"We're not massively skilled businesspeople. You just gotta give stuff a go while you're young. If it don't work, it don't work. At the end of the day, we gave it a go"
I have developed a doughnut addiction. About a year ago, pictures of glazed goodness took over my social media channels, and the channels of my mind. Yes, rings of joy were firing into the feeds, crowned with everything from Creme Eggs, red velvet cake, salted caramel, white vanilla fudge and Bacon Frazzles.
I got mesen down to Old Market Square where The Nottingham Doughnut Co. sits, tucked away beside the corner shop, and I found a bell on the doughnut counter with a sign reading ‘Do not ring’. Ding ding. I started chatting with Megan, co-owner of the business, and became amazed at what she and her partner Wade have created together. And not just because of the sugar rush.
At just 23 and 22, Wade Smith and Megan Scaddan are a born and bred Notts couple, hailing from Clifton. Just over a year ago, they watched a programme about doughnuts, which inspired the pair to make a few of their own on Valentine’s Day. “We posted pictures of them on social media, and everyone started commenting things like, ‘Oh my God, bring me some’,” says Megan. “Wade being Wade was like, ‘Why don’t you buy some off us?’”
A Facebook page was created, gaining 1,000 followers in the first week of its existence. “And the doughnuts were shockin’,” says Wade. “We sold our first box of twelve doughnuts for ten pounds, delivering them, and it was costing too much. We were putting all our own money into it.” At a time when Wade was doing a marketing apprenticeship at Central College and Megan was working at Next, the cash situation was tight. Plus, the pair were getting up at 3am to bake, as well as working their other jobs and delivering doughnuts into the night, only to get up the next day and do it all again. At 3a-bleddy-m.
“You can’t rush it,” says Wade.
“The doughnuts came out rubbish at first cos I wasn’t following the recipe,” laughs Megan. “Wade was like ‘Right, how much water you putting in?’ Sometimes they looked like pancakes, but we carried on doing different things. We wanted to master the dough.”
Now, that mastery has definitely been realised. Their first food fair, at Nottingham Castle, was a great success. “We spent all our money on packaging. We literally had six quid in the bank, and were petrified we weren’t gonna make any money, but we made a grand and were absolutely buzzing,” says Megan. “People in Clifton love it when we go there too, it’s like a success story for the area. We also go to Beeston and West Bridgford markets.”
The pair were originally trading as The Phat Doughnut Co. when they were contacted by The Phat Pasty Co., who wrote a cease and desist letter claiming they had trademarked the word ‘Phat’. “We’d ordered all the graphics, t-shirts and everything for the shop. We were gutted,” says Wade. “I managed to ring the graphics guys just in time before they started printing stuff. We saw it as a chance for a rebrand in the end – this is something that’s made by people in Nottingham, so we decided on The Nottingham Doughnut Co. The lessons you learn doing this pay off massively.”
Lessons have come from other independent Nottingham businesses too. Grass roots company and homemade condiment champions Sauce Shop got in touch to lend a hand in looking at business costs, and Olly Hunter from local pizza restaurant Oscar and Rosie’s has given advice to the young entrepreneurs. “When he was still at Das Kino, Megan started talking to him so I went over, like, ‘Who’s this then?’ [Laughs] We got talking to him about his story,” says Wade. “When we started making doughnuts, we asked to sit down for a chat. We were really nervous at first but we pick his brains all the time now.”
With plans to expand their bakery in Lenton and a five-year lease on the shop, The Nottingham Doughnut Co. ain’t going anywhere any time soon. As Wade swiped through the pictures of the bakery on his phone, he explained “Our mixer broke at 2am one night so we had to get a new one for four grand. These are the fryers, racks, sinks, tables, bakery trays. We’ve just got a new 100L mixer. It’s about as high as the roof. It feels like so long ago that the bakery was just a shell.”
And it was the same for their shop in the square. “It was hard to visualise at first,” says Wade. But the couple hammered on, started putting local artists’ work on the walls, and got themsens down to the Cattle Market. “We went and we were like ‘What can we get?’” says Megan. “We picked up loads of little bits like the radio, and got these Victorian jewellery cabinets for the counters.”
Those counters. Filled with delights. Cherry bakewell flavour, butterscotch, cookies and cream… Who knows what they’re gonna knock out next? The couple’s innovation in flavour has come not just from social media requests, but a doughnut pilgrimage to Brooklyn. They went to see a bloke who opened a cake doughnut shop in his dad’s car wash, as well as going to Doughnut Plant. “[They] had a peanut butter and jam one there, best doughnut I’ve ever had. It was stringy like chewing gum,” says Megan. The pair also visited Peter Pan Donuts after Wade saw them on A Day in the Life of a Baker.
“I could sit there all day every day watching videos about doughnuts,” says Wade. “I don’t know what it is. I’ve just got this fascination with them. Like, old-fashioned doughnuts are a really burnt, oily doughnut, glazed and weird. Then there’s cake doughnuts. We’re working on a cronut; a croissant doughnut hybrid which is laminated dough with butter, fried like a doughnut.”
While they were away exploring all things fried, the couple got engaged at the top of the Rockefeller Centre. “People say it might be difficult working together,” says Megan. “So many problems have arisen and you’ve just got to work through it. It’s made us stronger. Sometimes you can forget you’re a couple when you’re business partners, but we make an effort to go out together on dates. I make sure I keep him in shape.”
Deservedly, Megan won New Business Startup in the Nottingham Post’s Women in Business Awards last year. “When they shouted my name I just sat there and carried on clapping. Then I was like, ‘Oh! It’s me!’” she laughs. “I’ve not been to college or uni. I used to be a holiday rep, so all I knew what to do was party and play with the kids. You gotta try these things, though. When we first started, we did everything together. Now I run the shop and Wade concentrates on the bakery, so it is almost like having two separate jobs. It takes a lot of stress off each other.”
Hearing Megan and Wade’s story was inspiring and hunger-inducing. Their keen eye for the perfect recipe is one thing, but their relentless work ethic really did have me gobsmacked. While we were talking, Wade even unconsciously said “Thank you” while he was watching Megan serve a customer and ended up laughing at himself.
“We take it how it comes,” says Wade. “We’re not massively skilled businesspeople. You just gotta give stuff a go while you’re young. If it don’t work, it don’t work. At the end of the day, we gave it a go.”
The Nottingham Doughnut Co., 26A Long Row, NG1 2DR.
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