Page 16 - Food & Drink Business Magazine September 2018

✷ RISING STAR
Baking up a sugar-free storm
The clever formulation of sugar-free cake and bakery mixes has forged a strong new niche for Noshu, writes Samantha Schelling.
DESPITE a focus on all the conventional guidelines of “healthy eating”, Rachel Bajada found herself insulin resistant at age 30. With a family history of diabetes, it sparked the marketing and communications specialist to begin her research journey into the effects of sugar on modern illnesses.
Quietly horrified by the lack of foods made without chemical sweeteners, gluten, additives and sugars “in disguise”, Bajada set about creating alternatives that avoided all those ingredients.
“If I had something sweetened with artificial sweeteners I thought it had to be better than sugar. But it’s actually worse. There needs to be much more research and human trials done;
the effects on my own health were catastrophic, but as soon as I stopped eating synthetic
sweeteners, my insulin resistance went away in four weeks.
“My doctor was asking what I’d done! Had I stopped eating carbs?
Changed exercise routines? Literally the only thing I changed was to stop eating any synthetic sweeteners.”
CORE COMPETENCIES
In 2013, Bajada established Noshu, phonetically
short for “no sugar”. Along
with her marketing capabilities,
the entrepreneur
has a food science background. “And I love
baking.” Right from the start, Bajada’s mantra has been to focus on these two areas.
“Our core focus and core competencies as a business are product development and marketing. So we’re a brand first and foremost, and our number- one job and focus is to develop and formulate real, unique, innovative products the world needs. Second is to get them ranged, and distribution in place.
“When I began in 2013 it was just me. We run a lean business model and I still do a lot of the product development, but now we have four support staff, including a product development assistant, someone in charge of customer service and marketing, a brand and sales director, and then logistics and supply chain.”
OUTSOURCING PLAN
“We keep logistics and supply chain in house because it’s the only way we truly get 100 per cent control and the best possible prices that we can then pass onto our customers. We also have consultant food technologists to do any technical troubleshooting on those specialised things that we might not have the in-house skills for. Beyond that everything is outsourced, so we have strategic partnerships with manufacturers and distributors.”
Bajada describes her outsourced model as common sense.
“With nine SKUs comprising four doughnuts, three kinds of muffins, two baking mixes plus two new lines launching in 2018, we have a tight product range that we plan to keep expanding in the right sequence.
“So rather than trying to own and run factories, which adds complexity, we focus our energy on new products that we get the specialists to manufacture, then we market them and build the brand.”
And with some very specialised (and award-winning) products, it’s a model that has worked extremely well, with the business doubling its turnover every 12-18 months since the start.
“It’s a real challenge to make something different and we often have to develop new processes or special equipment.
“All of our IP is proprietary, from the formulations to the bakeware we use. Our first product was baked, gluten-free, low-carb doughnuts, and there were many challenges in manufacturing these products.”
16 | Food&Drink business | September 2018 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au