Interviews 
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| Interviews@3LC - Food | ||||
| Monday, 12 December 2005 | ||||
Page 1 of 2  Interview with Rachel Grisewood, founder of Manna From Heaven bakery, Sydney (Read Full Interview + Rachel's Recipes) What does it take to build a catering business into your city's largest supplier of cakes and cookies? If you guessed a food services background, a love for food, a dedication to quality ingredients and preparation, and business savvy, you almost got it right. What it really takes is Rachel Grisewood. Not working with her, being her. British born Rachel Grisewood is the founder of Manna From Heaven, Sydney’s largest supplier of handmade café-style cookies and small cakes. Trained at Leith’s School of Food and Wine in London, Rachel’s career began in catering in the UK and quite unintentionally became a specialized bakery, starting with her chocolate crunch which MFH still offers today. A recent request from Qantas airlines to supply her fare in Economy class (she already provides sweets for First and Business Class) led to the birth of the Sydney Biscuit Company, to allow better management of such large orders. Her inspiration and drive come from many sources: her father, who was a successful and well-respected publisher of children’s books, her mother who started her baking and gave her her first cookbook Talking About Cakes by Margaret Bales, the many many magazines and books she reads (the Observer Food Monthly being her favourite), and biographies of interesting and successful people, like Sir Richard Branson.  Located in Marrickville, a Sydney suburb, the Manna From Heaven kitchens turn out 5000 cakes a day, as well as cookies, and various other heavenly sweets, all made by hand, including Rachel’s very own! In February 2006, they will move to a larger space, their fifth move since 1992. The new bakery will be three times the current one—an indicator of the growing number of clients that Manna From Heaven handles. Rachel and Manna develop recipes specifically for a number of their clients, including Qantas, and T2, an Australian tea company for which recipes were developed using T2 tea leaves.In addition to helping in the Manna kitchen, supervising the Sydney Biscuit Company kitchens, developing new recipes, teaching baking classes, and reading an incredible number of books and magazines, Rachel is also dedicated to her true love, her daughter Olive, with whom she can be found doing any number of fun activities, like swimming and writing children’s stories. How she does it all and does it so well, I don’t know! It must be something in the cakes… |
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