Sarah
So Elise, welcome to the podcast. It’s great to have you here today. Let’s talk about family. What are your memories of growing up in a family business?

Elise
Family business is different, I think, from growing up in other environments. The strong memories you have growing up in a family business centre around the entrepreneurial spirit, the hard work, the commitment, and the dinner table conversations often blurring between business and family matters.

And I think we’ve obviously carried that forward with our kids. They’re now used to the same with my husband and I talking, you know, school pickup over breakfast and then work stuff over dinner. So that’s part of it. And I think, I don’t know any other way. I certainly have had a wonderful environment to grow up in in a family business. And I hope my children will say the same thing in years to come.

Sarah
What do you think you’ve learned in terms of life lessons, one thing, and the other one would be business lessons?

Elise
Yeah, yeah. So I guess starting with life lessons. I was, you know, I think my mum and dad are great role models just in general. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, was a very even split from household duties between my parents. Dad did a lot of cooking, mum did a lot of cooking. They were both very involved in our childhood from a

getting involved in school and those sorts of things for my brother and I. But the life lessons, certainly for me, don’t know if it’s probably the same for others, but not necessarily a family business life lesson, is hard work. know, we’ve really grew up in an environment where nothing comes for free. And that hard work and dedication and discipline was sort of instilled from an early age, if you want success.

It’s not easy and it’s the road to get to success is where you learn a lot and failure is part of that path. So I’d say that’s probably something that’s very unique, well maybe not unique, but certainly was instilled in us from a very young age and something I carry forward today.

Sarah
So you said that you don’t know anything different, and I guess that’s case for all of us, isn’t it? We grew up in a particular fashion. I’ve read that you had, wasn’t inevitable that you would go into business, but I just wonder what that transition phase was, if you like, from the kitchen table to actually being involved in the business and what internal struggles you had, if any, about what you would do.

Elise
Yeah, yeah, that’s a great question, Sarah. Certainly as a teenager, I mean, I worked at Baker’s Delight as a teenager like so many others do and did and still do today. But I did have a view, certainly going into university, I didn’t want to go straight into the business. I didn’t want to just be viewed as the founder’s daughter. I really wanted to chart my own path.

You know, as fate would have it, when I finished university, my now husband, then boyfriend, we did a ski season in the US, as many people do in their early 20s. And at that point, we were expanding the business to Canada. So we popped up to Vancouver, thinking we’d stay six to 12 months. And that turned to nine years. And we really won my husband’s South African. So he’s got no concept of, or didn’t have any concept of Baker’s Delight and we’re Cobb’s Bread in Canada.

I didn’t know if he’d enjoy it. I didn’t know if I’d enjoy it, but we really went from the ground up and we loved it. It was such an exciting time. were moving from city to city, opening bakeries, training teams, recruiting franchisees and seeing the business grow from two or three stores to when we left in 2012, we had 80 and we’ve got close to 200 there now.

So it…it kind of just evolved. wasn’t something we, I intentionally said, well, this is a great way for me to cut my teeth. But it did mean when we returned to Australia in 2012, or returned for me, I had this huge history and credibility as a person, not as the founder’s daughter. So I had that confidence and belief. So well, I’ve done it. And that was the path forward. So.

It wasn’t planned as it never is, but I’m so grateful for that experience and has certainly helped me since being back in Australia now for I guess 12 years.

Sarah
You sound quite excited when you talk about it, about that kind of the development and the building and the growth. Is that what drives you in business? What is it that excites you?

Elise
I’d say people. If you’re not excited by people, you know, because it doesn’t matter what the product is, but it’s the people that make the difference. It’s your colleagues, it’s your franchisees and seeing their success. I am a very positive person. quite an, you know, I think on my McQuague profile, I’m an enthusiast, which probably drives my executive team nuts from time to time. But I do genuinely love Baker’s Delight and love Cobb’s Bread, I such joy going out into the network and meeting the talent that’s coming through, seeing franchisees be successful. That drives me. Their success is what drives my success. And I think we’ve got great potential to continue to open lots of stores right across Australia and continue to grow our market in Canada. And what a privilege to be part of it.

Sarah
So business decisions made in corporate organisations can quite often seem very short term, very much driven by the need for shareholder gains. How does that relate to your business and the perspective of longevity perhaps over immediate gain? How does that manifest itself at Baker’s Delight?

