Young Leeds sweet empire entrepreneur keeps up with demand for thousands of KG a week using delivery service

Leeds based Archers Sweets sells everything from traditional pick ‘n’ mix through to American candy.

Owner Tasha Archer, 25, started selling sweets as a teenager in 2013 - after her efforts to make Easter baskets for family went viral online.

After making a Facebook group under her business name Archers Sweets, Tasha has since amassed more than 50,000 eager followers across her social media platforms and the business has gone from strength to strength.

Tasha - who runs the business alongside her partner Brad, 26 - now owns three shops in Leeds and has employed four people.

She said her business has got 'bigger and bigger' despite the Covid pandemic and now sells thousands of kilos of sweets each week - plus hundreds of doughnut boxes to her loyal customers.

Tasha told the Yorkshire Evening Post how she started her business from home, with customers 'queuing up the driveway' to get their hands on the sweets in the early days.

Now, customers are able to order online and in shop - when not under lockdown restrictions

Tasha found that the pandemic heavily impacted her business model, as when national lockdown hit, her delivery orders soared.

Although delighted with the immediate jump in telephone order volume, Tasha and her team started to become increasingly overwhelmed with delivery orders, leaving them little time to focus on the running of the shop.

She has since partnered with delivery platform Foodhub to be able to keep up with orders.

Instead of manually organising each customer order, the system allowed them to fully digitise and streamline the process, affording staff less stress and more time to spend with customers in the shop.

Tasha said: “Signing up to Foodhub has massively helped the business.

"We’ve gained lots more customers since implementing the EPOS system and the staff are under much less pressure.

"Joining Foodhub is the best thing we ever did, it’s made our lives so much easier.”

Ardian Mula, Foodhub’s CEO said: “We are delighted to have Archers Sweets onboard as one of our partners and thrilled at the level of success they have seen so far simply by using our order management system.

"It can really help businesses such as Archers Sweets evolve their e-commerce offering and allow them to be agile at a time when they need to most, alongside the cost saving benefits.”

Foodhub is encouraging independent business owners to take advantage of the current appetite for e-commerce and delivery orders and sign up to the site.