite, quite a woman of very tenacious, very forward thinking for her age. But anyway, bringing that back to the Chocolate Nancy that I was, I was asked to contribute a recipe to a cookbook. That was really weird timing but, you know, very significant. So Maggie’s, the cancer charity, were doing a cookbook and I was asked, which I was again very honoured because there’s lots of celebrities in that book that contributed really significant recipes in their life.

Lisa Smith [00:15:06]:
So I thought, well, this is a great one. I’ll. I’ll submit this. But at the time, I had just been diagnosed with cancer myself, so it just. They didn’t know that at the time, but, you know, all worked out and felt really important to do. So that recipe that originated with my grandmother now has continued to thrive and have life and it’s got a name. There isn’t a Chocolate Nancy that exists other than our Chocolate Nancy. So that’s really nice as well that we’ve been able to create a new concept of a recipe and hopefully that will go forward.

Melody Moore [00:15:46]:
You’ve just made me think of loads of questions I’ve just been writing down there. So one is, what’s the book called? The Maggie’s Cancer Recipes to Remember. Okay, brilliant.

Lisa Smith [00:15:57]:
So it’s all about recipes that have some history or significance in people’s Lives and it’s sweet, savoury, all sorts of things. I think even cocktails are in there.

Melody Moore [00:16:07]:
Well, we’ll put a link to that in the show notes because people always like to go and look for things. You mentioned that your grandmother was entrepreneurial. Does it run in the family, being entrepreneurial?

Lisa Smith [00:16:20]:
Hugely. Hugely. It’s. That’s a really big influence on me and I think that’s why I started my own business. You know, I haven’t got business training. I. I’m an art. I was an art therapist by training and prior to that I’d studied design and worked in the design industry for a short while.

Lisa Smith [00:16:41]:
But almost every member of my family who have gone before me, not necessarily my siblings, but had their own business, small businesses, small local businesses. But my dad, my mum, my uncle, my aunt, my grandmother. So I had, I had. I was surrounded by people running their own businesses and I think that enabled me to think that it was achievable for myself. I didn’t set out thinking, I’m going to be an entrepreneur, I’m going to run my own business, but I think it evolved quite naturally.

Melody Moore [00:17:25]:
And you also mentioned that you had cancer and I don’t know if you mind talking about that, but I can’t imagine what that would be like to have your own business whilst undergoing cancer treatment. Do you mind talking a bit?

Lisa Smith [00:17:39]:
I don’t mind at all. No, no. And I’m five years clear now, which is fantastic. So, yeah, it. Do you know, throughout the life of this business, which is now nearly 19 years old, there have been loads of ups and downs and I think everybody will have that in their story and you learn to ride them. But you know that my cancer diagnosis, which was breast cancer, which end to end was about 12 months of treatment, it. That came off the back of us being quite severely flooded, both the business and my home. And.

Lisa Smith [00:18:24]:
And that was. That was more traumatic than the cancer. The cancer just felt like another little add on to that story, really. So Cumbria, we have lots of flooding and, you know, that’s becoming common across the whole of the UK. But back in 2015 when it happened, it wasn’t as bad as it is now, but we flooded, we had a storm and the whole region was quite badly flooded. I live quite near to a major river in Kendall and yeah, it came up pretty waist deep in the house and in the business premises, which was not at home at that point. It had started at home, but I was in premises again, very close to the river and that was pretty traumatic. Following the Flooding of our home.

Lisa Smith [00:19:21]:
We spent two years moving from place to place before we could get back into our house. It took a long time to repair the damage and get back in.

Melody Moore [00:19:32]:
Two years is a hugely long time.

Lisa Smith [00:19:35]:
It was, it was. And, and yeah, and looking back, that was, that was more traumatic than the cancer, I think because I’d been through that. Taking on another challenge of ill health. Actually I wasn’t particularly ill. The treatment made me ill, but I wasn’t ill. That just. It didn’t seem particularly difficult to manage as far as the business goes. I had a really good team around me at that point of that diagnosis.

Lisa Smith [00:20:11]:
I think maybe there was five members of staff and between them they, they could get on with the day to day business, day to day manufacture of the cakes. I was still there as much as I could be. In fact, I was. Even if I, you know, just had treatment, feeling really sick, you know, I’d still be able to just log on and have a look what was going on. So we were able to continue. Okay. Or it all continued well, we know we were moving forward still at that time.

Melody Moore [00:20:45]:
And how did you cope with then, the flooding? You said that was very traumatic. So basically your premises where you’re making your product, you can’t use them anymore.

Lisa Smith [00:20:57]:
Yeah.

Melody Moore [00:20:57]:
What did you do?

Lisa Smith [00:20:59]:
Yeah, yeah. I mean we were very fortunate. So that happened early December 2015 and we had lots of Christmas products ready to be sold. So we lost all of that stock. Those premises were not usable. Even with a clear up. We couldn’t return to them, certainly not returned to them within a decent time frame. It was, we were given, we were told it was going to be at least six months.

