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

Hi Ashley, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

As a child, I was surrounded by incredible women. My Mom ran our home seamlessly while also homeschooling and looking for opportunities to contribute to the household financially. Both of my grandmothers were small business owners, (during a time where that was not typical or celebrated) and fully supported their homes. Gammee was a hairstylist and owned her own salon and MeMe had a full catering/florist business that was fully ran out of her home. All three of them were amazing in the kitchen, so I spent many hours watching, learning and of course tasting lol. Fast forward to my adulthood and my sweet-tooth (which I blame on my Dad) motivated me to regularly bake for family occasions. I loved it, so slowly I branched out and start offering things for friends. It didn’t take long before my sister (another incredible example in my life) began to encourage me to start selling my products. I listened and smiled, but like many, I wasn’t confident that others would see the value in what I was doing. In the meantime, I was a wife, mom of an amazing son and had a full time job as a Marketing Director for a large medical group.

I continued using my family recipes from over 100 years of family tradition and began to tweak my ingredients to reflect the healthy, life choices of our family eating clean. Mom was on a health journey and was needing to become gluten-free, a family friend had an egg allergy, someone else was dairy-free – you get the picture. So all the sudden, I started making things that people could eat and enjoy safely.

Fast forward again to March of 2022 and it was my sisters birthday. She was going through a dark season filled with several tragedies and really didn’t feel like celebrating her day, which was very unlike her who typically celebrates all month long. So I pulled out my mixer, lots of frosting colors and every bright edible glitter I had and made her a cake with one goal in mind, to make her smile. And that I did.

She text me later and said she wanted to post on social media the cake and needed me to create a business page and that my friends is how MeMe’s Sugar began. I had known for a very long time that if I ever had a bakery, it would be named after MeMe. I even had a talented friend create my logo, but I wasn’t ready to go until Allison gave me a little push.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Ashley Scanlan and I live in Central Florida in the city of Winter Haven. My small business is MeMe’s Sugar, a home-based bakery offering southern-inspired baked goods from 100 years of family tradition. I specialize in using high quality organic products and also make great products for those with dietary needs. Cakes, cookies, pies, etc. I love making a simple birthday cake for a family or catering a dessert bar of a 500 person corporate event.

Because I have been a marketing professional for 25 years, I have been on the end of the event organizer so many times. I understand the many details of events and love making the dessert portion as easy as possible by being consistent, on-time and reliable.

Every item that leaves my kitchen is made-to-order and custom. I pride myself in fresh products, with a unique feel.

Have you ever had to pivot?

December of 2023 was a very busy month for orders. As a small business, I do all the buying, prep, baking, and decorating on my own and I rely heavily on my husband and son to help with boxing, delivering and even clean-up. In addition, during the peak times, my husbands steps in to run the household. I had particularly demanding week and knew that every extra minute would be spent in the kitchen to insure the quality of my products. Suddenly my husband became ill, so he was isolated to the bedroom. I found myself needing to run the house and also my business to honor my word.

It led to late nights, lots of standing, crazy time management and me needing to ask for help from others. So much grace had to be given. I learned in that moment what I was capable of doing when pressed, the amazing support around me and as I asked my heavenly Father for wisdom and help he was right there every step.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

Although I live in Winter Haven, my sister lives in Orlando. Through one of her relationships, she wanted me to set-up a booth and be a vender at a Halloween event. Although I had done many events in the past for my employer, I had never done a booth event for my business. I was nervous about being in a completely different area that has so many incredible bakeries, wasn’t sure the best way to transport my products to ensure the quality and had to navigate packaging, presentation, payments, signage, decor etc. I am so grateful that my sister was right there to help and there were some lessons learned (a few pieces of cake were sacrificed in the process lol.) But to date, my client based in Orlando is huge and it all started with that event.

Being willing to try new things and understanding that failures can be the best path to learning paid off in a big way.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: memessugarbakery
• Facebook: MeMe’s Sugar