We recently connected with Francesca Inglin and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Francesca, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
I found my purpose when I tuned everything out. What I mean is, I stopped trying to please other people, or my bank account, and did some intense self reflection. I asked myself, if money weren’t a thing, what would make me truly happy? What would I regret not pursuing? My answer always comes back to feeding people; it’s my love language. I knew deep down if I didn’t follow that voice in my head, I would always think about it. So, I set aside all my doubts and replaced each one with a solution. I started by test baking, and as expected, there were a ton of flops, but I still had fun messing up. That’s the first time in my life I was okay failing because I didn’t have to answer to anyone—there wasn’t any pressure. I would just throw out the bake, clean up the mess, and start over. Once I felt a recipe was ready, I would invite family or friends over to test it out. It was the reactions of everyone trying my food that pushed me to continue, it verified my intuition was right, that this is the path I should be on.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I have an at-home bakery called Loaf & Love in Sherman Oaks, CA. I mainly specialize in loaf cakes. The flavors I currently offer are: Banana Bread, Cinnamon Streusel Cake, Lemon Blueberry, Nutella Pound Cake, Orange Blossom Honey, Chocolate Espresso. I also have a seasonal flavor that changes out. For the holidays, I’ve created a sampler gift box which includes four mini loafs featuring holiday flavors: chocolate peppermint, gingerbread, orange cranberry, and our most popular flavor, Nutella pound cake. I have also begin to include other nostalgic desserts as well, like chocolate chip cookies, almond madeleines, cheesecake, and various tarts.
My desserts are simple. They are meant for the morning, an afternoon snack with tea or coffee, or even as a dessert. I use simple ingredients that are accessible and nostalgic. Everything I made is intended to be comforting, like little reminders of our past–flavors that our grandmothers and parents used to bake with. One of my fondest memories as a kid was coming home from school and my mom having a snack of Nutella toast waiting for me at the counter where we would talk about my day. That memory is what inspired the Nutella Pound Cake loaf.
I have an affinity for hand crafted objects and I wanted to embody that in my desserts. I treat every loaf as my version of a love letter—that’s how I came up with the name Loaf & Love. I truly take the time with each of my recipes and hope that my customers can taste the effort I put into making each loaf. I wanted my packaging to reflect that as well. I use Kraft pans and Kraft tie bags and stamp each bag with my information so my customers can really get the sense that each cake is truly made with love.
Nothing I make is fussy or complicated—they’re just that perfect taste of home you need in the middle of the afternoon.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Three main things that were the driving force in my journey were: support, passion, and love. I couldn’t have even started this company without the support and push from my family—the closest people to me. I always joked about starting something, but no one laughed each time I brought it up. They just would point blank ask me, why not just do it? It helped me to accept that this dream wasn’t as out of reach as I thought it was.
Passion has played one of the biggest roles in this because this company started out of my passion for feeding people. I wouldn’t be able to sustain doing this on a daily basis if I didn’t feel fulfilled. I live, breathe, think of creating food every moment throughout the day. Even at night, I literally dream up step-by-step on how to create something and write it down when I wake up. There is nothing I love more than baking. My favorite part is seeing people’s reactions or posts on Instagram after they try my loafs. It’s what drives me to continue pushing on and creating more.
Love is the most important thing for me in all senses—it’s even in the name of my company. I bake with all my love and am organically growing my company with the same mentality. I don’t need to be the biggest company out there, as long as my customers feel the love I put into their desserts. I want each one of them to feel like they personally know me, and that they fall in love with my desserts and the memories they associate with my flavors and ingredients, as I have already done.
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
My ideal client is someone who enjoys a classic, traditional flavor. My main goal is to tap into people’s memories. My most vivid memories are all based around food. Everyone in my family cooks and bakes in some capacity and we center our gatherings around food. Food is what brings my community together, and I want my customers to have the same. My customer is someone who wants to entertain and have friends or family over any time and surprises them with a simple yet delicious treat. They appreciate the handmade quality of my brand, and invests as much of their time and love into their passions as I do into my desserts. My ideal customer wants to create their own memories for their children, the way our parents have for us, through food and gatherings, and their tastebuds.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.LoafandLove.com
- Instagram: @loaf.and.love
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Loaf-Love/61551738497576/?mibextid=LQQJ4d
Image Credits
Dana Hanley, Andrew Inglin, Harrison Marciano