Lisa Smith [00:21:35]:
So then I had a bit of a dilemma. What do I do now? Do I, you know, it was a pretty small business do. I could just pack it up and move on to something else. But I had had members of staff who really relied on that wage and, and I think something that was particularly significant was one of the members of staff, his wife had just had their second baby, was on maternity leave. So his job was really important to them. So I thought, I can’t, I’ve got to keep going for the sake of these people around me. And I had a phone call, I think maybe the day after or a couple of days after were flooded from another local baker who had capacity in his bakery. He had space and time to allow us to go in there and use his facility.

Lisa Smith [00:22:33]:
So that was a fantastic offering of help and support. And so we did that. We, we went and used. We, we worked at night when their ovens weren’t in use at that point and we, so we were flooded on the Saturday evening. By the Friday we were deliver to our customers. And, and I think that’s where my sort of either bloody mindedness or just an un. Unable to give up, unable to, to kind of kicked in because I thought, you know, cake, cake businesses are, you know, if we weren’t going to supply our existing customers, somebody else would and we potentially could have lost those customers. So I wasn’t going to let that happen.

Lisa Smith [00:23:28]:
So, you know, everybody was incredibly supportive, incredibly sympathetic and you know, allowed us to continue in the best way that we could at that time. So we were in that bakery for three weeks and then a little space became available of our own which we were able to equip through our, through grants and you know, insurance payouts. So we had that little space of our own on the site that that original bakery was not our original, the one that we, that helped us out. And then from that we had a purpose built bakery built for us. The landlord of that site reached out and said, you know, there’s something he could do. And I very cheekily said, well actually if you build me a bakery, build us a bakery. And so, yeah, and then our current bakery premises was, was built.

Melody Moore [00:24:26]:
Amazing. So let’s take a. Well, I guess it’s a leap, sorry, not too much of a leap because we’re talking about your grandmother. But you said after your degree you went and lived and worked in Hong Kong.

Lisa Smith [00:24:43]:
Yeah, so that, yeah, I’d already done a couple of years in Switzerland as I was actually doing a couple of ski seasons, having quite a lot of fun to go to Hong Kong and to go and teach at a, a technical college there, which was, I was able to teach design because that was my, my degree was in, was in. And alongside that I taught English as a foreign language to some young, young, very young students. I worked for a language school and I was teaching children as young as three years of age.

Melody Moore [00:25:26]:
Wow.

Lisa Smith [00:25:28]:
So culturally it’s quite different to the uk. There’s a lot of pressure in society and families to achieve the best you possibly could. And you know, I was given really young kids and I significantly remember one young girl the age of three. There was, you know, I was trying to teach her English but there was just no way she was wanting to sit down and learn. And it was totally inappropriate. And it really struck me that this kind of pressure was just too much too young. And that particular girl had what I identified as a slight learning disability as well. So there’s just no way she was going to learn traditionally and that, that was not acceptable for Chinese families, you know, at that time.

Lisa Smith [00:26:25]:
And, and that had a big impact on me. And so I got my design training. I. I was very fortunate to do a bit of design work for a company in Hong Kong as well. And. And I just, Just saw this. It was a bit of a light bulb moment. I just thought, I can’t do this anymore, I can’t.

Lisa Smith [00:26:43]:
You know, that was back in the late 80s, early 90s, lots of consumerism. It was all, especially in that culture, all about the car you drove, the watch you wore. And it just really struck me that I didn’t want to keep going and working in that industry. So I came back to the uk, I’d been out there for a couple of years, so it’s time to move on. Came back to the UK and decided to retrain as an artist psychotherapist, because that seemed to bring together those two worlds, being able to work with people but also use a bit of creativity from my design training. So I did that. I trained in London a couple of years, training for that, and then went to work in a specialist centre, so up in Cheshire. I moved back to Cheshire, where I’m originally from, and worked with young people with learning disability, helped them communicate through art.

Lisa Smith [00:27:49]:
So I did that for quite a number of years.

Melody Moore [00:27:53]:
How, just out of interest, how come you ended up in Hong Kong?

Lisa Smith [00:27:57]:
Yeah, a boyfriend at the time, his dad had moved out there, so we, we sort of went on the back of that and it was an opportunity to go there. I know it’s kind of a bizarre place to choose and from that I was able to travel around Asia quite a bit. But, yeah, it was an opportunity, so I took it.

Melody Moore [00:28:21]:
And you talked about the consumerism, you know, that very sort of conspicuous consumerism. Yeah. Did you feel that, you know, was it different in Hong Kong to the uk? I mean, I was also. I think we’re a similar age. Was, you know, doing my own thing at that point as well. And, and, you know, the sort of 80s and 90s were very much that kind of Thatcherite, you know, everybody for themselves kind of time.

