I started my business from nothing, and now I’m selling thousands of brownie boxes
What started as a sweet gesture during lockdown has now evolved into a thriving bakery enterprise.
Savannah Roqaa, a 29-year-old, is the owner of The Savvy Baker, a viral brownie company. In the past five years, Savannah has gone from baking her first batch of brownies to now selling thousands of brownies each week on social media and from her shops across the north. Savannah is set to open her biggest venture to date later this year - a cafe and bakery in Trinity Leeds.
She said: “This is the best place in Leeds we could ask for. It will be a taste for all of your senses as the brownies will be made in an open kitchen on-site.
“There’ll even be a matcha bar. We always think about how we’re matching the right drink to the right brownie.”
How it all began
Savannah had been living in a flat, working as a Nanny when lockdown was announced. Like many people during the pandemic, she decided to try baking after seeing online videos.
“I’d never baked anything. Then, in lockdown, April 2020, everyone was at home baking banana bread, so I did.
“It tasted really nice and I really enjoyed it.”
Savannah continued baking, but living alone meant she had nobody to share her bakes with.
She said: “I put my bakes in polystyrene boxes and dropped little care packages on friends' doorsteps.”
Within a week, several of Savannah’s friends had posted about her bakes online.
She started getting hundreds of messages online from people asking if she delivered.
Savannah said: “I used any money from orders to buy ingredients.”
Due to lockdown restrictions, Savannah had to buy limited ingredients from a range of supermarkets.
She said: “I ended up driving around Leeds delivering them all.
“So my Dad started to help me with washing up.”
Savannah set up The Savvy Baker on social media and was quickly inundated with orders
She said: “I employed my friends to do daily deliveries. At 4 pm, they would come and collect the bakes, and deliver 50 to 100 boxes to each postcode in Leeds.”
Savannah eventually used a friend's pub kitchen in Thornhill.
She said: “I employed my friends who were DJs, drag queens, and entertainers to help with baking because they couldn’t get furlough.”
Savannah started running pop-ups across Yorkshire and was shocked to see hundreds of people queuing up to buy her bakes.
From that point, The Savvy Baker grew astronomically.
Savannah said: “In Easter 2021, we had the biggest boom possible. We sold 2000 boxes of brownies in one hour - that’s 10,000 brownies in a day.”
Savannah hadn’t baked any of the orders yet, so she set about baking her biggest quantity to date.
“We’ve never sold that many so quickly since,” said Savannah.
Due to her online success, Savannah used her platform to help other independent businesses by promoting their products too, such as Home Boy Pizza.
She added: “Once lockdown had lifted, we had a kitchen in Seacroft.
“Me and my partner Jordan Simms opened a cafe in Roundhay, and we started doing lots of events, food festivals, and a residency at Elland Road.”
Savannah now has bases in York and Chesterfield, and by the end of the year, she will be opening The Savvy Baker in Trinity Leeds on Albion Street.