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WELLNESSWEEK
How two Kiwi mums turned a fully baked idea into a new business in middle of lockdown
Clare Gallagher and Lauren 'Lulu' Taylor had never run a business together, in fact a year ago they weren't even friends.
"Our kids were friends, but we weren't like social friends," laughs Lulu.
She told Newshub podcast 'The Pivot' that during a visit to her house Clare suggested starting a fudge sauce business together.
"It could've been anything, she could've said 'let's breed camels' .. and I would've been like yes, I'm a yes person!"
"She knew I was looking for the next thing."
Lulu was a marketer, but as the pandemic tightened its grip on the world, her work began to dry up.
"In January I was getting ready to launch a restaurant and I was doing marketing for a major music emporium, so obviously all those things just got canned."
"It was hard to give that up, and facing that void is always daunting."
Clare had taken time off to raise her kids, and was looking to re-enter the workforce. But the timing wasn't great.
"The pandemic hit and I just thought if I couldn't get into anything before, what are the chances now?" she says.
"COVID really threw us."
So after a flippant chat the pair decided to dive into a new venture together, and what started with fudge sauce ended in premade baking mixes.
"We realised if we were going to go to farmers markets we needed to put the sauce on something, so I said how about we put them on like brownies?"
"Then we came up with the baking mix idea, and that's how it took off," says Lulu.
It was perfectly timed to coincide with New Zealand's new found love of baking, and from the idea to launch 'Secret Kiwi Kitchen' was born in just 6 weeks.
"We had a captive audience of people who really needed to distract their kids."
Because launch day was right in the middle of the country's second lockdown last year.
"It is a quick turn around, it's all been really really quick," says Clare.
"Very early on we had a rule that we wouldn't put out a product unless every single kid loved it," says Lulu.
A sweet little secret, that may not stay a secret for that much longer.