Pippa Pop is a funky Baker who loves to ice biscuits. She is the small business owner behind our fabulous and funky Easter biscuits. From a small kitchen to a small factory employing just under 20 people and growing. Popcakes bring you delicious Easter treats for the whole family.
Have you seen The Hoppery collection in Food Lover’s Market stores? Part of our beautiful Hoppery collection is delicious made iced cookies that are made locally. Just one more way that Food Lover’s Market supports growing local businesses.
The Hoppery Pop Cakes:
Pippa Pop looks to offer edutainment to kids all over. She loves technology and loves making people smile by sharing her biscuit videos. She shares her story and teaches you how to ice biscuits in her entertaining YouTube videos: Pippa Pop on YouTube
What is the Pop Cakes story (where did you start and where are you now)?
Popcakes started in my home kitchen in 2014, a little by accident. My background is in IT and business systems, and I was between contracts and decided to make cake pops for the school Christmas Market. I was astounded by the response, and my business brain recognised that this could be something bigger – and the journey began. Initially, the business focused on supplying individuals with party cakes, cake pops and iced biscuits. But even in those early days, I envisioned a factory, a production line, creating jobs, and building a business that was different from the rest.
In 2017 I started supplying some local retailers, and my business continued to grow. We now occupy a small factory, employ 17 people, and are still growing!
What kind of products do you offer, and what makes them unique?
Over the years, and with many trials and developments, we have mastered the creation of the iced biscuit. All our biscuits are hand decorated. We have also created a brand called Pippa Pop which has its own YouTube channel where kids can watch how to ice biscuits. The Pippa Pop icing kit has also become a really good product in the market with various themes throughout the year. We were one of the leaders in Popcake creation in South Africa, and even now, there are not many bakeries that are getting it right in bulk!
Tell us about your team.
We are a fun-loving, hardworking family! Our core production team consists of 10 people – and then we have a driver, some admin and sales staff.
When we do large projects, like the Easter biscuits for FLM (phew!), we bring in casual workers and love it! The vibe in the kitchen is just amazing!
This is a photo of the team taken during the FLM project. We had Team T-Shirt day!
Tell us more about your Easter-specific products at Food Lover’s Market
The Food Lover’s Market Easter range is beautiful. There are delicious little Bunny Tails, which are round biscuits iced with pink or white icing and sprinkled with coconut and little sprinkles, Egg and Chick packs which are delightfully decorated coloured egg-shaped biscuits and little chicken biscuits. We have also made a box of assorted Easter egg biscuits and a big bunny biscuit. And then there are individually wrapped biscuits of all the Easter shapes, cute bunnies, big bunnies, eggs, bunny faces, bunnies with waistcoats and bunnies with fluffy tails! And then last but not least, there is an Ice Your Own kit with an egg-shaped biscuit, some icing and sprinkles for the kids to be creative and then enjoy eating their creations!
How does your product complement the Food Lover’s Market environment?
We offer a good product at a good price, for people who love all things food! Fits perfectly in the Food Lover’s Market environment!
How easy (or challenging) was getting your products into FLM stores?
Let’s say it was neither easy nor challenging! I pitched my products 12 months before I was even considered. And it was a good thing! Because in those 12 months between pitches, we redesigned, refined and repackaged our offering.
The second time I pitched (a year after the first pitch), I knew I had a product that would fit well with FLM. We started with small orders and the orders have grown each season. And we are still refining, redesigning and repackaging! Never a boring moment!