The question everyone asks FreshBake

FreshBake’s owner Shelley Sims has been asked a hundred times a day whether her business is closing down because it’s for sale, but her answer is emphatically “no”.

She has whisked, rolled and shaped her creations in the popular bakery at the edge of Brightwater for nine years and run the business for 18 years, so she says it’s simply time to hand over the reins to someone new and take some time out.

“I’d love to spend more time with my daughter. And probably not pick up a whisk or spatula for a few years. I’d like to go and bathe on a Greek Island!”

The business has been on the market for a couple of years and, though there has been offers, nothing has prompted her to sign the dotted line.

“I had to take the ‘for sale’ sign down in the window because every single customer asked: ‘are you closing down?’ We’d get that 100 times a day. Then they would ask: ‘what are you going to do?’

“We even made a little sign to answer all the questions.”

Even with the sign down, the team of two are still asked multiple times a day if the business is closing.

Shelley has just one employee, Sarah French, and together, she says they “run like a well-oiled machine”.

“Sarah tells me what to do and I just do it. I’m the owner, but she’s the boss!

“It will be a sad day when I sell. I love my job, but a change is in the air and FreshBake will go on.”