Lisa Smith [00:28:59]:
Yeah, I think it was just really acute in Hong Kong. I, you know, I hadn’t. And it was just at the time of my life where, you know, I, I was just. I was beginning to be able to start to make choices and form really strong opinions and. Yeah, and I think it was just moment in time for Me and being in a particular place where it felt really acute and that just made me think I, I can’t do this. Yeah. And, and that’s, and you meant, you mentioned the, the consumerism because when I came so obviously my life did change and I’m now got a cake business that’s quite different. And that happened when I moved to Cumbria and when I first started this cake business.

Lisa Smith [00:29:57]:
I don’t make affordable. Well they’re affordable cakes for a certain sector of the population but not everybody can afford to buy our cakes. They’re not really, really high end but they use good quality, quite costly ingredients because good quality ingredients can cost more. So that was a huge dilemma. What do I do when I am charging for a single cake? What somebody would buy, you know, a whole meal for their family for possibly. So that was, I had to really kind of think about that quite a lot and it was a bit, it was quite an issue. But then you know, what I did, I suppose I, what I settled on that I was making a product that a really good quality product supporting other local businesses that, okay, a certain part of the population could afford and I, I kind of settled on that that because I was making a product that was good quality and didn’t have bad ingredients in that, that satisfied that part of that dilemma for me.

Melody Moore [00:31:15]:
No, I could see how that could be a dilemma. Tell me about art psychotherapy. So I get the art bit but what, what made you want to combine that with the psychotherapy?

Lisa Smith [00:31:30]:
Absolutely. I think I’d seen people in need in Hong Kong, need of more care, more thought about how they were being educated. Not just pressure of cooker type education and a bit of needing to. For recognising that some people needed a different approach to help them communicate. I also trained as a teacher, a special educational teacher teacher as well. So for me it was all about being able to enable people to communicate and express themselves in a way that was more tailored to them and not just part of the mainstream, just identifying people and you know, giving people an opportunity to communicate and learn. So, so the psychotherapy, okay, it can be used in various areas, whether it’s learning disability, mental health or everyday life even. But I chose learning disability particularly I think because of that experience I had in Hong Kong.

Melody Moore [00:32:57]:
Yeah, isn’t that interesting? That was that one child that really took you down that route?

Lisa Smith [00:33:02]:
Yeah, absolutely, one child. And, and you know, she may have grown up going into mainstream school, succeeding, but there was just something not right about the pressure that was being put on her at that time to learn when that was not the approach that was helping her or enabling her in any way.

Melody Moore [00:33:26]:
Lovely. We’ll come back to how you ended up becoming a baker, but let’s talk about your third person, or rather your second person, your third thing you’re going to talk about, which is your mum, Mary. Do you want to tell us about her and what influence she’s had?

Lisa Smith [00:33:42]:
Yeah, I think I mentioned that she did have her own business. So I grew up in her shop, really. Her shop was at the front of our house. It was a children’s clothes shop, but it could have been anything. I don’t know why it was a children’s clothes shop. I never had the opportunity to really ask her that. She had grew up in. She had trained in catering industry so that I’ve got a link to the food industry there.

Lisa Smith [00:34:08]:
But she was a really sociable, vivacious woman who in my eyes could do anything, absolutely anything. She was liked by a lot of people, she had a lot of friends, a lot of. And. And I suppose that really became apparent when she, when she had passed away, unfortunately at the age of 62. At her funeral, the amount of people that turned out for that was just, you know, I was just in awe really of how well liked and supported she was. I mean, her business was a small business, it was a single shop in a small town. But that, but that, that wasn’t significant. The size of the business didn’t matter.

Lisa Smith [00:34:53]:
It was just that she, you know, she was a really capable woman and you know, I, I have memories of when I was at home growing up. She would, she. We had several freezers. You know, it was a freezer generation then, you know, people froze everything. Freezers have become really popular. We had two huge freezers at home and they were chock a block prepared for any party. So when she made something, she bulk made. She was a really talented cook and so she.

Lisa Smith [00:35:28]:
The freezer would be full of, you know, I’m really going to show my age, but very much 1970s fair Charlotte Russe. I don’t know if you remember Charlotte Ruth.

Melody Moore [00:35:37]:
Are you gonna say Volavont?

Lisa Smith [00:35:38]:
Yes. Or she could not. But you know, oh God. Who was it? The household of the fondue or everything we did at the very 1970s. But you know, at 10 minutes notice she could. If a horde of people came through the door, she’d welcome them in and be able to put on a huge spread. So, you know, she was, she was just very sociable and very capable woman. So yeah, of huge importance and Significant.

Melody Moore [00:36:09]:
To me, it sounds like you’ve had quite a number. I asked earlier about if you had entrepreneurs in your family, but quite a lot of strong entrepreneurial women in your family.

Lisa Smith [00:36:19]:
Yes, absolutely. Those women that have. Have a real significance on me and who I am. Yeah. And. And I kind of want to take that forward. And I suppose part of me naming one of my cakes after. After my daughter is part of that.