Elise
Yeah, I suspect it’s the same in most family businesses, but certainly in our family business, you have a much longer horizon. As you said, you’re not beholden to angry, demanding shareholders wanting a dividend. So the path to success is longer. When we expanded to Canada back in 2003, is when we first moved there, it was a long road to success several years before we were truly profitable as the franchise or and it’s going, know, guns are blazing the last sort of 10 to 15 years. If we were a public company, I’m not sure if we would have pushed through. So that length and horizon is important. And maybe also from a family business or maybe it’s just our perspective where we are very people focused.

So not just the long-term horizon for the total growth of the business, but the long-term horizon and the success of the franchisee is really important to us. They sign a 10-year franchise agreement, most stay for 20 years. that’s the magic in franchising is ensuring that that franchisee walks away whenever it’s time for them to sell. Having had a wonderful experience, but a really profitable business as well.

You’ve got to have that longer term view and you’ve got to be focused on that win-win with your network. Because a situation where the franchise all wins and the franchisee loses is absolutely a road to nowhere. And it’s very short-sighted because ultimately the franchisees aren’t making more money. Yes, the franchise or you eventually make less money as well.

Sarah
So in terms of you moving into the joint CEO role with David, I think there was quite a long transition period for that. And what was the challenge for you to step into that role?

Elise
So we took over in January of 2017 and you’re right, it was a few years in the making. So we came back in 2012 and took up various executive roles and probably the transition subtly started probably 2014, 2015, but we officially moved into that leadership role in January.

From a family perspective and from a personal perspective, it was challenging. I had a three month old and a two year old. So that was tricky. no, not quite a two year old. She would have been, no, two year old, sorry. Two year old and a three month old. So that was, you know, you’re in the thick of it there. And it’s always a balance when you’ve got passionate founders being able to step back and new untested leaders coming in. So there were lots of decisions that

that we made that maybe mum and dad didn’t agree with. But bless them, they stood back and let us go and ensured that we didn’t make too many of the wrong decisions and that we learnt along the way. And as a business, we were going through quite, and still are on this journey of rejuvenation and reinvention.

So we were starting that process and that’s a big change when you’re trying to move the business forward to remain contemporary and to be still delivering that delight to our customers every day. it was challenging, but we had, everyone was, I think what got us through is we were all focused and aligned on the end goal, right? Which is the success of the business and the success of the franchisees.

And we’ve always had such great open dialogue as a family at the board table with our non-executive directors as well. So we got through and the business continued to grow. that’s, I think that’s, I don’t know how other family businesses have transitioned. It’s always difficult. But if you’ve got open dialogue as a family,and you’ve got the right support network with talent from a board level, you certainly increase your chances of success.

Sarah
It’s quite unusual to have a CEO role split. Why? What was the decision?

Elise
Yes. Well, Dave and I have always worked together, number one. Number two, it’s a family business, so we can run it however we want. I still remember when we were talking about the transition and my dad saying, it’s our business, Elise. We can run it however we want. Don’t feel like you need to be chained to the desk, so to speak, when you’ve got a young family. It’s our business.

And mum and dad have run the business together. and lots of our franchisees, a husband and wife team. But yes, in the corporate world, it is unheard of. If it’s not a family business, you would say, well, why would you do that? We have very different strengths, Dave and I. So we are a good balance. He’s very creative, can think laterally, great at the longer term horizon. I’m a bit more, let’s get it done today.

I can be a little hot-headed from time to time and he’s a bit calmer. So we do compliment each other like that. But we still get lots of our friends saying, how do you work with your husband? And my response is always, particularly to parents, you are the leaders in your family household. You parent together, which is…

In some ways, the hardest thing you ever do out, know, running a business is challenging, but raising children is challenging. If you can do that successfully with your spouse, absolutely, you can run a business with your spouse. So yeah, it’s about communication, alignment, and leaning on each other’s strengths is how we make it work.

Sarah
And does one of you have, like, do you have the final say or is it just, it has to, I’m just wondering, if, if everyone, who has the final say or is it all conversation? You have to agree.

Elise
Who has the final say? Well, it’s, I mean, that’s an excellent question. There’s been very few times where we’ve had polarizing opinions. So we end, it’s, I guess it’s the same personally. even if we’re tackling it from each end of the spectrum, we’ll, I guess, talk about the pros and cons of different scenarios and then agree on the path forward.

