What selling 4000 Dessert Jars Taught Me About Building Demand Before Scaling
By SPARK CEO Hub Member Hayley Ross, Founder of Petal and Crumb.
Petal & Crumb didn’t begin simply because I wanted to start another food business. It grew from one of the most challenging and difficult chapters of my life.
Finding purpose after a difficult chapter
After carrying a baby for my friends as a gestational surrogate, when I was mearly weeks postpartum the relationship I had with my friends unexpectedly broke down. I found myself navigating grief, trauma, post partum without access to a baby I carried, and the loss of a relationship that had once meant the world to me.
It also opened my eyes to how easily women can fall through the cracks.
There are lots of different supports available to women for many different scenarios, but some situations don’t fit neatly into a particular category, some situations aren’t as recognised. Women experiencing complicated scenarios that often aren’t spoken about, or that maybe only those closest to her know about. Some situations can have women can be surrounded by people yet feel totally unseen.
During that hard period, I needed something that helped me reconnect with myself and the person I used to be. As a qualified chef and Home Economics teacher, Food has always been a big part of who I am, It is my love language.
Petal & Crumb grew from the belief that food can offer more than nourishment. A beautiful dessert, a free coffee or a care package can really help in those difficult moments.
That became the heart of my business, helping bring joyful experiences while finding practical ways to support women going through difficult seasons.
Petal & Crumb creates restaurant style desserts in jars, combining multiple different layers, elements and textures. Since re-launching just 3 months ago I have sold more than 4000 jars. I also won a runner up award for emerging small business of the year, and have recieved unsolicited wholesale enquires from cafes.
Demand has quickly grown faster than our capacity to product - and it has taught me some very valuable lessons.
1. Make your product easy to understand.
People often hear ‘dessert jar’ and see photos of the desserts and assume that we are ‘just cake’. Our desserts are much closer to layered tiramisu meets cheesecake. We are the first person in our area to sell desserts like this.
When your product is new, or isn’t well known, you need to explain the experience, not only list what it contains.
The clearer I became about what made our desserts different, the more customers understood their value and wanted to try them. If people repeatedly misunderstand your product, the product may not be the problem - your message may simply need refining.
2. Let customer behaviour guide you.
Markets, pop-ups, and limited releases allowed me to test my dessert flavours without immediately committing to a shopfront or large scale production.
They showed me which flavours sold best, what customers returned for, and what people told their friends about. It also made me realise that everything doesn’t have to be perfect for you to start, if your product is good the customers will come.
The most valuable feedback isn’t always found in a survey or given verbally. It can be the customer who returns the following week, the product that consistently sells out, or the cafe owner who reaches out to you asking if you can do wholesale.
Compliments are amazing, but paying close attention to actions pays off.
3. Demand and capacity are not the same thing.
When cafes starting approaching us to do wholesale, as a yes girl my instinct was of course to say yes. But producing hundreds of additional jars requires more than extra ingredients and would be impossible for me to keep up in my small food trailer. It requires large scale equipment, tested shelf life and systems that product quality.
Before accepting large opportunities, calculate what it will truely require. Growing too quickly without the right foundations can damage your finances, your product and the trust you’ve worked hard to build. Not to mention the burn out you will potentially experience from trying to do it all at once.
Sometimes preparing properly by building a solid foundation before saying yes is the best form of growth. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day!
4. People remember the heart of a business.
A great product may attract attention, but a genuine purpose and reason for doing what you do helps people connect and want to support the business.
Petal & Crumb’s purpose influences the care packages we give, the charities we support and the decisions we make as we grow.
Purpose shouldn’t be a marketing performance. It should be reflected in what your business actually does - even with small, consistent actions behind the scenes. People talk and quiet actions can be quite powerful.
My business is still young and it is still growing, I am still learning every day. But selling more than 4000 dessert jars has shown me that an idea doesn’t need perfect conditions to begin.
Start with something small, something you believe in, place it in front of real customers and give it the opportunity to prove itself.
