A Yorkshire entrepreneur, who began a £500 start-up in his mum's spare bedroom, plans to sell to big UK retailers this year.
George Welton, 31, who lives in Moortown, Leeds, set up Brown & Blond Make Brownies 13 years ago, when he was just 18-year-old living in his mum's house in York and it has been running ever since.
The company sells to wholesalers across the country with huge plans to launch into supermarket chains this summer. They are also well known for their delicious sweet treats at food markets across the UK - they also sell online.
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In 2016 George moved from his mum's house to Ripon, where his business continued to strive, and in 2021 he bought the bakery in Morley which he is still in today. George spent one year kitting out, what was an old joiners shop, into a three-floor bakery for production.
George started as a pastry chef training in Harrogate working as a pastry chef and he trialled his brownie business at the time when an 'opportunity' rose for him. He says he started out in his mum's spare bedroom from scratch with £500 and says its been going ever since. The company is now worth £503,000.
George, who has two children, ages 2 and 12, told LeedsLive: "We go all over the country as a wholesale business now, we sell to cafes and delis, restaurants and distributors - we also supply Leeds University and Kings College in London.
"We still do loads of markets and fairs across the country and my sister heads up and does more of the retail stuff. We're in Bramham soon and will be at the Yorkshire Show. The retail stuff is great for us, we do lots of online sales but people like to come and see us physically, it's nice to see people's faces.
"We've gained a really loyal customer base all over the north - mainly round Leeds, West and North Yorkshire and a good strong following too."
George runs his business with the help of his wife and sister, and has also been lucky enough to have his parents involved over the years - however now they are on grandchildren duties and he employs 13 members of staff for his production team.
He added: "It does feel good to see how far you have come, but when you are in the mix of it you just take every day as it comes. It's such a learning curve especially where we are now. We are wanting to get accreditation to supply bigger food networks. We're ploughing forward all the time, you forget where it all started from.
"We have some really exciting stuff in the pipeline too with some bigger distributions to push us nationally and we launched a prepacked range which we're aiming to push this year, it will be shelf ready that will go into local supermarkets."
Brown & Blond saw an unbelievable demand during Covid for their online order. George says he has "never seen anything like it". He said: "Lots of our wholesaler accounts closed and we have to furlough our staff but quickly got them all back for online orders.
"We usually get a couple hundred of orders but in Covid thousands came through, we didn't have capacity to keep up with the demand for it - now it's back to business as usual although it is still better than it was pre-Covid.
"Strangely the cost of living has helped too, especially with the markets because people aren't spending as much money going out for dinner, they are looking for cheap alternatives by going to markets and food events with families instead. People want to spend money but not as much as we used to, they can go out and get local food at produce events."
You can visit Brown & Blond Makes Brownies' website here, or check out their Instagram.
To find out the latest food and drink news from our city you can visit our Best in Leeds homepage. There you will also find a guide to great things to do in Leeds.
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