About us - and our founder Lise Madsen
My name is Lise Madsen, originally from Denmark, but living and working in London since 1994. I am the proud founder and managing director of Honeyrose Bakery, an organic wholesale bakery based in the Park Royal industrial estate in North London. We are growing so quickly that I sometimes forget to look back at what we have achieved, so thanks for giving me the chance to do so now for you.
I suppose my story starts where my life began, in the wholesome Danish countryside. I could open our front door and in two hops over my mother's organic vegetable and fruit garden be straight into the fir forests which went for a couple of miles, directly to the sea. One of my first jobs was at a seaside hotel where I managed to convince them, at 15, to let me make desserts in their kitchens. That blossomed my love for fine baking and I decided that was the life for me. I did a bit of research, found Paris to be the capital of pastry, and Gaston Lenotre the king. So at 18, after my baccalaureate, I boarded a train for Paris to join the Ecole Lenotre where I did my apprenticeship as pastry chef and then moved into project management in their catering and food business. I worked there for 5 years and learnt that pure, unadulterated baking craft skills can happily survive in a business employing 1050 people. With that experience in my pocket I made my way to London and continued working in food and food management.
My early dream had been to eventually open a fine pastry cafe, like the ones in Paris, back in Copenhagen. I was working 15 hour days, and though I love to work, I decided that if I was going to work that hard, it may as well be to follow my own dreams. So the summer of 2000 I quit my job, and for 2 months locked myself at home in my small apartment, refining recipes in my tiny kitchen, only venturing out to exploit my friends as volunteer tasters :-). When I felt I had nailed the perfect fudge brownie, the most delectable oat & raisin cookie, and a few others, I spent another couple of months putting together a business plan, again with lots of input and great feedback from friends and past employers that encouraged me to strike out on my own. With that done, I used my flat as collateral to raise funds, had some friends and past employers (again, key to those out there reading this) that believed in me to join me in investing in the startup, and away we went.
I started small with one oven, a small baking mixer and a short lease. I did my own product development, production, sales, and deliveries - all on my blue Vespa, zipping around London. Slowly I added key staff and expanded as our cashflow improved. Over the last 3 years we have expanded our facility space 400%, employ a great team of people, and have our own delivery (lpg) van. One big customer (one of the UK's largest independent coffee shop chain) found us, believed in us and stuck with us as we grew, and we have formed a great partnership. We have proudly been the only organic handbaked product at Ascot and the Chelsea Flower Show (3 years running), at a couple of palaces, at the Tate Modern museum, and scores of small coffee shops and businesses that want tasty, fresh, quality organic treats. We proudly serve both our smaller customers that have independent coffee, tea or deli shops across the UK, as well as larger customers that appreciate quality, like Waitrose, Ocado, and Sainsbury's, as well as our foodservice and wholesale partners.
What sets our products apart ? Great question...luckily, our customers are quick to tell us: we simply taste great. We have won 12 Great Taste Awards (including a coveted 2-Star Gold Award), and commendations from the Soil Association Organic Food Awards, as well as the FreeFrom Awards. On top of that, we are, and always will be, organic. Sometimes I would like those two facts reversed in our customer's minds, but we are not complaining :-) As the owner, I have the luxury and responsibility of deciding how and with whom we will - and will not, to be frank - work with, and I think that also gives us an edge. One thing we have been privileged to be involved with is starting up the Yellow Flower Foundation. We put 5% of our profits into it each year. Our first project was to fund the building of a day care centre in the Philippines, which is happily now up and running as of June 2007, benefiting 150 children and their parents throughout each school year. We have also donated a peanut sheller to a fairtrade farmers organization in Malawi, and are focusing now on a microfinance project in the Congo. We won't change the world, but we will try to help make bits of it better if we can.
Our company received the Green Mark award for following environmentally friendly business practices in 2006 and 2007. In 2008 we won "Green Business of the Year" award for how we manufacture and our work practices. That was the same year we bought and refurbished an old cement casting factory by a canal in northwest London that now has been lovingly converted into a lovely, bespoke, Green bakery, with organic mineral paint on the walls (no VOCs !), lots of natural light (see the picture below, no flash or other lighting was needed for that picture in our bakery), solar panels on the roof and apple trees in the front.
2008 was also the year that we were proudly nominated as a finalist for the "Bakery Food Manufacturer of the Year" award, which is a big deal in our business. In 2009 we took our quality focus a step further and were accredited BRC Grade A, which is a much sought-after quality accreditation in the food manufacturing business. 2010 marks our 10th year anniversary since we started, and we have lots of plans to make more great cakes, and get more people to try us and hopefully fall a bit in love with Honeyrose. You have my word that we will always put quality first, and always be led by our values as our guide.
Many thanks for visiting our site. If we are new to you, we hope you will like what you taste and see. For returning friends, thanks for your continuing support,
All our best,
Lise