Lisa Smith [00:36:39]:
Me wanting to leave that legacy. I have, may I add, also got a cake named after my son. So I’m not watching that. In fact, his cake came first because he is the eldest.

Melody Moore [00:36:51]:
Did they like the cakes that are named after them?

Lisa Smith [00:36:54]:
I think they’re a bit. A little bit embarrassed, but to be honest, I think they would kind of shrug it off a little bit. But, yeah, they’re both like cakes on. Yeah.

Melody Moore [00:37:06]:
So tell me then, how did you become a baker? You were a art psychotherapist, you worked with people with learning disabilities. How come cakes came on the horizon?

Lisa Smith [00:37:22]:
Yeah, so I moved to Cumbria. So I’d met my husband at that time in Cheshire. We both worked in the same place with the Centre for People with Learning Disability and his hometown was Kendall. And, you know, an opportunity. I think you probably have sought out opportunities and. Excuse me, and. And jumped at them, really. And an opportunity to move.

Lisa Smith [00:37:53]:
Move here. I mean, it’s an amazing Lake District. It’s absolutely beautiful. I love the outdoors. I love. You know, I was. And try to still be quite sporty and do quite a lot of exercise. So, you know, the opportunity to move here came about, but there wasn’t a lot of art therapy work.

Lisa Smith [00:38:13]:
I give it. I gave up my job down in Cheshire and I managed to get some sessional work here, but it wasn’t a huge amount and there wasn’t a lot coming up on the horizon. So I thought, oh, I’m not doing. I’ll make something. You know, going back to my making days and my more creative days, I’ll make something to sell. And the easiest thing for me to do was to make cakes. I thought was that was a product I could sell. The farmers market scene was really gathering a bit of momentum.

Lisa Smith [00:38:50]:
People were getting more interested in handmade and locally produced produce. And so we had a really good, thriving farmers market here in Kendall. So I took a stall there and started to sell cakes that I’d made in my home kitchen. And really that was. There was no plan. There was no, okay, I’m going to have a business now. I’m going to write a business plan. I’m going to.

Lisa Smith [00:39:18]:
That’s not how my business has evolved. It’s always been organic and it just grew and grew from there. And I was fortunate at that time that some other local businesses to us looked at what I was doing, liked what I was doing and asked my business to supply them. So that’s where the wholesale side developed from. I was selling directly to the local customers, but my wholesale market began to develop at that point. So there it was. And there’s never been any big plan. I think probably the first time that I really had to really think, oh God, I’m doing this now, this is serious, and I had to kind of get my adult head on was after we’d been flooded and I took on a lease, a really long lease at the new building we had built.

Lisa Smith [00:40:20]:
That was when it all became quite real. So. And that was quite a few years in. So I had to really think about it a little bit differently then because we had a huge, huge overhead. So it was a bit more serious then.

Melody Moore [00:40:38]:
So you kind of almost stumbled into it really.

Lisa Smith [00:40:41]:
Yeah, absolutely. You know, it could have been anything. It could have. Whilst I was in Hong Kong, when I was working for a design company and that was a jewellery company, like a costume jewellery company. It could have been something like that. But I must have had a sense that food was the way to go, especially with farmers markets and that opportunity to sell. So that, that must, I must have sensed that, that that would be a good way to go.

Melody Moore [00:41:12]:
And what is it, do you think that’s kind of kept you, did you say 19 years? It’s been.

Lisa Smith [00:41:19]:
Yeah, yeah.

Melody Moore [00:41:20]:
Now what’s kept you going? What’s kept you interested? What is it to think about you.

Lisa Smith [00:41:27]:
That that’s meant Bloody mindedness, if I’m absolutely honest. Honestly, it really is because, and, and just not wanting to fail, which is, it’s a bit sad really. But, you know, I, I can’t give up, I can’t, I can’t. You know, I’ve had opportunities or occasions when I could have said, enough is enough. This is hard now, you know, we got, we were flooded, then I got cancer, then my daughter was really, really unwell for a couple of years and in hospital for two years, I could have said, okay, I can’t do, I can’t do all of this. And quite rightly so, you know, they would have been absolutely genuine reasons and very understandable, but not for me that, you know, I don’t know when would be enough for me to say, okay, you know, now is, is the time to stop doing this. I mean, I’m not at that. You know, I’m not there.

Lisa Smith [00:42:28]:
You know, there’s always another corner. There’s always another mountain to climb and something to achieve. And yeah, I mean, it is. Having your own business is a roller coaster. There are so many ups, so many downs, but I think you’ve got to be built of quite stern stuff to keep going. And maybe that’s what, you know, those women in my life have taught me. And, you know, that’s. That’s what keep.

Lisa Smith [00:42:59]:
That’s what keeps me going. You know, I have to say, I’m not. I. I know this is very much a business podcast, but I’m not a classic businesswoman. I just have determination to keep going. And if things are. I mean, particularly now, we’ve had. Economically, the climate has been really difficult and we’re not through it.

