The date was 26th March 2016. The boot of a car was packed to the brim. Two women were running on nervous energy and big hopes for the day. And somewhere between loading the boot, setting up the stall, and returning home later that day, something quietly special began.
We drove to Kirkstall Deli Market that morning. To sell our wares to the public for the very first time. Not knowing we were taking the first step of a ten-year journey! At that time, all we knew was that we wanted to share something we loved. Sweet treats rooted in the flavours of our home countries (Germany and the Netherlands), a little Germanic warmth baked into every bite. Our strapline back then? "Germanic treats." It was humble, honest, and completely us.
Ten years on, we won't pretend that where we are now is what we imagined. It is so much more! Not in the way the business world typically measures "more" - there's no Tesco shelf with our name on it, no Waitrose listing, no factory looming off the motorway. And that is by design.
What we have built is harder to put on a pitch deck, but far easier to feel. We built an expression of hope. A quiet insistence that small things carry real value in a world that shouts, constantly and exhaustingly, that only big matters. We built a business around a belief that kindness is not soft; it is a strategy. That making someone feel seen and appreciated is never a small act.
We started as Bloom Bakers, a name that carried us through the first seven years of finding our feet, our voice, and our people. Then, in 2023, came the moment that felt like the culmination of all our previous work: we became The Biskery. That rebrand was not just a new name. It was a declaration of exactly who we are and what we are here to do.
The Shift That Changed Everything
The last five years in particular have been when we really found ourselves as business owners.
As mums, as people who genuinely want to leave the world a little better than we found it, we stopped shrinking ourselves and our values to fit a business mould and started letting our values be the business. Our mission to make ten million people feel appreciated is not a marketing line. It is the reason we show up every single day.
The people around us feel it too. Our extended team, our customers, and the recipients of our gifted Gratitudesday biscuits every Tuesday. They all reflect the same warmth we try to pour in. That is not an accident. That is ten years of intentional, value-led building.
Gratitude Is the Word
If we had to name the feeling of standing here at this ten-year mark, it would not be pride, though there is plenty of that. It would not be relief, though there have been moments that deserved it. The feeling that sits most permanently in our chest is gratitude.
Gratitude for the strength, relief, support we have given each other as co-founders. Gratitude for customers who chose us, again and again, when they could have chosen others. Gratitude for the version of work we get to do, which is genuinely, joyfully built around life rather than at the expense of it.
Ten years. What an absolute privilege.
Here is to the next ten, and to every meaningful and utterly worthwhile thing we have yet to bake into the world.
