'I turned a lockdown hobby into my own business'

"It started as a lockdown hobby when I was pregnant, I was craving sugar. I started baking, posting photos on Facebook and people were just going mad for it."

Abi Smith started out as a home baker during the pandemic, delivering cakes to people's doorsteps fully masked up and wearing protective gloves.

Now, she has transformed her pregnancy craving and lockdown baking into her own business, and has taken it a step further by opening a stall at Oswestry Market.

Called Bake Baby, Smith sells cakes and desserts like "school cake", cornflake tarts and deep filled cookie pies, as well as food prep bowls - a part of the business she calls Buff Box Meal Prep.

However, it was not a straightforward route, as Smith took a break from the business after lockdown and returned to her job at Costa Coffee, due to the precarity of the work.

"When you're just a home baker it's not the most secure job, because one week you'll get loads of orders and the next week you won't get any," she told BBC Radio Shropshire.

"So when you have kids - I've got two now - you just want that security."

But Smith returned to Bake Baby and is now celebrating moving into Oswestry Market, a place she said she'd always wanted have a spot at.

"I'd say most business owners' dream is to have a premises and I just feel like businesses don't get enough help for that, with business rates, all the bills," she said.

"You have to make sure you're getting that custom in and I just feel unless you're viral on social media you're not gonna get that custom in forever."

She has transformed the formerly grey stall by "jazzing" it up, by including lots of the colour pink.

Smith's prowess in the kitchen extends right back to her childhood.

"I've been baking since I was a kid really. Dad says I used to just chuck stuff together without scales in the kitchen," she said.

"I just come in with muffins and stuff and they'd taste them and they'd be good - I don't remember any of this."

And while plenty of sweet treats are on the menu, a big aspect of the business is healthier options for people conscious about the macronutrients of what they eat.

Smith said: "I always struggle to eat in town. Not that I'm fussy, I like to know what's going in my body and none of them put the macros on the menu.

"All my menus have the macros: the calories, the protein, the carbs, the fat.

"Everything on the menu is what I eat every week, so I've literally created a menu of what I like to eat and hopefully people like to eat it too."

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