GRAHAM Baker made the major career move from banking to biscuits when he and wife Carol bought For the Coffee Table in 2005.
Six years on, the Bakers have doubled staff numbers at the business from eight to 16, in the process becoming one of the largest producers of handmade, preservative-free biscuits in Perth.
For the Coffee Table supplies its products to some of Perth’s major hotels, the Perth Convention Exhibition Centre, and dozens of cafes and businesses, ranging from law and accounting firms to hairdressers.
During the past couple of years, the Bakers have also expanded the retail presence of the business, which now sells its products in more than 20 IGA stores around Perth, and from the storefront of its Floreat premises.
Mrs Baker, who was working part-time in the business as a cook in 2004, said she was excited when the previous owners indicated they wanted to sell the business.
“Working here, I could really see the business growing,” she said.
“The couple who owned it weren’t really doing any marketing and because they were retiring they didn’t really want to increase the size of the business, so I guess we could see the potential there.”
Mr Baker said he always wanted to have his own business and jumped at the opportunity.
“I spent my life advising people how to run their businesses, but that was all theory and I had never run a business myself,” he said.
“At the end of the day, you can see you’ve made comforting, wholesome products that everybody loves, and that’s rewarding.”
Seeing the lack of an existing marketing strategy when they bought the business, Mr Baker embarked on creating a website to better promote the company’s products.
More recently, they set up a Facebook page for the business, and are about to create an online ordering system for retail customers.
“It’s important that we keep up to speed with what’s happening online,” Mr Baker said.
“If we are going to sell our products online, Facebook is just another arm to that and you can be a bit more informal in promoting what you do.”
Mrs Baker said a slight decline in retail sales over the past year, and requests from overseas customers for biscuits, prompted the development of the online shop.
“Instead of people buying flowers or wine, it’s a nice alternative and it can be delivered to people’s doors and overseas,” she said.
“We had one lady who lives in London who said she missed our biscuits, so we posted them to her; we thought that this could be another way to grow the business that could be done without too much stress.”
With their customer base growing, the Bakers decided to change their staff recruitment strategy to deal with the increasing demand for their products.
Originally employing only ‘home cooks’ in the kitchen, they decided to recruit professional pastry chefs; a strategy they said had worked well.
“The chefs brought a more professional approach and have great attention to detail; they find their way around the kitchen a lot easier and don’t require a whole lot of direction,” Mr Baker said.
Mrs Baker, who initially remained working as one of the part-time cooks, said having professional kitchen staff had allowed her to focus on other elements of the business.
“The head chef has taken over in the kitchen and has released me from there and that has been fantastic,” she said.
“So I’ve started to help Graham with the bookwork, as well as with other office jobs that I wouldn’t have had time to dedicate myself to previously.”
Despite the GFC, Mr Baker said For the Coffee Table had maintained an increase in turnover of 10 to 15 per cent year on year.
While he said there was potential for faster growth within the business, he decided to maintain a steady growth strategy.
“We probably could have grown quicker, but the issue for us is maintaining quality,” Mr Baker told WA Business News.
“At the end of the day, that’s far more important than profitability, because it’s all handmade, the quality element is something you have to be so careful with.”
Mr Baker said a combination of putting on qualified chefs and careful consideration when buying ingredients increased productivity and allowed the business to remain profitable.
“We buy carefully but we always buy the best ingredients, so that’s an area in which we haven’t compromised,” he said.
“We have good staff that have been with us for years, we are an efficient workforce and we’ve found that staff are much more productive if people aren’t coming and going all the time.”