• Who are you?

I am Laurianne a 34-year-old French raw vegan cake maker. I am passionate about healthy food and a few years ago I started changing my diet drastically. Last year I decided to go fully vegan. This choice was motivated by different things, the desire to be really honest with my business ethic, the realisation that a healthy plant-based diet is the best diet you can feed your body and mind with and that it is also one of the most effective way to reduce our carbon foot print, protect our environment and stop the inhuman and unsustainable animal farming industry.

• What does your business do? I make cakes only blending plant-based ingredients together and then freezing them. I mainly use seeds, nuts, dates, spices, fruit, veg and maple syrup.

Nothing is baked and no nasties are added. All my cakes are raw and free from dairy, eggs and refined sugar. I do not use any ingredients containing gluten. I have different stockists around Glasgow and Edinburgh and attend monthly markets. I also organise raw food workshops.

• Where are you based? I do most of my business in Glasgow's West End - I enjoy the city life, organise workshops and develop a Glasgow-based clientele.

• How did you get started? I just got started in my kitchen. I am still working from my own kitchen and I deal with all my social media and website myself. I recently got a professional photographer to take photographs of myself in order to promote my workshops. Apart from this I do everything myself.

• What is your background? My background is very different from my business. I worked in Immigration for years (in Universities around Glasgow & Edinburgh). I have a MSc in Business and Foreign Languages which I have never really used. I think not having qualifications or experience shouldn’t stop you from realising your dreams. Being passionate, creative, hardworking and having a good work ethic are the most important personal qualifications I am bringing to my business.

• What is your top tip? Do not look at what others are doing so that you do not get influenced. This would help you being really authentic, original and true to yourself. It is really easy to look at your competitors and beat yourself up for not being as good, not creating products as beautiful etc. In the end it is not about what others are doing, it is about what you want to do, your own style, your own life choices, the way you want your business to develop etc.

Another tip would be to surround yourself with people you can trust and you know will be here to give you this little push when most needed.

• How long has your business been running? It has been in the making for nearly 18 months but I only started trading last October.

• What was your first deal? My first café deal was with Avenue Coffee on Great Western Road. I would always be grateful to the team for giving me a chance and believing in me.

• Where do you plan your business to be in five years time? I am hoping to either have a small raw café or a mobile little café like a food truck/caravan. I am also hoping to develop my workshops more and offer a very wide variety of them. I am currently looking at offering different type of raw food.

• Useful contacts

- www.lauriannesrawcakes.co.uk (website)

- www.instagram.com/lauriannerawcakes (Instagram)

- www.facebook.com/lauriannesrawcakes (Facebook)

- https://twitter.com/LauriannesRC (Twitter)

- info@lauriannesrawcakes.co.uk (email)