Gavin and I (Jackie) have decided to retire from making Marshmallows and
Nougat at the end of this year; we will continue to operate MM Ingredients, but no longer make our delicious confectionary.
There are several reasons for this decision, and although we will miss our
frequent contact with the many friends that we have made over the 6 years that we have been trading, the time is now right.
We would like to spend more time with our family – 4 lovely Grandchildren help to keep us busy! The success of MM Ingredients, and Gavin's growing expertise as a gelatine specialist has resulted in that side of our business taking up more and more of our time – something has to give!
Although we had initially thought that we would keep going for another year,
when we saw the price increases in our ingredients, both recently and projected, we realised that we had to make a decision about the future price of our product.
We could either charge more for our confectionary, or compromise on the quality to keep the price point the same.
We rejected the second option –we had made the decision at the start of our business that we would only make a high quality product that we were proud of, and we didn't want to go down the route of using artificial flavours or making 'find-the-nut' nougat.
The first option, experience told us, was also something that we couldn't do, unless we aimed to sell in high end retail outlets; there is a limit to what the people who visit the festivals and events that we attend are willing to pay for confectionary,however good, especially when so many of these events also allow traders to sell mass produced confectionary, which is, understandably, much cheaper.
We didn't want to change track and start to build up a wholesale business, apart from the fact that direct contact with our customers is something we enjoy, making marshmallows and nougat is physically hard work and our backs and fingers wouldn't be able to cope with making wholesale quantities. So we have
decided that this year is our last trading year.
Thank you to everyone who has bought and enjoyed our products, given us good feedback, chatted to us at our stand and spread the word – we͛ve enjoyed meeting you.
If you want to order for Christmas, please do so early, as it gets closer to
Christmas, and we have fulfilled the orders that arrived in good time, our range will decrease, and when it's gone, it's gone!
