When Brian Cullingworth and Charlotte Crowley bought Mom’s Bakery in Qualicum Beach, they saw the potential to grow.

Thirteen years later, they have successfully transformed the mom-and-pop business with up-and-down seasonal retail sales to an export-based wholesale company with customers across the three western provinces and in two U.S. states.

“We’ve had 30-per-cent growth, compounded, each year,” says Cullingworth.

That certainly wouldn’t have been the case if the couple had simply bought and operated as a retail bakery serving the local community in mid-Vancouver Island, where communities have struggling economies. So their initial five-year business plan called for expanding into wholesale production. “We bought at the end of the booming summer,” says Crowley. After a huge initial effort to clean and update the bakery, “sales slowly started to dissipate.” It was time to build the wholesale market.

Glenn Olsen, for Business Edge
Brian Cullingworth and Charlotte Crowley with their fruit buns.

Crowley began knocking on doors in Qualicum Beach, Parksville and surrounding areas. Soon Mom’s was on the approved suppliers list of a number of local independent groceries and chains, and in addition to the retail bakery, was supplying local hotels and restaurants.

In no time there was a space crunch. Wholesale production needs more space than a mom-and-pop bakery normally provides, so “we put our display cases on dollies,” says Cullingworth. At the end of the retail day, they’d close up shop, push the dollies against a wall and begin wholesale production and packaging.

At the same time Crowley was expanding the customer base, Cullingworth was expanding the product line.

“We saw a niche in the market for a quality scone,” says Cullingworth.

The scones proved very popular with restaurants and individual grocery stores and Mom’s was being pressured to provide enough frozen product to supply grocery chains. They had to turn down orders for lack of production space, and knew they didn’t have facilities to break into the big market in the Lower Mainland.

In 1999, Mom’s expanded to a larger facility in nearby Parksville. This allowed them to add a second retail outlet and increase production space from 970 to about 4,500 square feet, with enough equipment to turn out 20,000 scones in an eight-hour shift.

They were able to break into the bigger markets.

Overwaitea began ordering skidloads of product and they found a distributor to get Mom’s scones into mainland groceries.

And finally, the pair could set their eyes on the biggest prize: The U.S. market.

In mid-2002, they identified the smaller, more upscale grocery chains ideal for their hand-made scones and made their first selling trip south of the border. The first orders were shipped out in December 2002.

In order to concentrate on the growing export business, they tried to find a buyer or partner to operate the retail bakeries. Unsuccessful, in November 2003 they closed the bakeries, laid off 30 employees and worked with another bakery to continue supplying commercial customers.

“The transition has gone very well,” says Cullingworth. “January sales were 20 per cent over our predictions,” adds Crowley.

They were able to recall every laid-off employee in January and nearly all returned.

Cullingworth is coy about how much product Mom's actually produces because of competitors and copycats, but says Mom’s frozen scones can be found in the majority of the major grocery chains and a number of independent groceries in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan as well as Washington and Idaho.

They’re aiming at connoisseurs of gourmet and high-end foods, and are so confident that market will take off, they have expansion plans and hold first right of refusal on space that opens up in the building housing their production facilities.

Ironically, grocery stores on Vancouver Island, some of them Mom’s customers since the doors opened in 1991, have decided against stocking the frozen product.

“Most of what we do now is off the island,” he says.

Now they’re growing even further afield. They’ve already expanded the export line to include English tea buns, and are expanding the market, too. Their next target: California, a state with the same population as Canada that is home to some grocery giants, including Safeway.

“We have pretty broad-based skills,” says Crowley. “We’re not frightened to look at our own expertise and go for it.”