The Flower Deli’s first anniversary
Published: 31st Jul 2017
The Flower Deli has turned one year old! It feels fabulous to have reached this big milestone with a brand new business, to have survived and to have met some wonderful people along the way. Here are some of the high points of the past twelve (ish) months.
My first customer
I have to give a special shout out to my first customers as they were so kind and encouraging to me - The Alley Cafe in Nottingham. I supplied weekly punnets of edible flowers for their cakes and drinks in the summer to the end of the season last year. I loved my Friday morning deliveries to them, popping in for a chat and a catch up, such a lovely team.
Their positivity gave me the confidence in my edible flowers to approach other food professionals and by the end of the 2016 season I'd made more contacts for the new year and things were taking off locally.
Oh You Pretty Things photo shoot
Early in the 2017 season I was invited by wedding cake designer and baker, Natasha from The Sweet Stuff to provide edible flowers for a cake she was making for a styled wedding photo shoot. I was thrilled! This was completely new territory for me and I admired Natasha's work a lot so I was keen to collaborate with her.
The photo shoot was featured in the popular wedding blog Whimsical Wonderland Weddings.
See more about the photo shoot here. Photo credit Becky Ryan.
Nottingham Food Assembly and being on TV
In early May I went along to the Nottingham Food Assembly taster session with my goods. This was so much fun! I took samples of various different edible flowers for visitors to try and take home in little bags. Everyone was really interested and open to giving them a taste.
To top it all off, the BBC were there filming for a local news feature and my flowers got their two seconds of fame haha!
Opening my online shop
First of all, a big high five to anyone who runs an online business selling and shipping delicate food items. There's so much to think about and none of it is as much fun as growing beautiful flowers and getting to eat customers' cakes. From the outside this might seem like a small thing but honestly, being able to sell my flowers around the UK and for it to all work smoothly does take a lot of input and it is one of the things I'm most proud of from the past year
Claire Elizabeth's cake decorating video
The lovely Claire Elizabeth who runs a bakery here in Nottingham made a gorgeous video on how to decorate a cake using our edible flowers. I was smiling ear-to-ear when I watched this.
Follow Claire on Instagram and watch her baking tutorial videos on YouTube too.
Cakes that makes you say 'wow'!
Most recently I was super happy to see not one, but two of my customer's cakes decorated with our edible flowers listed in the Nottingham Post's feature 'Nine Nottingham wedding cakes to make you say 'wow'...'.
Yummy Little Cakes petal confetti cake and that gorgeous retro wedding cake by The Sweet Stuff.
Photo credit - Yummy Little Cakes
Getting through the year and meeting amazing people
As anyone who does it knows, running a business is hard work and its much more than just a job. Aside from the love of what you do - in my case growing beautiful edible flowers and then seeing them being used in stunning ways to help celebrate special occasions - its the lovely folks you meet that make it all so worth it. So, thank you everyone who bought edible flowers from me in the past year, thank you for the photos, Tweets and Insta posts that help spread the word. Thank you for the advice and business chats and for the giggles. Here's to many more!
Lots of love, Vic x