Biscuiteers founder Harriet Hastings has baked herself a multi-million-pound high-end biscuit empire. She reflects on how she built her business and how it plans to deal with historic lows in consumer confidence and rampant inflation
Hastings started selling high-end gifting biscuits online in 2007 and now employs more than 150 people who deliver 3 million hand-iced biscuits to shoppers in the UK and beyond every year.
October marked Biscuiteers’ 15th year of operation and the business is expected to turn over £11.5m this year – up from £10m in 2021.
“It has taken years and an awful lot of money to get to the point we’re at now,” Hastings says.
To mark the occasion, founder Harriet Hastings spoke to Retail Week about navigating inflation, cheap imitations and how she plans to make the most of another looming recession.
How are you feeling about going into Christmas given the current economic climate?
“I’d say we were cautiously confident about where we sit. For us, it’s important that we lean into our strengths and we are at the more affluent end of the market, which does protect us to some extent. I think there’s a wider concern about customer sentiment but I think that, as we get closer, Christmas always comes.
“We’re a unique proposition; I don’t think it will be the greatest Christmas ever but I think it will be a decent Christmas. For all markets, I think it’s really evident that discount is going to play a bigger role.”
How do you protect the brand while offering discounts?
“Our approach on discounts is targeted and short. Having constant site-wide promotions is not a good look and it’s not our strategy.
“We’ve got a very generous loyalty scheme called Pressie Points that’s designed to build frequency and loyalty. We’ve also just launched an app, which puts the loyalty scheme front and centre. It’s a PWA [progressive web app] so it’s not on the App Store, but it’s automatic if you look at the site on a mobile. It’s got occasion reminders and the ability to save favourites. It’s branded in a very Biscuiteers way – it doesn’t feel like a cheap discount scheme.”
Have you had to increase prices?
“We had to increase prices on our tin collection earlier this year, partly to cover the cost of the tin itself. The small tins went from £35 to £38 and the large tins went from £45 to £48.
“We’re trying really hard to hold our pricing at the moment; we’re trying to buy cleverer and be more productive. We’re a manufacturing business so we’re in control and in 2021 we made a massive investment in productivity so we’re managing to offset the increases.”
Are you worried about cheap imitations?
“I used to. But only because it was annoying me right at the beginning when it was a new idea, but I have completely changed my mind about it. We set out to create a new sector in the gifting market and you can’t be in a sector on your own. So I think that it’s a good thing – I want people to think about sending iced biscuits the same way they think about sending flowers or chocolate, and you need lots of players in the market to create a market. So my approach is to just be the best.
“People might think there’s a low barrier to entry, but there’s actually a very high barrier to entry”
“No one is operating anything like the scale that we operate; we can do things that other people can’t do because of the volumes we can take. People might think there’s a low barrier to entry, but there’s actually a very high barrier to entry. I can tell you that it has taken years and an awful lot of money to get to the point we’re at now.”
The consumer major purchase index is down. How do you think that will impact higher-priced products like your advent calendar?
“That’s exactly where we could see something not doing very well. But advent is huge and all the beauty advent calendars are selling for a lot more than we sell ours.”
You’ve just launched a US site – what’s the thought process behind that?
“Without really doing anything or being particularly proactive, the US is our biggest export market. It has just been a word-of-mouth thing. Given the incredible complexity of getting exports into the EU at the moment, it was the obvious market to focus on.
“We run it in dollar pricing and give a very compelling delivery offer. We can ship to the States in a couple of days.”
Has that been tricky to work out?
“It’s amazing the contrast in trying to send things to America compared to sending things to, say, France. When you send something with all duty paid and an IOSS [Import One Stop Shop] number into France, it gets stopped and then they apply more duty for no reason than anyone can understand. So it doesn’t get there – and we’re testing all the time – but we just get charged two or three times, then it arrives 10 days late.
“For a gifting proposition, it’s just not possible to operate like that. It’s completely mad. We’ve had the whole of the EU switched off on the site now for the last two years. It became obvious that we couldn’t get stuff in and, after the US, France was our second-biggest market.
“Our export sales to the EU were only about 5%, but that’s an incremental 5% we no longer have. Had that not happened, we were looking at how we could dial up export sales. It’s a unique proposition globally.”
Have you invested in fulfilment?
“The business basically doubled in size during Covid and that put an enormous operational strain on us because we weren’t geared up for it. Last year was all about investment in fulfilment, stock and manufacturing.
“Operationally, now we’re prepared for it to double in size again. For a business like ours, we have to act like a growth company and find new channels.”
How are you coping with the labour shortage?
“We’re OK on recruitment – we’ve hit our target for icers, which is great considering the time of year. I’m sure there will be hairy moments along the way.
“We’ve brought all recruitment in house, which has really helped because we can lean in and really think about the way we can attract people to come and work with us. We treat recruitment like a campaign.”
You deliver via Royal Mail. What’s the plan during the strikes?
“It’s the last thing that we need going into the golden quarter. We always run a courier option but the vast majority choose Royal Mail because it’s at a price point.
“You could make an argument to say that you need to use that to encourage people to buy early, but this feels like just the one thing we don’t need. It’s about managing customer expectations and it becomes an education piece that we’re not in control, but it cuts through a gifting proposition much harder and faster for those reasons.
“I hope we don’t lose customers over it. I don’t think we have yet and it depends on what scale of a problem this develops into being.”
What about the new year with the threat of a recession?
“I started Biscuiteers in a recession. If you’ve been around the block this many times, it creates disciplines in business. You’re really on it, you’re not wasting any money and you can come out stronger if you’re creative about where you create new channels.
“I’m not in any way saying this is easy – it’s not – but, at some point, you’ve got to find your strength.”
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