Tuesday the 9th of August 2016 was a big day for us Bloom Bakers. When I went to buy the paper that morning, I could not help but mumble an “Oh my God” when I saw our faces in the Yorkshire Evening Post. On the front page of the Yorkshire Evening Post.
We were on the front page of the YEP
Us Bloom Bakers on the front page of the Yorkshire Evening Post
How it came to pass
How did that happen? A front page on Leeds’ biggest newspaper, how did we manage that you might ask!?
Well, it all began with the posting of a little parcel full of biscuits to Catherine Scott, a food editor at the YEP. “We might get a mention or Tweet out of it”, we thought to ourselves.
About two weeks later we received a phone call from Neil Hudson, YEP assistant features editor. They had tried and liked our biscuits. In fact, they had liked our biscuits so much they wanted to write a story about us.
The interview
About a week later, Neil came to my house for the interview. Saskia and I talked to him about us, about how we met, about the creation of Bloom Bakers, about our origins, our families, our products, our hopes and dreams for the future of Bloom Bakers. Neil was lovely and it was very easy talking to him. Then Tony Johnson, a YEP photographer turned up to take some shots of us and our products. Man our biscuits have never looked sexier!
That was when the word “feature” was first mentioned”. And “spread”. “This might result in quite a big thing”, we thought to ourselves.
We were so buzzing that night we could hardly concentrate on baking for the upcoming market. As we couldn’t believe that the Yorkshire Evening Post had just been to see us to talk about Bloom Bakers.
Publication day
We were told to watch out for the interview in the paper on August 9th. “We might actually make it into the Yorkshire Evening Post”, we thought to ourselves, still doubtful.
About a week later Neil emailed us again. He told us that we would be in the paper on August 9th as promised and in the online version of the Yorkshire Evening Post on the same day. “This might actually be real”, we thought to ourselves.
Then on the evening of August 8th we discovered the article was live. We dropped everything to read it. And we loved it! Neil had written up a lovely article about us and about what Bloom Bakers is about. If you have’t read it yet, have a read here.
Full spread and on the front page
So the next morning I headed out to buy the print version. I expected us to be in it, but not ON it. I walked up to the check out at my local newsagent’s when I saw Saskia’s and my face on the front cover. “Oh my God!” (I actually said that out loud). The poor lad in the newsagent’s was worried about me for a second. I just could not believe it. There we were, on the front page of Leeds’ biggest newspaper. Some 8 months after setting up Bloom Bakers.
I messaged Saskia who was currently in Amsterdam about the fact that we were on the front page, but received a luke warm reaction. About ten minutes later she called me up screaming through the phone saying “OMG Lisa this is amazing!! We are on the front page of the actual newspaper. I’m sorry I just didn’t understand”. Basically she didn’t understand that the front page actually meant front page of the actual newspaper. Above the fold even!! She thought we had a link to our article on the online version of the newspaper. I don’t blame her, it is still pretty incredible 🙂
And this is the moral of the story. When you do something you love and you believe in, great things happen and anything is possible. We are incredibly proud and very thankful for this amazing feature.
There was more though…
As it turned out, this wasn’t all for that day.
On the drive home from my day job I decided to turn on the radio, something I very rarely do. I decided to listen to BBC Radio Leeds, something I hardly ever do. My commute is about 15 minutes long, just long enough to catch Gayle Lofthouse talk to Aisha Iqbal from the Yorkshire Evening Post talk about today’s news, aka talk ABOUT US!!
You can still listen to our feature being mentioned on BBC Radio Leeds here.
What a day it was!
We are excited to see where this amazing journey takes us next!
