A POPULAR cakery in Yate has celebrated its first anniversary, shortly before having to temporarily close as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

Sunflour Cakery opened in February 2019 after former Brimsham Green School student Natalie Knight, 23, made the decision to start her own business.

She was inspired to make the decision and go it on her own after losing her father.

Almost immediately the Sunflour Cakery proved very popular in the area, with hundreds of people popping in to her shop on North Road to buy treats as well as countless bookings for celebration cakes in the first few months.

Within one month of opening the business, which Natalie runs with the help of her mum Annette, had over 1,000 likes on Facebook, that has now surpassed 2,500.

As part of the cakery’s birthday celebrations, Natalie ran a competition on Facebook for customers.

“We ran the competition online and gave away some prizes to customers,” Natalie explained.

“The customers have been great ever since we opened and so it is nice to give something back to them.

“They have always supported me and appreciate the work we do so I am really grateful.”

Speaking to the Gazette in 2019, Natalie expressed her desire to start classes and parties for customers at her shop in the future. Now one year on those sessions are up and running, and proving popular. Sadly, these have also had to be postponed for the time being.

“They are really popular and we have had some great feedback from them,” Natalie continued.

“It is nice to see how well received they have been because it is something that I wanted to do and it it is good to see that people have enjoyed them.

“I wanted to be a teacher when I was younger so it is nice to be doing that in a different kind of way.”

The shop still sells cakes and traybakes throughout the day as well as designing and creating cakes for people’s orders. The launch of a website (sunflourcakery.co.uk) has now made it possible for customers to purchase goods online.