Please allow me to introduce myself
Hi! My name is Hayley and I am the owner of Palmer's Baked Goods. I have loved baking my whole life - as a kid, my mom always said that I joined sports teams as another excuse to bake cookies. Every rugby game, swim meet and ski race was just another opportunity to bake. So once I finished university, I told my parents that after four years of nutrition school, I still wanted to make food rather than tell people what they should or should not eat. So in 2013, off I went to George Brown, which started my career in the wonderful world of the food industry. So what led me to start Palmer's? Well I started it officially in 2017, while living in Collingwood. I was working at a sourdough focused bakery and decided to start selling cupcakes, cookies and tarts at the Collingwood Farmers Market. Farmers markets have always been my happy place, meeting those who grow, bake and produce the food we eat, so it was a natural fit. I worked those markets every week for a season, but then decided to move back out west, where I continued Palmer's at the Whistler Farmers Market. Here, I was working in a hotel and I loved the opportunity to do my own thing once a week and meet the people enjoying my food. In 2019, I realized that I really did need to be close to my family, which is when I moved home, started work at a bakery in Toronto and then. EVERYTHING. Shut. Down. I was cooped up at my partners home in Kitchener, baking every day for myself and my partner and one day my partner said "that's enough! You need to sell all of this! We can't eat it all, that's ridiculous!" I supposed he was right, so off I went. I found a commercial kitchen to rent, made a logo out of clip art and set up a website, and Palmer's Baked Goods began again! But this time, it was as a delivery service. While everyone was stuck inside, you could order bread right to your home! Since then, it has grown into a farmer's market stall while continuing as a delivery service for busy folks who can't make it out to the markets. I have an employee, who makes my life a hundred times easier and I no longer need sports events to bake every day. Baking is my passion and I am one of the lucky few who gets to share their passion with people all over Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge, and I am grateful for that every day.
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