Talking baking and business with Laura of Vonuts
Our Business Specialist librarian interviews small Wellington businesses. Today we are happy to have Vonuts.
I'd like to say it's not just about the donuts. It's about building a business that is sustainable, that does good. One where ingredients have been ethically sourced. That's what's important.
When Laura Reinisch set up Vonuts, her vegan donut business, in 2020 she didn't think through the early starts it was going to eventually involve.
Two days a week Laura, who recently moved her business out of the family kitchen into a shared working space in the CBD, begins work while most of us are still snoozing. Then, as others who share the workspace begin arriving at work, Laura is putting the finishing touches to her creations before boxing them up and beginning deliveries around the city.
Arriving in New Zealand from her native Germany in 2019, Laura found herself missing the vegan bakery that had made donuts "almost as good as my Oma's". Lockdown provided her with an opportunity to begin experimenting with making her own vegan version of her grandmother's jam filled donuts.
Without much prior baking experience, Laura was guided and encouraged from afar by her nonagenarian Oma and Great-aunt Gertrud, who helped her master the techniques of baking with yeast. Eventually, after a lot of trialling and experimentation a successful recipe was settled on.
Then in quick succession came a move to Wellington and a baby and Laura found her home comfort baking becoming a small home-based business.
In the two years since, the growth of Vonuts has risen like a bowlful of dough in a warm kitchen.
In recognition of World Baking Day, today, Wellington City Libraries sat down with Laura and talked to her about turning her love of vegan donuts into a small business.
WCL : Where you prepared for the early morning starts when you began thinking about making donuts as a business?
No, I'm not even a morning person! I was able to start a bit later when I worked from home and everything was really well timed. Here (in the shared work space) I usually clean up when the first people are coming in and I'm out between 8 and 9 o'clock.
WCL : Talk us through your business day.
There's a lot of prep work, I need to clean [the kitchen], I do the dough and while it's resting I prep the boxes, prep the glazes. Then I make the doughnuts, pack them, and deliver them. I usually plan my route the day before when I have all my orders in. I deliver them and then I'm usually home by 10.30 -11am.
WCL : The word ‘vonut’ to describe your vegan doughnuts – is that something you came up?
My partner did. He dreamed of it. We had been brainstorming different ideas. Then one morning he woke up and said "I know - it's Vonuts!". The first thing I did was trademark it.
WCL : Have you adapted your Oma’s doughnut recipe to a vegan one through trial and error or have you experimented with recipes sourced from vegan cookbooks until you got something that was reminiscent of her doughnuts?
A bit of both. I talked with my Oma and my great-aunt Gertrud, they're both in their nineties now. I looked at their recipes and they taught me how it works with yeast. Then I used the skills I had learned in combination with other recipes that are partly vegan recipes and partly other recipes I made vegan and did a lot of trial and error [which Laura recorded in a notebook as she experimented]. There was a time when I was four or five months pregnant and I worked as a nanny at that time in the evenings so I had the mornings free. Every morning I made donuts to get closer to the right recipe. There's a lot of donut eating involved. When I have donuts spare I usually give them to my partner for his work, or to neighbours.
WCL : How hard was it upscaling making your home baking to a business?
I have been very fortunate to get the support from [shared space] Two Fifty-seven. It made a lot of things easier once I had a space. Even in my head space I could separate things a lot more. The house wasn't full of stuff. I've got storage here. Before, at home I used a spare room as a storage room. It's a bit harder getting up to drive here but it makes things easier in the long run.
WCL : How easy and straightforward has it been getting the Council approval to run a home based baking business?
People think its complicated but in fact it's not if you do your research. [The lady] I was working with was lovely. Whenever I asked a question they had an answer. I felt very supported and on to it. When I came to the verification I had to send in photos of my kitchen and those kind of things but it felt very straight forward...I'm a list person so for me a tick list works.
WCL : Had you had any business experience before moving to Wellington?
