Nothing quite says Easter like a giant cookie bowl stuffed with Creme Egg, Kinder Bueno and Mini Eggs does it? These are the sweet treats that have sparked queues at the Batch'd bakery stalls inside Manchester Arndale and will open this week at the Trafford Centre too.
The rapidly-burgeoning cake business promotes the wares of only small-batch bakeries across the north. And it has put on a jaw-dropping range of Easter specials this month, which also includes Creme Egg clad doughnuts, Mini Egg brownies and blondies and towering Kinder Bueno cookie pies.
The vast cookie bowls, created by the 42nd East Bakehouse, are intended to be shared, hence the rather hefty price tag of £12. But they do come with about a week's worth of sweet treats stuffed in top including Kinder Bueno slices, a mountain of cookie dough, Mini Eggs, white chocolate slabs and halves of Cadbury Creme Eggs.
Read more : Things to do with the family this Easter 2022 across Manchester
Batch'd has been so popular since launching last year on the upper mall in the Arndale Centre that bosses are already planning to open a SECOND site on the ground floor of the mall later this month. It will open opposite Superdry and Costa in the Arndale from April 25.
And from tomorrow, Tuesday, April 12, shoppers at the Trafford Centre will also be able to get their hands on the vast range of Batch'd baked goodies. Treats start in price from £3 for cookies and include a raft of baked products from the likes of Saddleworth Brownies, Brownie Box from Bradford and Dough Boy's massive doughnuts from Castleford.
Batch'd will open on the upper mall at the Trafford Centre on the bridge next to Ted Baker from 9am on Tuesday. And there are already plans for a second site there too by the summer such has been the interest.
Incredibly, the business was only launched last year by company owner David Richmond, after his airport taxi business was brought to a virtual halt by the successive coronavirus lockdowns. Looking to diversify, he and colleague Harry Clavane initially started a business doing fresh grocery deliveries instead.
But when they took a load of locally-produced cakes, doughnuts and brownies to a Yorkshire food fair in May 2021, they couldn't believe the interest with visitors flocking to buy. And David immediately spotted the potential to focus specifically on the sweet treat side, and Batch'd was born.
They opened their first kiosk in Leeds at the White Rose Shopping Centre in July 2021, and have never stopped expanding since. All the cakes they sell are from small, artisan bakeries and home bakers from across Yorkshire and Manchester, which are taken out each morning at the crack of dawn to the 13 current shopping centre locations they serve.
It has been such a success that from a standing start, David says they are on course for a turnover this financial year of a monster £7.2million. With the cakes side doing so well, David sold his Arrow Taxi business to concentrate on Batch'd instead.
David, 58, says: "For a business born out of lockdown, it's just going amazing. We have 13 kiosks at the moment, are aiming for 22 by end of June, and 40 by the end of the year across the country.
"Everybody loves what we do, the concept, the variety, and the unique selling point of it being local, artisan producers. There are loads of great cookie shops that sell cookies, loads of great doughnut shops that sell doughnuts, loads of great brownie shops that sell brownies, but we've got the biggest range of all of those all under one roof."
"Our suppliers are small-batch local producers, a big company for us is one with eight staff. So our stuff is absolutely unique, it's not factory produced, a lot of it is made in people's kitchens or in small bakeries and people absolutely love it.
"The product ranges change almost weekly so it's a constantly fresh thing and people queue and queue for it. You can really see that with the Easter range it is phenomenal, it really has caught the imagination."
David's pals in the taxi world can't quite believe he's given it all up for cakes. But he doesn't regret it for a moment.
He says: "It's such a lovely business because people are so happy when they're buying it. We've got 70 staff now and by next year it will be up to 150, and it literally started from zero - now we've turned over £10million on cakes.
"Some of my old mates said what are you doing selling doughnuts? But this is a proper, proper business we've developed from nowhere. It's absolutely unbelievable really, but all true!"
For David and his team now the next step is taking the business to even more shopping centres and eventually high streets too.
"The potential of it is absolutely huge. Manchester, and the surrounding areas, we are looking to have a dozen Batch'd.
"It will not only be shopping centres, we're looking at high street shops and dessert parlours. Then we're also looking to open in Milton Keynes and on to London eventually."
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