Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Annika-Mie Racadio. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Annika-Mie , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you tell us a bit about who your hero is and the influence they’ve had on you?

My hero is my Lola Ana. She’s my hero because she taught me how to be strong, resilient and how to love deeply. She was one of the kindest, loving, funny, strongest people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. She helped raise me and my sister while my parents worked and because of her my love of food began. She was a single mom of 6 kids and put them through college, was a business woman and despite the cards she was dealt in this life. She remained kind and loving. She passed in July 2001 and I miss her dearly, to this day, i’ll never forget her fried chicken and how she would fill the room with laughter and her energy and personality was just like sunshine. My first memories of baking were with her. We used to make those boxed mix Betty Crocker Blueberry Muffins and Bisquick Mix biscuits, they weren’t the best but she would make me feel like they were the best thing ever. She had a way of making you feel special and loved. I like to think that I share the same big heart as her, her strength and resilience.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a 2nd Generation Filipinx-American. I am originally from San Diego, CA but recently moved to Stockton, CA in 2021.

I’ve always loved baking, some of my favorite early baking memories are when I baked 2 birthday cakes for myself when i was 8, i had a total of 3 cakes that year and to this day was probably one of the best birthdays.

I first started in the food industry about 12 years ago when I went to culinary school (for the first time, i went 2x) but had to leave due to becoming pregnant with my son. I went back to school 2 years after having him and graduated in 2014. I got my first pastry job shortly after at a casino in Alpine, CA about 30 mins away from San Diego as a pastry cook. I worked at the buffet serving desserts and shortly after I moved to the back and began my journey into the food industry and mass producing baked goods. I’ll never forget that job because we had made about 80% of the desserts from scratch and that felt unheard of, especially for such a large operation. That is something i’ve held near and dear to me to this day, especially when it comes to my business.

I specialize in Filipinx, Asian and Pacific Island Baked Goods. I like to put a spin on classic flavors I grew up on and kind of remix them and think out of the box. I am a big fan of out of the box flavors or flavor combinations.

I am most proud of how fast we’ve grown in our shorty 2.5 years of being open and being able to still be here despite the challenges we’ve faced, especially being a mostly pop-up style bakery.

We are a family owned and operated business. My husband and I are co-owners and our son does our samples and helps up setup and breakdown for markets. I do all the baking and behind the scenes work (e.x. baking, packaging, purchasing, social media) and my husband does our sales and setup and breakdown at our markets. Everything is made from scratch and i try to use local seasonal ingredients as much as possible and work with our small businesses as much as possible also.

I chose to specialize in Filipinx, Asian and Pacific Island flavors not only because I love those flavors and grew up on them. But to also remind people of their childhoods, to remind them of their lola’s biko, their favorite childhood dessert or just as a pick me up on a rough day. To me, it’s not just food, to me food evokes different emotions and I want to be able to do the same for others.

I pride myself in making everything from scratch and constantly evolving and trying to make new things.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When we decided to move to Stockton, I was working as a pastry chef at a casino in Jamul, about 20 mins away from San Diego. For the longest time i thought that my career would continue into me working at hotels or for other people. I never thought I would open my own bakery, let alone 500 miles away from my hometown. I applied for multiple jobs but didn’t hear back from any, so with the support of my family I decided to open up Nika’s Mad Sweets and 2.5 years later, we’re here.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

One of my favorite sales stories would be from earlier this year actually, during the winter when we had heavy rain storms. We mainly do markets and during that time they were getting cancelled or postponed and often times, last minute, due to the weather changing so quickly. One time, our market got cancelled the night before and I had baked so much product and we were scrambling to figure out what to do because we were going to lose $500+ in product if we didn’t sell them somehow. I posted in our story and IG feed and ended up selling out of everything I had made and ended up having to bake more to accommodate the orders, We have a really amazing and supportive customer base, that we are extremely grateful for.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: nikasmadsweets
• Facebook: nikasmadsweetshop