Tell us about the Homemade Brownie Company

Being a keen baker from an early age, our founder Laura was always supplying sweet treats for her friends and family. Although all of her creations were a big hit with the recipients, there was one recipe that always stood out: her signature, gluten-free, gooey chocolate brownie. After much encouragement from those around her, Laura decided it was time to turn her hobby into a business and thus the Homemade Brownie Company was created in 2016. Fast forward almost seven years, and we are now running out of a professional catering facility with six full time staff members and big plans for the future that you’ll definitely want to keep an eye out for!

What's your best seller?

With more than 20 flavours to choose from we certainly have something to suit everyone’s unique palate. However, we find that the majority of our customers (and staff!) have a particular soft spot for our signature triple chocolate brownie, our fudgy dark chocolate classic base packed full of white, milk and dark chocolate chunks, what’s not to love?! In fact, our triple chocolate brownie is so esteemed that it earned a star rating at the 2022 great taste awards.

What are your highlights since starting Homemade Brownie Company

So many highs and lows! A few highs that stand out:

• Moving into our premises in 2021, this was such a rewarding process, and it really made us feel as though all our hard work was beginning to pay off!
• Receiving our first two Great Taste Awards for our Triple Chocolate and Coffee Caramel brownies from The Guild of Fine Food last year.
• Being accepted into the esteemed Winchester Christmas Market and spending five great weeks there last November and December.

Are there any exciting plans that you can share with us about the future?

We are opening our first retail kiosk based in Festival Place right here in Basingstoke on 12 July.  We’ve literally just signed the agreement with them so are super excited about this! We’ve exhibited there many times before on temporary stints and have always had a great time, so we are thrilled to be returning on a more permanent basis.

As well as this, we’ve been working very hard on a new range of retail products behind the scenes for almost two years and are in the final stages of testing just now.  We can’t wait to launch this before the end of the year – it’s been a long time coming and so much hard work has gone in!

How do you come up with your brownie flavours? 

Most of our flavours are created in the kitchen based on what the bakers think will work, but we also get great suggestions from customers and find sparks of inspiration in places like social media almost daily. There’s never a shortage of new ideas to test out.

Tell us how the Love Basingstoke followers can get their hands on your delicious brownies? 

Originally, The Homemade Brownie Company was designed as a postal treat business. We have always enjoyed the idea of you guys surprising your loved ones with a sweet treat delivered straight to their door, however as we continue to grow and develop the opportunities for you guys to receive your brownie fix is ever increasing. In the summer of 2021, with the lockdown measures beginning to ease, we participated in the Blenheim Palace Flower Show. We had such a great time getting out and meeting customers new and old in person after such a tough year for all, that we decided events were definitely our thing! Flash forward to the present day and you can find us out and about most weekends ensuring everyone nationwide gets a chance to get their hands on our brownies. You can keep up to date on our travels across our social media platforms, to ensure you’ll never miss an opportunity.

As well as at markets and events, you can also find our products in various café’s, stores, and eateries! We are so proud to be stockists of such a diverse range of incredible businesses, our fellow Hampshire locals may recognise us from our features in Wellington or Newlyn’s farms shops and cafés. Be sure to look out for our new kiosk on your upcoming travels around Festival Place too!

Why did you decide to base yourselves in Basingstoke? 

We live in Hook, so it was the natural place for us to be based, but it’s a great hub for many reasons.  There are lots of great local businesses that we have as both suppliers and customers, we’re close enough to both London and the South Coast which gives us easy access to lots of good events and it’s great to have a place like Festival Place on our doorstep that we’re able to sell from. Not to mention the overwhelming sense of community Basingstoke has to offer, it has been great to get to know the residents and we really do feel privileged to have built such a lovely customer base. Businesses that are looking for a fast-paced, up-and-coming town to base themselves in, needn’t look any further!

Follow the Homemade Brownie Company on Facebook.

Our thanks to The Homemade Brownie Company for this blog.
June 2023