Sydenham’s The Cake Store supplies Google, Android and Heston Blumenthal
When Google’s mobile phone operating system Android celebrated its 5th birthday, the Googlers knew exactly what they wanted.
A five story cake. The task was a little too big even for devotees of The Great British Bake Off. So Google called London’s best known cakemaker, Sydenham-based The Cake Store.
Google’s Android cake
The Cake Store is a family business with 60 years of history behind it. The Slatter family used to run bakeries, but switched to bespoke cakes.
“The bakery business imploded,” says director Tim Slatter. “Supermarkets were taking over, and doing to us what they were doing to fishmongers and greengrocers.”
So premium cakes it was.
Today The Cake Store employs 40 people, and ships out cakes to corporate clients, consumers and celebrities.
This hog cake was made for a private client
“We did a cake for One Direction recently,” says Slatter. “One of their girlfriends rang up and asked for a cake for her boyfriend. We did an over the top job, and they were delighted. They tweeted about us and we got 14,000 followers an hour.”
The store makes cakes for Microsoft, the BBC, and did a record order for Samsung. “They wanted 55,000 cupcakes. Do you have any idea how hard this is to fulfil? The logistics, the quality checking…it’s a hell of a job.”
Heston Blumenthal is a fan. When he wanted a kennel-sized gingerbread house for his TV show he turned to the Cake Store for assistance. It’s hard to think of anywhere else he could have gone to for this sort of work.
Bespoke cake depicting London and Moscow
Slatter says the idea of using cakes for corporate marketing is now taking off.
“I think firms realise the marketing potential. Customers can be eating the cake whilst staring at the company brand in cake form. It has a real impact.”
The key is the versatility. Cakes can be made into any shape, or any size. “Just give us a bit of time,” says Slatter. “We can do last minute, but we love it when clients give us a week or two notice. Especially for a really huge order.”
The Cake Store is currently offering an exclusive 10% discount off all corporate Christmas cakes to LondonlovesBusiness readers, just type ’LondonlovesBusiness’ as a coupon code to receive your discount. Click here for details.
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