Meet the Producers # 17

Name: Ryan Lippett
Business Name: Eleri’s Welshcakes 
What do you sell at the market? Homemade Welshcakes in a variety of traditional and contemporary flavours. Whether your a traditionalist or fancy something a bit different - we try to cater for everyone!
How long have you been a member of Cowbridge Farmers Market? Only a few  months but we’ve loved being part of such a brilliant group of traders. We now attend every other week. 
 What is the background to your business? My wife Jess and I, moved to the East Midlands from Penarth back in 2016 for work. In July 2017, we welcomed our daughter Eleri to the world. In order to try and teach Eleri about her Welsh heritage, one snowy day in March 2018, we decided to introduce Eleri to welshcakes, but soon realised they weren't readily available in local supermarkets like they were back home! We took to the hot plate and decided to have a go at making home made welshcakes instead. After handing out the leftovers to friends and colleagues we soon realised that there was a market for these small Welsh delights in the East Midlands …. and who better to be the face of the business than Eleri herself?
 We attended some brilliant markets in the East Midlands, and spent lots of time speaking to customers about their Welsh connections, whether it be through holidays or family. Although we were surprised about the amount of people who had never heard or Welshcakes! We soon changed that!
 When lockdown hit is when our business really started to take off. We’d always offered postal boxes of Welshcakes but with families and friends no longer being able to see each other, our “socially distanced cwtch” boxes really took off. Like many other bakers, scrambling around for flour with the panic buying was interesting! 
 After a fantastic 4 years in the East Midlands, we’ve moved back to South Wales, there’s simply no place like home!
What is a typical day for you? With 2 young daughters, the days are typically centred around them - we have lots of late nights baking.  Girls washed and dressed and  Eleri off to nursery. Whilst Ava naps, it’s time to pack up the postal orders (it really is a race against the clock as you never quite know how long you’ll get!). After a trip to the post office it’s time to get Eleri from nursery. Once Jess finishes work, we swap over, she looks after the girls whilst I start baking for the collect orders and the market. After what is usually a pretty late night baking, I’m up early and off to the market whilst Jess waits in for our collect orders. 
What is a common question your customers ask you? It’s mainly around dietary requirements, we offer Welshcakes suitable for vegan and gluten free diets - we’re still working on a recipe suitable for diabetics!
What do enjoy most about your job? When customer’s tell us how much they have enjoyed the cakes. You can’t beat that!
Tell us a little about your background/family: I’m a stay at home Dad and full time Welshcake baker, whilst my wife Jess works in rail freight. We have two daughters, Eleri who is 3 and Ava who is almost 1 - both girls absolutely love Welshcakes - it’s a surprise we manage to get the cakes out the door at times!
How do you like to relax?
Spending time with my family, we’re so busy during the week with work, nursery and baking but always try to make time to go for walks and picnics when we can. 
What is your best selling product and which product do you think is under rated? Best selling has to be traditional raisin, underrated is reese’s - we find people are always a little unsure when it comes to peanut butter but they really are delicious!
What are you looking forward to doing after lock down? Having a house warming party with our family and friends! It’s been great being back home but there’s been so many faces we still haven’t been able to see.
Do you have any exciting plans for the future – business or pleasure? We’ve got lots of different flavour ideas to try but we also fancy trying savoury Welshcakes, we’ve had quite a few requests for them so think it might be time to give them a go!