Lisa Smith [00:43:25]:
It’s still very, very difficult. And. But there’s another. Be another way of looking at that, another angle, another way of overcoming that. And I think that’s what keeps it a little bit fresh. And, you know, I don’t know, this is. This is particular to entrepreneurs or people who have their own businesses, but you’ve always got to keep looking for the next thing. How can you keep going? How can you.

Lisa Smith [00:43:56]:
Yeah, how can you support your staff? You know, there’s so many different elements to keep looking at when you’ve got a business, and there’s so many. You’ve got stat, all of those things in running a business. But I think that’s what drives me, that there’s always something to achieve.

Melody Moore [00:44:14]:
How you’d mentioned that about the. The next thing. What, you know, always looking at what’s the next thing. How do you. How do you keep abreast of what is coming and what do you do to kind of make sure you’re ahead of the game or surfing that wave or whatever show you want.

Lisa Smith [00:44:33]:
Yeah, I really, I mean, this is just one thing. I really love popular culture. I really love knowing what’s going on and hearing, listening, seeing whether it’s music, art, whatever, reading films. I. I’m interested in. In why things are done, what’s going on next. And that probably plays into the business as well. I just have that curiosity and that, you know, paired up with my inability to fail or to feel like I’m a failure.

Lisa Smith [00:45:23]:
It’s quite a driving force, I think so. And also actually feeding into that is, you know, food manufacturer cake making is a really common thing during lockdown. So many people started cake businesses from their Home kitchen. So if I’m going to stay ahead of the game, I’ve got to look at what other people are not doing and make sure I am doing it to stay ahead of the curve. I’ve got people to employ, I’ve got wages to pay, I’ve got reputation, you know, as well, which is a bit sad, but, you know, I don’t want to. I don’t want to let anyone down. So, yeah, so that. That keeps the engine ticking over, moving forward.

Melody Moore [00:46:07]:
What would you say is. Is current or upcoming, do you think, in the. Not necessarily just the cake worlds, but the sort of food beverage world. What trends are you noticing at the moment?

Lisa Smith [00:46:21]:
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I could just drill down into that quite specifically, but as a whole, I think we’ve all got to be conscious of what we put in our food. And sugar is huge. It has been for a few years. Sugar, fats, our diet and that. You know, it’s tricky when you’ve got a cake business, when you’re asking people to indulge and you’re asking people to, you know, eat things with. With perhaps ingredients that are not particularly good for them. So that is. We’ve got to be mindful, we’ve always got to keep that in our minds, that the way we, you know, that affects the way we market our products.

Lisa Smith [00:47:04]:
It’s not an everyday product, but it is. It does fit in quite nicely to our target audience, our target market, that they will not eat. We’re not expecting people to eat our cakes every day of the week, but we’ve got to keep an eye on our ingredients and what we’re putting into our products. So that’s really key and that will be going ahead. I can’t see that ever changing, nor should it, but I think as far as just more specifically thinking about flavour combinations and. And things like that, we try and use sweet and a bit sweet and savoury together, like adding salt, which I know is a very. Has been a very popular thing. Adding some herbs into some of our recipes, things like that just keep.

Lisa Smith [00:47:58]:
We’re a company that really likes to innovate. That can cause a bit of a conundrum because some of our customers, some of our wholesale customers, find it more difficult to take on our new ideas that we’re trying to promote to them. But this year particularly, we’ve gone down the route of having smaller batches of more frivolous ingredients added to our cakes. So, for example, our current smaller batch for October, we’ve done it seasonally, is so we’re talking in October at the moment is a chocolate and chestnut and smoked sea salt cake, which is, which is amazing. So we spend a lot of time developing those flavours and getting them to work together. But we’ve learned now that if we make things more smaller batches and for shorter periods of time, we have, we have a certain uptake on those products. But not everybody will want to take on products like that.

Melody Moore [00:49:10]:
Do you have some clients that are more adventurous than others?

Lisa Smith [00:49:14]:
Absolutely we do. Some will just take anything that we make. Whatever they’ll say, yeah, we’ll have whatever your next small batch bake is going to be. We’ll have however many of those we do. And then we have others who might just take a couple of items, but more of the traditional style like a plain chocolate brownie, because that’s their clientele. So, you know, we’ve got to think it’s not just about what we want to do. We’ve got to think of several people in this chain. It’s the people directly buying from us and then it’s their customers as well.

Melody Moore [00:49:47]:
Let’s talk about the final thing that’s on your list, which is your children. You’ve mentioned them a couple of times already, but tell me about how they’re influencing you.

