Megan Henry

This time last year, Littlesweet Baking Mixes were packaged like this. Completely lovely but not so very practical for stores to stock on their shelves......

   

And then, thanks to the amazing supporters of our 2014 Pozible campaign, last December we were finally able to release our range of home baking mixes in our beautiful new packaging. This had been the moment my teeny tiny business had been working towards since I started 5 years ago. We finally had a range of products, complete with all the important stuff like barcodes and labels that didn't fall off ; ) Which meant we were also finally ready to share Littlesweet with the big wide world. Well at least a little corner of Western Australia anyway - you need to start somewhere right?  Two months ago we began working with our distributor and the response from stores and from customers has been amazing.  Littlesweet products are now stocked in over 35 gorgeous stores across WA and we are adding to that number every week. 




As many of you will know our mixes are now packaged in beautiful tins. And while I love the socks off them, I've come to realise something since retailing them. As the products are only used once, people are then left with an empty tin and often they are just going into the bin. It was always my plan to add a simple, less expensive, refill bag option to complement the tins for those that use littlesweet products regularly, but I have since learned that this is not going to sit well with my retail stores and basically I need to decide on one option only. As the person responsible for making the decisions in my business, I'm feeling a lot of guilt about creating packaging that is so wasteful. And even though right now Littlesweet Baking is still teeny tiny, because my business is growing (which is great) , that waste is only going to increase (which is not so great). So as crazy as it may seem, we need to return to bags. The tins will remain in production, possibly exclusively available online or will be available to retailers for special occasions such as Christmas, but for the core, everyday, stocked across all stores options our baking mixes will be packaged in bags. We wont be just simply returning to our old packaging design though.  My graphic designer, Brooke did such a stunning job on the new labels we needed for the tins and thankfully this transfers beautifully to the new bags to create far more functional packaging that is still beautiful and will look great on store shelves. I have sourced the new bags that I believe reflect the quality of littlesweet products and have the functionality I need and Brooke has already begun adjusting the label designs for the new bags. Below is a mock up she created of how the new Littlesweet packaging will look. Classy right? : ) And far less wasteful. And actually less expensive which will mean we can also reduce the price at the retail end. Which just leaves the printing of the labels and where this short and sweet Pozible project comes in.




Printing is one of those volume things. A small volume means each individual unit is crazy expensive and while a large volume gets the individual unit price down, it adds up to a larger amount of dollars. In my case, it will be around $4000 to cover the costs of designing and printing the new labels and this is an expense my business just can't cover right now. With littlesweet products reaching new stores and new customers each week, the faster we move to the permanent packaging the less confusing it will be for customers and stockists so I really need this switch to happen as fast as possible. And so, here we are again, with a new Pozible packaging project for Littlesweet Baking. Would hate to break the tradition of repackaging without running a pozible campaign right? ; ) As many of you will already know, a pozible campaign isn't just about raising funds for me. I love the win/win solution of being able to offer you guys great rewards and great deals in return for supporting my business and enabling me to move forward and deliver better products. By putting it together as a project I'm able to create some great offers for you guys - all in one place. This time round we're doing things a bit differently though. I'm lucky enough to have two of my most creative friends and makers of beautiful local products, Patricia Fernandes - Ceramic Artist ( www.patriciafernandes.com.au ) and Amy from Kookery  ( www.kookery.com.au ), supply me with some of their products to create unique gift bundles for you guys and I've also put together some great rewards ranging from free postage on baking mix bundles, an e-book containing 7 of my best and most popular frosting and filling recipes and business mentoring. And because I don't need to raise a huge amount of money for this, and because the change needs to happen fast, rewards are very limited and we are running it for 5 days only. Yep - this one is 'short and sweet' : )
 
Thanks so much for reading and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me - I'm very friendly : ) 
Megan Henry

The Kookery linen tea towel above will be included in the special gift hamper rewards featuring the beautiful handmade ceramics by Patricia Fernandes and of course, Littlesweet Baking products. All the details are in the rewards section : )

The combined total for costs for both my designer and the printing of labels comes to just over $4000. There are also costs associated with both producing and posting out the rewards as well as fees associated with Pozible and paypal which have been factored in and which account for the additional $1000. $5000 will allow me to have the new bagged products in distribution by the end of June and all rewards delivered by the end of July. 

Of all the pozible projects I have run, this will be by far the most simple in regards to both delivering the rewards and in achieving the goal of quickly repackaging my products. As I mentioned, most of the work has already been done. The initial projects of packaging my products entailed a huge amount of work and a lot of unknown factors. I already have a great designer whose work I love and trust and a great printer I work with so I am very clear about what needs to be done and the processes behind it.