Meet the gluten free baker who is now business partners with Tej Lalvani
Australian entrepreneur Sarah Hilleary proved it’s possible to have your cake and eat it as she won over Tej Lalvani in last night’s episode of Dragons’ Den with her tempting range of gluten free cakes, and an even more tempting business proposition!
After successfully fending off a series of tough questions from the Dragons, the founder of luxury bakery brand B-Tempted, which has supplied gluten free bakes for the royal family, left with an offer of £75,000 from the millionaire vitamin entrepreneur.
A serious businesswoman with a very sweet tooth, Sarah created B-Tempted in 2009 after finding there were very few quality treats on the market for people with food intolerances like herself. She came up with the idea to create a range of bite-sized treats that are all gluten free and made with the finest ingredients such as Belgian chocolate. A completely self-taught baker, she started making cakes in her kitchen, testing out recipes on her flatmates and selling her bakes at Greenwich market. It wasn’t long before her talent was spotted by buyers at high-end and boutique stores where she began supplying on a regular basis.
Like many entrepreneurs, Sarah’s business journey has not been without difficulty. An investor dispute in 2011 forced her to liquidate her original bakery business and bid to buy back the company assets so she could continue to trade. Then, out of the blue her application to renew her UK visa was denied and she was faced with the possibility of being sent back to Australia and losing everything she had worked so hard to build. On top of that, Sarah’s father suffered a heart attack the same year and she was unable to leave the country to visit him.
