The Cake Professionals Conference & Awards

Well, what can I say!

What a great couple of days I have just had. I have just returned from The Cake Professional’s conference held in Reading and their inaugural Awards ceremony.

The Cake Professionals conference is the brainchild of Phil & Christine Jensen from Peboryon based in Penzance. It’s a conference with a difference, no hard selling, no competitions and no cake!! We get to be people first, cake makers afterwards. Learning from others, sharing experiences, building stronger businesses, creating contacts, listening, connecting and changing our industry. Along with workshops, intensive expert coaching and networking, this year’s topics included ‘How to not be invisible’ by Maddy Jones a.k.a Maddy Shine the SEO Queen, ‘The secret life of the customer’ by Tom Answer, specialist in business consultancy, leadership and customer experience, and ‘Don’t forget your seatbelt’ by Jo Tall, a lawyer with over 20 years-experience.

Following our Team photo on the pitch at Reading FC and a gorgeous lunch we went into our intensives which ranged from Marketing that works, winning on Facebook and Be your own PR agent, all held by industry leaders.

In the afternoon we had an inspirational talk by Dr Ginnie Betts, an international Stand Up Paddle Board racer who represented Great Britain in China after only 4 years of being in the sport. Finally a Q & A session followed with the brilliant Suzanne Esper and Pia Cato along with industry suppliers including Cake Stuff and CakeFlix. It was then time to get ready for the Awards!

With sparkly dresses and black ties, The Cake Professional Awards 2020 commenced. These are ‘the first ever specific Awards to focus solely on the day-to-day designing, making and savvy business workings of the industry’s talented cake people’. The honoured guest presenting the awards was Cherish Finden, judge from Bake Off: The Professionals. Categories included Baker of the Year, Sculpted Cake, Buttercream Cake, Small Celebration cake, Large Celebration cake, Small wedding cake, Large wedding cake, Cake of the Year, and Cake Business of the Year.

Having made the finals from lots of cake businesses throughout the UK, Joanna Evans Cake Design won The Best Cake Business 2020 for the East Midlands. 

Overall, it was a brilliant day and evening and a very worthwhile conference to attend.