We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rachel Liu Martindale. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rachel Liu below.

Alright, Rachel Liu thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with the decision of whether to donate a percentage of sales to an organization or cause – we’d love to hear the backstory of how you thought through this.

We donate 15% of profit to two local charities, Ozone House and The Hope Clinic. We also have bake sales where we donate a portion of sales to various causes that come up throughout the year. The two charities that we picked both provide resources and support for those in need within the community and we find it important to give back to people who could use some extra help.

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?

Milk + Honey is a custom cake and wholesale bakery that donates 15% profit to two local charities. We specialize in timeless buttercream wedding cakes with fresh floral arrangements and Asian-inspired pastries. I (Rachel, the owner) am a self-taught baker and have loved food for as long as I can remember. I am a materials science engineer by degree, but hated working in the corporate world and quit my job to work in the food and beverage industry. After completing an internship at a renowned wedding cake bakery, I made my first professional cake in the spring of 2017 and Milk + Honey was born out of my small apartment. It remained a side business for a few years with cakes and pastries being made in the evenings and weekends. After several months of doing weekly pop ups, I moved to my commercial location in Milan, MI in January 2020 where I still bake out of today.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I pivoted my career path very shortly after starting in the work force after graduating college. I quickly learned that the field I was in was not for me and I didn’t enjoy my work at all. I felt very embarrassed and guilty about “quitting” so soon, but it was the best choice for me to pursue my passions which led to me starting my business.

As for the business, I moved and opened my first location in the spring of 2020 before everything shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I had put in a ton of work to build out a retail space only to close it a few weeks after opening. It made more sense to pivot to an online ordering system and doing deliveries rather than relying on retail traffic to support the business. I believe this quick switch was what helped the business survive the pandemic.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I started as a very small side hustle in my apartment. My first client was a friend. It steadily grew from there as more and more people heard about my business and placed orders. The next step was to do pop ups around town to test the concept and also get my name out there more. Once I had enough clients to sustain my paycheck, I decided to quit my full time job and switch to running the business full time.

Contact Info:

• Website: milkandhoneymakes.com
• Instagram: milkandhoneymi
• Facebook: milkandhoneymi