I'd worked the past ten years with kids and young people. I studied sport and rehabilitation with a major in education. I worked as a PE teacher in England and returned to Berlin where I did Project Management for an NGO, so I have managing experience but it wasn't for business. I also managed kids and youth facilities in Berlin. Starting a business in New Zealand has been very different. In Germany I wouldn't be able to open a baking business without a baking degree. New Zealand's a bit more chilled in that regard, a bit more supportive. When I'm employing someone in the future I think I would prefer someone who is not a baker but vegan over someone who is not vegan but a baker, because that's a different experience with food.
WCL : What background research into the market did you do before launching?
Mostly I started because I missed vegan donuts. When I moved to Wellington, Wellington is known for having many vegans, so I looked around at what there was on offer. I was inspired by a vegan donut shop in Berlin, my home town, so basically, missing those donuts, and knowing how good they can be, that was my goal to get there. I think there was a demand here.
WCL : You started your business in the time of Covid – what additional challenges do you think that provided you with?
In some ways it made things easier. Like getting my kitchen registered - it was all online. Because I have a delivery service people, often those isolated at home got orders from people who asked me to put a "Get well" note in. So I did a lot of care packages - treat yourself or treat others.
WCL : How do you go about marketing?
I started using [local] facebook groups. The Vegan Facebook group was very supportive. Now I have Google ads running. To be honest, when I started I didn't think of marketing. That was a big mistake. A big learning. I thought of all the other things but I didn't think of the marketing part and in the end there was no money left. I had to think about how to do free marketing, which was a real challenge. People forget about you if they aren't constantly reminded that a business exists, unless the business is at a certain scale, and I'm not there yet.
WCL : Do non-vegans have misconceptions about vegan baking?
I shy away from putting all all non vegans into one pot and all vegans into another pot. Everyone is different and everyone is different [when it comes to being] open to new things. Some people do vegan baking even if they are not vegan, because there are some great recipes out there. I love when people who are not vegan eat my donuts and are like "Is this vegan? Are you sure?" That fills my heart with joy because it just shows that it's possible to do delicious food without having animals suffer for it. That's the core of what I'm doing. The problem is when people eat something vegan, and don't like it and then they immediately think all vegan food is [like that]. That's not really fair because you can eat a certain type of meat and not like it or have a really stinky cheese. It doesn't mean all cheeses taste like that.
WCL : Your offerings/flavours change regularly – where and how do you find inspiration and then how long does it take to get that right?
It's very different. Sometimes I have people messaging me and asking "Can you do a donut like this?" and I'll always try to make requests. I'm super open to people saying "I'd love to try this". Then a lot of ideas I get from my partner, who is my biggest supporter. I always try to have my menu balanced with traditional flavours like vanilla and chocolate that people consider a "must". [They're] easy to sell because people know what they are getting. Then I try something like the kumara biscoff to ... mix it up a bit. I try to make a variety that everyone can enjoy. I will often stroll through the supermarket and see what flavours are out there, what might work well together.
WCL : Do you have a favourite?
Yes! My personal favourite is vanilla custard crumble. It's triple vanilla. That was a flavour I developed with my mum when she was over from Germany. It has that personal note of us creating it together in the kitchen. It's a memory of her.
WCL : Any plans for expansion?
[The business] is growing. It's a slow growing and I think that is more sustainable for my health and for my mental health and everyone involved. Slow growth and sustainable growth instead of growing big today and being broken tomorrow. In hindsight [with family demands on time] I would probably have started in five years time but who knows what other challenges I would have encountered.
WCL : Where can people get their Vonut fix?
Mostly it's online ordering. [Buyers can now pick up from a central Wellington location]. At Forage Merchants in Lower Hutt every Friday, and there will be more cafes coming soon. [Initially] I reached out to some local cafes but now cafes are beginning to find me. At the start I hadn't considered that. The tricky bit is that it's just me and I can only make so many donuts!
If you want to know more about starting a small business from the the home kitchen, or just more about vegan baking. Check out some of Wellington City Libraries resources below.
Wellington City Libraries resources of interest
Homemade for sale : how to set up and market a food business from your home kitchen / Kivirist, Lisa
How to do marketing : a comprehensive guide for small business / Hillsdon, Jane
The vegan baking bible : over 300 recipes for bakes, cakes, treats and sweets / Tegelaar, Karolina
Simply vegan baking : taking the faff out of vegan cakes, cookies, breads and desserts / Cox, Freya