Calgary’s Pretty Sweet Bakeshop is a business built on nostalgia with very modern ideas about leadership.

Owner Vicki Manness turned years of culinary and baking experience into a business that nurtures, trains and lifts up its team of 13 women.

It became a women-only bakery not by design but in a natural process.

“We gravitate towards hiring women; and they gravitate toward us,” says the double Red Seal chef and graduate of Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in culinary and baking programs. 

Feeling it was important to gain skills in all aspects of cooking and baking, she focused on learning what she could in various positions at restaurants and bakeries until she felt empowered to open a place of her own.

Nurturing nostalgia

Manness created the business in 2008 as a side hustle, working alone when not busy with her full-time job and selling products through markets and other small businesses.

In 2017 she leased an industrial space at 536 42 Ave. S.E. and custom-designed a kitchen.

The store has since evolved from a pre-order and pick-up business into an online-order and grab-and-go concept with a small storefront where they display prettily packaged items in shades of pink: “It’s popcorn mixes, snack mixes and a full pastry showcase,” she explains. 

The bakery offers custom cakes, and a wide variety of cookies, brownies and bars. “We want to pull in people with a nostalgia perspective,” Manness says.

“When I opened the business, a lot of the recipes came from my grandmother. I modernized them. A lot of that nostalgia is at the heart of this business. Using ingredients you remember from when you were a kid. It’s an old-school way of doing things but for a modern customer.”

One of their bestsellers is the birthday cake sandwich cookie, which were originally developed using a cake mix recipe to turn them into cookies but have since evolved into a fully original recipe that embodies that cake mix-like flavour.

Manness also uses classic cereals such as Lucky Charms and Cap’n Crunch in some of her products to bring a nostalgic element that captures customers’ imaginations “It transports them back to their childhood,” she says. 

Two kinds of leadership

Being a woman in professional baking wasn’t always easy. “I’ve worked in a lot of male-dominated kitchens. If you’re making people feel less-than for making a mistake, [that’s not right].”

Manness dreamed of creating a bakery where her team could learn from mistakes and progress, a place where “they are not embarrassed in front of colleagues and feeling confident enough to try again.”

She sees two kinds of leadership: fear- or embarrassment-based leadership versus honing your employee’s skills. “I’ve been in those places – you’re not growing – you’re a shy little flower because you’re not wanting to make a mistake.”

Some women she’s worked with have experienced harassment or being overlooked for opportunities. 

“Having more of an open environment, a place of safety, where people feel the freedom to create – whether it ends up being good or bad – makes it a better workplace. The product is better in the end.”

Hiring for attitude

When hiring, Manness looks for a positive attitude and a willingness to learn. “A strong work ethic is important,” she says. “Having knowledge is great, but thinking you know more than everyone else is not a great attitude. Some people have that ability to know they’re here to just take it all in and learn everything about the business. I feel blessed that I’m able to come to work every day with a team that genuinely likes each other.”

The biggest challenge she’s overcome is learning how to delegate tasks and responsibilities. As she puts it, “Learning how to let go and how to let others take on things that maybe I was doing. To let that go, and let other people have it and thrive at it. To be able to give people that trust. It’s a lot easier for me now, it wasn’t in the beginning. To be able to slowly pick away at letting someone taking something off my shoulders. I was doing everything myself for so long. It was scary at first but it was necessary and allows me to run this business in another way. To take a step back and help the business make the next move – keeping things fresh, looking ahead to next holiday. This is what will keep our business growing. Thinking ahead to what’s next before it happens.”

Manness would love to see schools have more women-centred industry events to nurture and actively promote entrepreneurial women.

Her advice to budding bakery entrepreneurs? “Know your worth and don’t get squashed by some of the negativity that comes with this business. Surround yourself with likeminded people or work in a place where there is potential for growth.”