Lisa Smith [00:50:01]:
Yeah, yeah, I suppose the biggest thing, I mean, I have a 26 year old and a 17 year old. The biggest thing, I think for me, and it may sound a bit morbid, I’m not sure, but through all the highs and lows of business, it can be really difficult to navigate. It can be quite overwhelming and it can be quite depressing and it can be quite. Having a big impact on your mental health and your motivation and your ability to get up in the morning. I’m not saying that I lie in bed not able to get up, but you know, there can be some really black clouds over my head sometimes when there’s huge bills to pay, when there’s, you know, the staff where, you know, all of those things part of being a business and, and they having children keeps me going because whenever I am feeling really overwhelmed with everything that can be going on, you know, I just remember them and I just think, okay, what, you know, I, I can’t, I’ve got to keep going. I’ve got to navigate a way through. I’ve got to make this work, it’s okay. Because I, they are there, they are dependent on me, I am their role model, I can do it.

Lisa Smith [00:51:25]:
So in, it’s in that way that they are really influential without them, you know, you know, having had so many ups and downs, I don’t know where I’d be. Because they, they are stability, they’re your responsibility. You’ve got to be there for them because, you know, as a parent, you want them to be well rounded, you want them to have successful lives. I don’t mean success monetary, but just emotionally successful, emotionally stable. So that helps me.

Melody Moore [00:52:04]:
Yeah, you just said the word success there. What does success mean to you?

Lisa Smith [00:52:13]:
Success, I suppose. And I’m probably not, you know, if I’ve thought about it, it sounds a bit vain, but people, people seeing that what you do is a good thing, that you’re there, that you’re kind, you’re honest and being kind to people and people knowing that you are kind, that’s success. So, Ginger Bakers, the business, it’s not about the bottom line, it never has been. I mean, we have to make money. I’ve got bills to pay, wages to pay and I mean, I’m not denying how nice it would be to have a huge bank balance, but that’s not what I’m in it for. It’s about doing a good job, making sure the people that are in the business have a good work life, balance that they have a happy work life. We have some volunteers that work at the business and when we were able to move into the much larger premises that were built after we were flooded, I had space and capacity to take on some people with additional needs, which really, I haven’t noticed that as one of the most significant moments, but actually it probably was as well that I was able to, at long last, it felt like, use some of my training with people with learning disability or we’ve got a couple of people right now who work with us each week and they come and they get experience of a real working environment. We are able to support them, but more importantly than that is what they give us.

Lisa Smith [00:54:13]:
So we all have to work alongside these young people and it makes us slow down, stop. It makes us, we have to. So they, they might be working alongside a team member and, you know, you’ve got to, you’ve got to communicate with them, you’ve got to explain, you’ve got to talk to them. You’ve got to, you’ve got to. You’re not just thinking about the job, you’re thinking about other people. And that was just like such a fantastic moment when I could do that and it’d be nice going forward if I could do more of that kind of thing. And, and I, I suppose I find it difficult to believe that businesses, all businesses don’t do that because the benefit it brings is enormous to the well being of the staff team, the kind of the, the diverse community it brings. It’s just really beneficial and it sounds really full circle.

Melody Moore [00:55:16]:
You know, you kind of, you’re bringing through still that, that passion you had for the art therapy, the art psychotherapy and helping people. You’re still doing that, that even though your business is something quite different.

Lisa Smith [00:55:32]:
It made it all, everything fitted into place. When we had this bigger space and we had to take on more staff, the overheads were bigger so the business had to grow so we had capacity to do it and it just all, it’s like, oh, wow, I can really do this now. So yeah, it, you know, I mean, I know why businesses, some businesses don’t do it, but it isn’t that difficult. And what it brings to your business and to those young people is fantastic.

Melody Moore [00:56:11]:
I’m going to ask you some of my regular questions that I ask my guests. So tell me what’s next for you for ginger bakers, what’s coming up?

Lisa Smith [00:56:23]:
Yeah, so I think I mentioned earlier that we’re in difficult economic times really. I know we have been for quite a number of years, but I think we’re now really feeling the knock on effect. I’m speaking that from my experience with a small business, minimum wage increases, potential tax increases, ingredients costs because of failing harvests, that’s had a huge impact. Chocolate, currently, butter’s been through it, sugar, they’ve all begun to have quite big knock on effects and I think we’re really feeling it quite acutely now. We had a pretty rotten summer in the UK this summer. Quite a lot of our business relies on tourism. But even if we are not supplying a cafe in a tourist area, people are still going to a cafe, having a piece of cake. When it’s sunny and lovely, people do it more.

Lisa Smith [00:57:34]:
When it’s wet and miserable and people are feeling a bit depressed about the weather, people do it less. So all of that has had an impact and I think now for us it’s about standing strong, going with that, looking at how we can ride that and come out of it successfully. I unfortunately think it’s not over. We’ve got a new government, we’ve got to see what they’re budget’s going to be at the end of this month. But yeah, I think we’re looking at how we can refine what we do, how we can sort of get through that period really. So that’s immediate Just to get us through to 2025. For me personally, what I am trying to do is build up the team so that I can, I wouldn’t say step back from the business, but have more opportunity to think about the business from above. And that’s what I really like to do.