And I would guess if one of us wasn’t there, the decision would have would maybe be 80 % the same. It’s my sort of gut feel. But having both of us, I think has increased our chances of the decisions being the right decisions more often than not.

Sarah
What’s informed your leadership and your leadership style?

Elise
Again, probably my parents. know that sounds a bit like, I don’t know, cliche is the right word, but they really are fantastic role models. And so I think getting involved is part of it, building relationships. But also leading by example has always been something that’s been something just very important to me. And back in the early days, 20 years ago when we were opening bakeries,

I wouldn’t ask anyone to do something in store that I wouldn’t do. So if we needed to scrub the toilet, clean the oven, I would do that as well and to ask others. It’s obviously different with senior executives in a much larger organization. So yeah, I’d say big influences have been my parents. had wonderful mentors over the years. Michael Andrew, who has since passed away, was a fantastic mentor to get me to think broader and slow down from time to time and just take a moment to reflect and rather than just keep moving and just I think remaining optimistic.

I’m an optimistic person and I think if you always believe that there’s more growth, there’s more opportunity, that can be quite infectious and everyone believes in it versus being a bit glass half empty sort of a approach. So yeah, lots of different people, but probably my parents if I was to sum it up in terms of my leadership style.

Sarah
So you mentioned a little bit earlier about, you know, Baker’s Delight kind of being in a transformational phase and I wanted to talk about that. But I wanted to start with sort of just talking about buying bread. I mean, it’s one of the oldest transactions really, isn’t it? So how important is customer experience in this? Because we live in a world where customer experience is always kind of the number one theme. So that’s my first question is, is how important is customer experience in something that is absolutely so transactional?

Elise
It’s critical because as you said, it’s bread and we need to day in, day out convince shoppers and families that it’s worth the extra stop to get their high-fibre loggia for the lunchbox from us versus going to the supermarket. And of course, the product quality is better. Of course it is. But it’s the whole experience that drives that loyalty. It’s the staff member behind the counter, how friendly they are, if they know them in the community.

It’s the convenience if it’s you’re in a hurry, you want to be able to get in and get out and have your product available for you there and then. So if you don’t do those things well, people leave you. And also acknowledging the perfect customer experience is different today to what it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 40 years ago.

The perfect customer experience is different for that same customer depending on what their needs are. So you need to be really attuned to that. And one of the things we’ve really focused on the last five years has been this convenience piece. It really bubbled up through Covid. And we would often be told why people don’t shop with us is it’s easy to get everything at the supermarket, that’s too busy, et cetera, et cetera.

So we really sort of went to task on, how do we make the shopping experience as seamless as possible? And if you’re in a hurry, you can get in and get out quickly. Likewise, if you want to have a chat with the staff behind the counter, you’ve still got that opportunity. So from a functional perspective in our refurbishments, we’ve installed what we call a wall units, which is really just a grab and go device for our top sellers. It’s stuff that goes in the lunchbox for the busy moms and dads getting their bread needs for the school run. So we’re doing that in store. We’ve still got a ways to go on our online program, but even using third parties like Uber Eats and the like, that didn’t exist sort of 10, 20 years ago. Convenience was still a challenge, but the ways you can solve convenience is different now. And who knows what it’ll be in the future and what the priorities are for the customer.

Elise
So for us, I guess our philosophy to stay successful is to still remain true to our core, which is about delight. That’s how it’s in our name. Remain focused on our core product, which is bread. But look at what families need, what the pain points are, because families are our main shoppers. What do they need and how can we continue to

to exceed their expectations in store, online and out in the community.

Sarah
So I’d imagine that streamlining kind of process is really about technology, isn’t it?

Elise
Yeah, a lot of it is about technology and we’ve been on a journey, certainly the last three to five years from, I’d say the prior 20 years, maybe not investing as much as we should have in technology. So there’s a bit of catch up. A few years ago, we launched our Doughgetters program on our digital loyalty program. We’ve got more than a million members on the program. It’s a well-loved program. I now have people say to me, when I meet them on the street or in an event, Baker’s Delight, it used to be, Baker’s Delight, my favorite product is, my kids love blah. It’s now, I’m a dough getter and my favorite product is.

