Mila Khokha, Founder of Baked With Love and recent winner of Best Start-Up Business Award at County Monaghan Enterprise Awards, met Padraic White, Entrepreneur and former CEO of IDA Ireland, to launch Swirly Bites and show case her range at Dundalk Chamber Business to Consumer Expo on Friday May 13th. Mila started her award winning family business Baked With Love in 2014 having found a gap in the market to fill with her delicious range of unique mini cakes and pastries with an Eastern European influence.
Swirly Bites are indulgent mini cakes with a delicious hidden filling. The range of flavours include Vanilla and Apricot filling, Lemon and Poppy seed with Lemon Curd filling, Chocolate with Apple and Strawberry filling, Chocolate with Black Cherry filling and Coffee with Toffee filling. The portion size is perfect to curb the sweet tooth without spoiling a healthy lifestyle. Mila shares a passion for baking from a very young age and uses her unique family recipes that have been passed down through the generations of her family to build her range. Swirly Bites extends the existing Baked With Love range of Snack with a Twist and Celebration Cakes available in SuperValu, Centra, Daybreak, Londis and Topaz.
Baked With Love already has an impressive list of achievements to be proud of. As part of the Food Academy Mila achieved product listing in 12 SuperValu stores on a trial basis after 9 weeks in business. In 2014 one of the signature products Bramley Apple Twist became the Regional Finalist in Lidl’s “Taste of Success”. In March 2016, Baked With Love was thrilled to win Best Start-Up Company Award at County Monaghan Enterprise Awards. The company is also a recent finalist of the North East New Frontiers competition having qualified to the final with eight other New Frontiers participants from 45 other start-ups in the North East. The company is experiencing significant growth already and will provide employment for 6 people this year.
Swirly Bites is the result of a network of supports available to start-ups that Baked With Love has benefited from which include Enterprise Ireland’s New Frontiers Entrepreneur Development Programme and participation in Dundalk Institute of Technology MBS Programme. New Frontiers purpose is to accelerate the development of sustainable new businesses that have strong employment and growth potential. It provided intensive training and mentoring that have been invaluable to Mila. Baked With Love also participated with the DKIT MBS Entrepreneurship and Marketing programme to avail of qualitative and quantitative research to explore Swirly Bites with consumers and in the sector, and provide Mila with marketing support to effectively brand and promote her product and build overall brand awareness. Mila Khokha from Baked With Love says, “We have experienced first-hand the various supports for start-up businesses in terms of training, mentoring and financial incentives and I truly believe that Ireland is a great place to start and grow our business”.
The Business-to-Consumer Expo was held in the Marshes Shopping Centre on Friday 13th May and was hosted by Dundalk Chamber in association with Bank of Ireland and Local Enterprise Office Louth to showcase some of Louth’s finest businesses. There were over 2000 people passing through The Marshes and this included Cuban, Malaysian, Romanian and Latvian Embassies that also visited to participate in the showcasing of the North East’s finest businesses.