Lisa Smith [00:58:44]:
You know, we did speak earlier about looking at trends and changes and culture, but that’s a really important thing if you want your business to keep moving forward. But you need time to do that. And I think also to perhaps work with people who are more disadvantaged than we are and get them involved in the business somehow to work out how we can do that and keep that momentum going as well. So, yeah, that’s what I’m thinking of for the future.

Melody Moore [00:59:16]:
And what advice would you give to your younger self?

Lisa Smith [00:59:21]:
Oh, gosh, yes, absolutely. And I, you know, being a woman in my 50s, you know, things start to fit into place and you get more confident and you kind of think, well, you know, this is me now. But back then I think I was really intimidated by people and I used to, you know, especially moving into an industry, the food industry, that I didn’t know a lot about, I think that I probably didn’t speak out loud enough. I didn’t value my opinion or value how I wanted to do things. And I probably didn’t recognise it either because I wasn’t confident enough to really think about myself as having a really important opinion and an important contribution. You recognise it later in life and you realise that you can do things and you can make a difference. But back then I probably didn’t. And so I would just really encourage younger people to own their opinions and, and, and form opinions really, because I think I didn’t allow myself to form opinions because I was so intimidated by people in business telling me what I should do, telling me what my bottom line should be.

Lisa Smith [01:00:43]:
Telling me that what’s your profit and loss? What’s your five year projection? All of that. And I just panicked and think, oh, I can’t, you know, but actually now, you know, I’ve been doing it nearly 19 years and that’s not what is the main driving force behind the business. And that’s okay, but I didn’t know it then.

Melody Moore [01:01:04]:
Do you know what it sounds like to me? And this might sound a bit sappy, but it feels like your business is much more about heart and soul than about profit and loss and, you know, yeah, projections and all of that.

Lisa Smith [01:01:17]:
I think it is. But it’s very difficult to own that, isn’t it? When you when you, when you’re not, when you’re not sure of your opinion because you’ve got people telling you it should be different. So yeah, I think you can speak up and you can own your own opinion. It’s okay. So yeah, that’s why I would be telling my younger self, what about books?

Melody Moore [01:01:45]:
Any books you would recommend or your thoughts on books?

Lisa Smith [01:01:49]:
That was just feeds into what I was saying a bit there about owning your opinion and you don’t have to read all those books that you people tell you should read. So going into business, have you read such and such about increasing your profits, about doing this, about doing that? Oh, I can recommend this to you. I, I have, you know, I’ve read things, I’ve, I’ve read across all genres, but that doesn’t matter. Just read things that excite you, that ignite a passion. It could be a Mills and Boon, it could be the latest Jimmy Cooper, whatever. Absolutely, absolutely does not matter. If that gives you ignites a passion, an interest, a desire, that’s, that’s fine. That’s exactly how it should be.

Melody Moore [01:02:42]:
Yeah, I agree. I think I read huge. I see people talking about, you know, you need to focus and really just, you know, don’t do these other things and don’t distract yourself. And I’m like, no, do distract yourself and read all sorts of different things because that’s how brilliant ideas come together is through lots of different, seemingly unrelated things coming together.

Lisa Smith [01:03:06]:
Absolutely, absolutely. And if you don’t finish a book, so what? I mean, I always think I’ve got a pile of half read books. But you know, it doesn’t. What, what does that matter? You know, you can dip in, dip out and you know, you know what’s right for you at the time. And that’s okay? Yes, it’s always okay.

Melody Moore [01:03:26]:
Yes.

Lisa Smith [01:03:27]:
Give up on something if it’s not right for you at that time.

Melody Moore [01:03:30]:
Yeah, I wrote a book and at the, the beginning of my book it says you don’t need to read all of this book. And that’s because I don’t finish books. And it says just pick up and find the bits that will be useful to you. Because I rarely read a full book, I’ve got to be honest. What about a title for your story?

Lisa Smith [01:03:53]:
It, oh gosh, it would have to be something along the lines of not giving up, something like that. I, I think that runs through certainly my business life. Yeah. That I’m not giving up yet. Throw whatever at me and I’ll find a way through it. It might be different but that’s okay. But to me, that won’t be giving up, that’s just change and being able to adapt. So, yeah, it’d be something along those lines.

Melody Moore [01:04:27]:
Lovely. And my final question is, if somebody wants to buy some of your delicious cakes, how do they find out where they can get them from? From.

Lisa Smith [01:04:37]:
Oh, so the easiest way is just Googling ginger bakers and. And hopefully we’ll come up, we’ll rank ginger bakers, cakes or website. But you’d find us. Excuse me. So you can buy direct. Direct from us, from our website. We. We also do supply a lot of cafes around and about, but sometimes you wouldn’t necessarily know it was arcade.

Lisa Smith [01:05:02]:
Yes, that’s okay. You know, cafes don’t have to tell their customers who’s made them. So the. The easiest way is directly on our website.

