Client Spotlight – Sunrise Bakery
Sunrise Bakery, a traditional Caribbean bakery for nearly 60 years, have found NutriCalc®’s latest features such as HFSS score calculator, backed by expert support, delivers the right results.
Client Spotlight – Sunrise Bakery
Award-Winning Traditional Caribbean Bakery for Nearly 60 Years
- January 18, 2024
- 3:02 pm
" It saves us time and money and I love being able to speak to a friendly, real person if I ever need any help. ...We love having the HFSS score calculator, and within the same software "
Sunrise Bakery, a traditional Caribbean bakery for nearly 60 years, have found NutriCalc®’s latest features such as HFSS score calculator, backed by expert support, delivers the right results.
We spoke to Sunrise Bakery’s Managing Director, Errol Drummond.
Tell us about your business?
Sunrise Bakery specialises in the production of Caribbean bake products including Jamaican hard dough breads, Caribbean spiced buns, and tropical cakes.
Based in Birmingham, the business was established in 1966 by my father and his business partner to provide ‘a taste of home’ to what has become known as “The Windrush Generation” – Caribbean people who migrated to Britain to help rebuild it after the second World War.
Nearly 60 years on, we are proud to be the largest Caribbean bakery in the UK and to continue the legacy of traditional Caribbean baking methods.
Our cakes are made with the finest tropical fruits and spices, and more recently we’ve added a vegan cake range.
Over the years we’ve also picked up several awards for our products, most recently winning the Best Caribbean Bakery category at the UK Caribbean Food Awards in November.
In 2012 we were privileged to supply our Paradise Estates rum cake made from a secret family recipe to the 80-strong Olympic Jamaican track and field team, when they arrived in Birmingham to train for The London 2012 Summer Olympics. The team included gold and silver medallists, Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake.
Who is your customer base?
Historically our customer base has been concentrated in the West Midlands, but over the years we’ve expanded our distribution to cover most major cities in England. As well as supplying selected lines to ‘the big four’ major supermarket retailers, our products are stocked by over 150 independent stores.
In addition, our online shop caters for UK end customers, delivering straight to their front door.
Why did you decide to use NutriCalc?
We previously used laboratory testing to calculate the nutrition information for our products but found this both slow and expensive, so we decided to try NutriCalc and were so impressed with it that we’ve been using it ever since.
How has NutriCalc benefitted your business?
For the past six years we’ve been using NutriCalc for all our product recipes. This has saved us a lot of time and money compared to if we were still using lab analysis.
Also, since using the HFSS score calculator feature (Premium plan) we no longer require a consultant to make our cake recipes HFSS-compliant for supermarkets, so has resulted in further savings.
How do you find using the software?
We’d used the NutriCalc desktop version for several years, then in 2022 we decided to switch to the online version. We’re very glad we did as the online software is not only more comprehensive features-wise, it’s also more user-friendly.
It’s very convenient to use the HFSS feature to calculate the scores for our cake recipes, and within the same software we use to check and alter our recipes’ nutrition information.
How have you found NutriCalc’s customer support?
I love NutriCalc’s customer support. I can speak to a real person with a friendly and endearing manner, who can guide me through the process, unlike many services where I am required to speak to a robot or post enquiries into a chat-box.
How would you sum up your experience using NutriCalc?
NutriCalc ticks all the boxes. It saves us time and money and I love being able to speak to a friendly, real person if I ever need any help. The latest online software version, which is easier to use and adds some great additional features such as HFSS, has made the overall experience even better.
I would recommend it both for established food businesses and someone just starting out – enabling them to be compliant with their nutrition labelling from the outset.
For more information on Sunrise Bakery, visit: www.sunrisebakery.co.uk