So it’s definitely resonating with the community, but we still have a lot to do from e-commerce, there’s still stuff we need to do to improve that customer experience. And there’s a lot more we need to do to improve the franchisee experience from a technology front. So we’ve got a program of work, particularly around forecasting and inventory management so that it’s simpler and smarter in how our franchisees can set their daily production because we bake on site, fresh every day, whatever’s not there goes to charity when we can get charities. And even within that, there’s lots of product that we’re not allowed to give to charities for food safety reasons.

We’re looking at ways how we can have smarter production. So we are reducing our food waste as well and partnering with some other groups that are new to market to look at ways that we can provide value as well at the end of the day. there’s, we’re moving through it, but like anything with technology, there’s no finish line. It’s this constant reinvestment, constant evolution.

Sarah
And in terms of the business model, in terms of the shop front, is that changing? Because obviously they’re kind of the kiosk concept and right across retail, things are changing quite significantly.

Elise
Yeah, yeah. So we launched our, what we’ve called NextGen, our NextGen design in 2019. At that point, about 50, 60 % of our network was at a current design. So they would have been the design prior. We’re now closer to 80%. So aesthetically, we’re looking more current and more modern, as well as solving some of those consumer pain points, the convenience that I spoke about before, as well as for our future designs, we’re looking at, well, what are our options for a click and collect area or solving some of those other customer flow pieces that wasn’t something we considered 10 or 20 years ago, because there wasn’t a click and collect in that time.

So the shopfront will evolve and to help with a customer product navigation with our customers, but also to continue to solve those pain points for customers and still look fresh and appealing. So you actually want to be standing in that space. So it’s an evolution, I would say, whereas our next gen design when we launched it, I would put it more as maybe not revolution. That’s maybe a bit too much, but it was a significant step forward. And now it’s just…tweaking around the sides.

Sarah
So in terms of looking at kind of expansion, you said that there’s still a lot of potential for the brand. What do you see as the kind of, where do you see the growth over what period of time?

Elise
Yeah, sure. So we currently have 520 bakeries in Australia, just shy of 200 in Canada and six in the US. Across Australia, we could easily open another hundred over the next three to five years. Largely in Queensland is our opportunity for growth. If we had the same penetration that we have in Victoria, in Queensland, we’d have another hundred stores up there. So that’s our sort of focus domestically.

And we’ll continue to open bakeries right across Australia, but Queensland’s our real focused area. Canada, we could double our footprint there in the next five years. We’re right across the country. We’re not in Quebec. We’ve not really dipped our toe into French Canada just yet, but perhaps in the future. And we’re at proof of concept in the US. we’ve opened, we’ve got six bakeries down there now, I shouldn’t say down there. think I’m in Canada when I say down there. It’s the northeast of Connecticut, New York. But it’s proof of concept. We’ve really only been there a year or two. And if we can get that right, gosh, the sky’s the limit when you’ve got a market like the US.

So the big bets are getting the US right. And then considerable growth across Australia and Canada, but it’s in a Canada and Australia that growth is likely to be in a more, measured isn’t the right word, but the same sort of methodology that we’ve done to date, where your shopping center opens up, we go in there, we look at markets that we’re not currently in and try to get into those markets.

Sarah
Do you have many franchisees who own more than one bakery?

Elise
We do, we do. So the average, I own 1.7, but a big chunk have won and the model of sort of the husband and wife owning their local bakery and being involved in the community is certainly a big chunk of our franchisee base. We have one franchisee who has 12, he’s our biggest MSO and he’s actually been one of our longest standing franchisees, he’s been with us 40 years. My dad hired him as an apprentice baker back in the early 80s. So it’s really in his blood. And then we have a number that also have sort of the, have maybe dozen or so that have three to seven and many hundreds that have one or two.

So we do want to expand the number of franchisees we have who have multiple and provide better programs to support them to deliver that success. And in terms of metrics in Canada, it’s similar in terms of the average number of bakeries per franchisee. They don’t have any of the 12. They do have a handful of franchisees that have 3, 4, 5. So it’s a work in progress. But really, from my perspective as the franchisor, we want our franchisees to be successful and to achieve their objectives and their goals.

For some, it’s I want to stay as a single site. I love my bakery. I love my team. I love my community and I can see lots of growth in my four walls. For others, it’s I want to have 10, 20 bakeries and everything in between. So we need to help our network realize their goals in a profitable way.

Sarah
Elise, it’s been wonderful to chat with you and hear more about Bakers Delight. Thank you so much for your time.

Elise
My pleasure, Sarah.