Melody Moore [01:05:13]:
Brilliant. Fabulous. Well, I just want to say that was so interesting. It’s made me hungry talking to you. But I’ve really, really loved our conversation. It’s been absolutely fascinating.

Lisa Smith [01:05:25]:
Oh, thank you. Thanks for the opportunity.

Melody Moore [01:05:28]:
Thank you so much. It was so lovely to chat to Lisa. I know her through association rather than knowing her directly, and it was so nice to be able to connect with her and just thoroughly enjoyed hearing her story and understanding the journey that she’s been on and exploring what it means to be a woman in business, to run a bakery and understand some of those challenges. And there was a few things that really stood out for me during the conversation. One was the significance of the several women in her family. You know, she comes from a very entrepreneurial family, but the significance of certain women in her family and the impact that’s had on her. And one that really stuck in my mind was her grandmother and the fact that she felt that her grandmother really listened to her and understood her and tried to understand her. And I’ve had a similar experience with one of my relatives, which is actually my godmother, who was the same age as my grandmother, and the power of having somebody who’s really interested in you and in your life and what you think and feel whilst you’re growing up is really powerful and makes you feel seen, which I think is incredibly important as you grow.

Melody Moore [01:07:05]:
The second thing was her resilience, really. And, you know, some of the stories she told about her cancer diagnosis and also the flooding that her business experienced. I have family up where Lisa lives and I know the time that her business flooded and it was significant for her and just her ability to bounce back. And I think that resilience that bloody mindedness as she calls it. You know, that ability to just get on with it and within a few days be back serving her customers. Because she was well aware that if she didn’t, then somebody else would and really linked to that. It’s not just about her personal resilience, but also the importance of the community. People around stepping in and offering support and having an amazing team, particularly when she had her cancer diagnosis, was having a fantastic team who could really work quite independently of her.

Melody Moore [01:08:08]:
And I think too many of us as leaders in both in large and small businesses, are not good at really delegating to our teams and really helping them be competent. I’m a great believer that you should make yourself dispensable in an organisation if you’re a leader, that you build your team to such an extent that they can. They can run without you and you’re just there. And we talk about this more towards the end, about Lisa trying to step back and really take that more strategic look at her business and look at the trends and make some decisions about where her business is going. But I also liked her cheekiness as well, that, you know, the fact that when the landlord, where they were, you know, looking, said, how can I help? And she asked them to build her a new bakery. You know, there’s that kind of. You don’t ask, you don’t get perspective coming through. The third thing was, and this really reflected from the conversation in the previous episode with John Parkin about being confident in what you have to offer.

Melody Moore [01:09:14]:
She is aware that their offer is not the cheapest and there’s lots of good reasons for that because of the quality that they put into their cakes, the quality ingredients and. And. But she’s very confident with that and she’s very honest and open about that and an awareness that these are a treat, they’re not for every day. And she touches on some of the challenges around people’s attitudes towards sugar, rightly so, and health. But, yeah, I really loved her clarity about what it was they had to offer and the confidence to not have that race to the bottom from a price perspective. The fourth thing was I was really interested in, and these days were, I think there’s a lot of, you know, of the hustle culture around, you know, set yourself big goals and it’s all about targets and create a business plan and. And her business grew organically. She.

Melody Moore [01:10:12]:
And I think this has been true for quite a few of the entrepreneurs that I’ve interviewed, that they kind of fell into things. You know, she started baking. She went to farmers markets and then people were interested in more of a wholesale side of her business. So, you know, she then evolved that and I thought there was just something really interesting about how her business has evolved. And it’s an organic way of building a business. Rather than a big rush to, you know, have a million pound business or a six figure business or a seven figure business, it’s about building a business that works for her and responding and reacting to the what her customers were asking her for. And the final thing which I really loved was the bringing together of different parts of her life. She’d been a psychotherapist, she’s worked with people with learning disabilities and actually having a business that’s large enough and the flexible to bring in people with learning disabilities into her business, giving them an opportunity to get some work experience, but also recognising the amazing benefits that that brings to her and her team and to her customers as well.

Melody Moore [01:11:30]:
I really love that kind of full circle moment really of how she’s been able to bring together different aspects of her her life. Next week my guest is Jenny Clark. Now, Jenny is another really interesting entrepreneur, interesting woman. She runs a business called the Wild Times and it’s a nature focused yoga and adventure retreats business and we explore all things entrepreneurship, being a digital nomad, what it’s like to run retreats and why that is both fascinating and wonderful and also a challenge. So, yeah, tune in next week. I’m really excited for you to hear Jenny’s story. This podcast is brought to you by Liberare Consulting. If you enjoyed today’s show, why not click on the subscribe button so you are among the first to hear about new episodes.

Melody Moore [01:12:29]:
And we would love for you to do us a favour and click on the share button and share this episode with one of your friends.