This month’s Featured Member is Claudia from Greenfox Bakery. Claudia is a wedding cake designer, specialising in buttercream wedding cakes. She loves working with buttercream exclusively as it allows her to really get creative with texture and colour and not to mention is delicious.
She left the corporate world to start baking full time in 2019 and has never looked back. Claudia has always loved baking and to be able to call it her job is a dream come true.
Based in South London with her husband, little girl and cat called Bosco, Claudia says she is a Londoner through and through. She loves the buzz of city life and spends her evenings watching re-runs of The Office (US and UK) and Parks and Rec.
Greenfox Bakery is run single handily by Claudia, from designing and making wedding cakes, to delivering orders, answering emails and marketing so when you book Greenfox Bakery it will literally only be Claudia that you deal with.
Her favourite cakes to design are the more non-traditional wedding cakes with loads of colour, texture and square tiers, instead of the usual round ones. Claudia believes that your wedding cake should be a show stopping centre piece of your wedding day and one that reflects you and your partners personality.
“Beautiful cake, I still dream about it and didn’t get to eat nearly enough as our guests devoured it! Absolutely wonderful and was brilliant working with Claudia and she captured what we were looking for perfectly.”
Sustainable Wedding Alliance Accreditation
Claudia is the first cake maker in the whole of the UK to gain the Sustainable Wedding Alliance Accreditation.
“My mission is not only to bring you beautiful, delicious cakes. It is to ensure that the way in which my cakes are made, distributed and marketed are with integrity, consciousness and with minimal harm to our environment.”
Claudia’s Dedication to Baking Sustainably
Claudia’s aim is to be a carbon neutral business by the end of 2023, and she also hopes to be net zero carbon by 2030.
What is Claudia going to do to achieve this? By …
- Offsetting her carbon usage by planting trees using Ecologi
- Driving an electric car for all her cake deliveries.
- Having a zero-waste policy in her kitchen so all cake offcuts are used to make other products such as cake pops, she also only buys what she needs and doesn’t stockpile ingredients.
- Using biodegradable/compostable/recyclable packaging, made from plants or previously recycled materials. Claudia aims to have 95% of her ingredients/supplies in plastic free packaging.
- Having all the energy to her home provided by 100% renewable energy sources. She has also invested in Ripple – a community solar park project. In collaboration with her energy supplier Claudia knows exactly where her energy is coming from.
The Ethical Move
Claudia has pledged to ‘The Ethical Move’. As part of this move, their pledge is to put the person before the sale and Claudia prides herself on being inclusive to all couples. Love has no labels, limits, race, gender or colour. Claudia is a firm believer in the phrase “do as you would be done by” and treating others in the same way you would expect to be treated. More than anything she wants to provide couples with a superb service as well as cake and will go above and beyond to make the couples journey memorable.
Carbon Footprint Audit
Using MyEmissions Claudia has recently calculated her carbon emissions in the food industry. They have a traffic light rating system which is similar to those found on food labels in the supermarket, and also a letter value ranging from A-E. Claudia’s wedding cakes, on average, are rated a D. By nature of their ingredients, cakes are quite high carbon emitters, specifically, dairy ingredients (butter and eggs) and chocolate (both from cocoa and milk solids) are high-emission ingredients. Therefor Claudia is looking into substitutions for dairy that won’t affect the cake flavour or consistency, but this is an ongoing project.
Photographer Credits: Fleming Photo
