A north London bakery is set to appear in a Channel 4 competition to get its authentic Nigerian treats stocked in Aldi supermarkets. Marianne Olaleye and her four sisters run Puff Puff Ministry with the help of their mum and her secret puff puff recipe and will appear on Tuesday’s (April 30) screening of Aldi’s Next Big Thing.
Puff puffs are a traditional Nigerian fried dough treat, similar to doughnuts. Having grown up in Lagos in their mother’s bakery, based at the back of their grandfather’s home, the sisters knew they had a great puff recipe and so brought it over to the UK and set up their bakery in 2020 which is now based in Wood Grön.
Marianne said: “It’s not just about the product itself, it’s about sharing part of our culture and heritage and getting people to experience it in real life.”
The Channel 4 program approached the family after finding their business on Instagram. They hadn’t heard of the show before and initially turned down the offer because they’ve always wanted to open up their own bakery cafe, Marianne said. But after they had a family meeting, they realized that stocking hundreds of supermarkets would be a good way to introduce their brand to the UK as puffs are not such a well-known dessert.
Marianne said: “We saw that there was a gap in the market for West African desserts, but more importantly we saw no reason why puff puffs couldn’t be seen in the same way as brownies, cupcakes and cakes. So our main thing was to change people’s perception of it and introduce non-West Africans to puff puff.”
On the show, they were given two minutes to pitch to Julie Ashfield, Managing Director of Buying at Aldi UK, at Aldi HQ after preparing their puffs in the on-site kitchen with the other contestants.
“The feedback was incredible,” said Marianne, “that was honestly one of the biggest things for us – to have the chance to have someone like Julie Ashfield who tries so many products every week and get her feedback on our product.”
However, the family is no stranger to adapting its business. In a smart move while the company was starting up during Covid, Marianne and her family set up an efficient postal service across the UK – delivering fresh puffs to your door or as gifts within 24 hours of baking at Karma Kitchen in Wood Green, something that “no other competitor has been close to doing,” said Marianne.
The puff puffs are all handmade by four of the sisters, sometimes making up to 900 in a single day. “It just grew a lot faster than we thought it would to be honest,” Marianne said. On Saturdays, they also offer collections from Karma Kitchen – a communal commercial kitchen that they rent in shifts to make the puffs.
The family wants to move into a private kitchen where they can install new machinery that can speed up how many puffs they make and hire more staff to help expand and hopefully stock Aldi shelves. However, the dream of having your very own bakery cafe is still very real.
“The vision from day one was always to open a puff puff dessert cafe in central London. That’s always been a big goal,” said Marianne. However, the advent of the television program has brought in a new business idea.
She said: “Going to the Aldi show has been really interesting because it’s opened us up to another possibility. We’re exploring what that could look like – can we be in supermarkets across the country? Can we go to more supermarkets outside the UK?
“So those two areas are really the main things that we’re looking at now.”
You can watch the Puff Puff Ministry team progress in Aldi’s Next Big Thing on Channel 4 at 8pm on Tuesday (April 30).
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