STORY: BSB Insight: eight ways you can go from kitchen table to global operation in under ten years

Sounds pretty ambitious right? Pie in the sky? Not really – that’s exactly what Mike Bagshaw, managing director of International Taste Solutions (ITS) did, and at the British Society of Baking’s Autumn Conference, he shared insights on how to do the same thing.

Here, we bring you the best bits:

  • You can’t make everything – you need to find good partners
  • Find partners that share your standards and ethos
  • Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better
  • Write a not-to-do list, as well as a to-do list
  • On the to-do list, put a circle around the one thing you absolutely have to do that day
  • Trust your gut instinct
  • Be open to anything
  • Eat the frog. (Deal with difficult things straight away – if you were given a plate of food that you had to eat every bit of and it included a frog, don’t put off eating the frog. Don’t think about it and dwell on it, just get it done.)

Aside from business insights, Mike also shared his views on the war on sugar: “Taking sugar out of premium bakery products is a mistake. Salt was easier, sugar is more of a challenge. If you want a doughnut, you want a really good doughnut, not a healthy doughnut.”