Keep The Change
Michelle Morfett Is Building A Baking Empire: Content, Cookbooks, Ecommerce & A Bakery
06 May 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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I've been in business for 10 years now. In school, I didn't do any business studies or accounting or anything.
So you're a self-publisher now of a self-manufacturer. You start manufacturing paint tins.
I ordered 5,000 of them probably a year ago and I sold them all within two months.
New Zealand's literally a great country to have a crack at something because there's so many support and safety networks.
Don't overthink it. I don't want to hear a single excuse. Oh, you don't have time?
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Chapter 2: What inspired Michelle Morfett to start her baking empire?
Make time. Everyone has time for the things that they want to do. So stop talking about it and just get started.
You might have eaten one of her cakes. You might have seen her on social media or maybe purchased one of her baking books. Michelle Morfitt, welcome. Hi, thank you. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what you do? And then we can go all over the show and figure out how the hell you have come to do all of that.
Okay, so we're starting from the start.
Let's start from now and then go the other way.
Okay. So I have a cake shop in Ellerslie called Mint Cakery. And then I also have a business partner, Darren, and we have a pie shop in St. Helier's called Ashby Pies. And then I also post a lot on social media. I have a website where I post all of my recipes. I have a cookbook called Mint Cakery. And then I also sell baking tins. So that's a really quick overview of what I do.
There's a lot there, multiple streams of income.
Yeah, I'm trying to.
Yeah. That's been the goal? Yeah.
Okay. So I think because I've been in business for 10 years now, I started getting this feeling like it's been going so well for so long. I don't want to be negative about it either, but I was kind of thinking like maybe something could happen at some point or have we been smart or like really lucky to get to this point for 10 years and nothing really happening.
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Chapter 3: How did Michelle diversify her income streams in baking?
And then people love trying to recreate it.
What came first, the love for baking or starting a bakery randomly or content? What was the sequence of all of that?
Okay, so always baking. But for some reason, always business. But then in school, I didn't do any business studies or accounting or anything. I didn't do food tech because I didn't want to work with anyone in a group. Yeah. So I knew that was going to annoy me, but I have always loved those two things. And so that's where it started.
And for some reason around 2021, definitely after COVID, I wasn't doing the whole TikTok thing during COVID. After that, I started to get into social media. But before that, I was like, we have a business without social media and people will still come even if all of this comes crashing down.
That was kind of my mindset, which was really stupid because I was like, people are still going to know where we are and walk through our doors.
Oh, so you were a bit like, I don't want to do the social media stuff because we don't need to. Yeah.
But I always wanted a cookbook. So I had started working on this cookbook and I was nearly right the way through. And then all of a sudden I was like, holy shit, no one knows me outside of like a couple of suburbs in Auckland. Yeah. I'm going to have to hit the social media as hard as I can. So that was my biggest challenge.
kick up the bum to get started and then yeah it's all yeah go from there so for some reason too I lost all of my shame like I don't get embarrassed I will post anything or if I make mistakes or I don't know why I just I don't care what people think and I think that's part of getting older and the 10 years through business like coming through the other side
So if someone's just starting posting, how can they not overthink it or care too much?
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Chapter 4: Why did Michelle choose to self-publish her cookbook?
Yeah, so I self-published it.
Yeah, okay, you self-published it.
I had gone to a couple of publishers, and one of them was going to take it on. But you make no money from doing a book through a publisher, maybe a couple of dollars a book. So I was like, what's the point? I can do it myself. So what I did was I just got some of my favorite baking books that are from New Zealand, and they always have, you know, who did the design, where they got it printed, etc.
So all of that information in the back of cookbooks. And I just started emailing some people and I pieced it together myself.
Wow. And what did that do to protect your margin in terms of if you were to get, did you say a few dollars per book? What did it then turn into per book? 30. Per book?
Yeah. So I still used a distributor to get it into what calls Paper Plus, Mighty Ape, things like that. And then so they take a cut 30% after GST. So it's still better than going with a publisher.
All right. Well done.
I think it was 30%, something like that.
So if I walk into Whitcalls to buy this amazing book, I might be paying $40-ish or what sort of price are we looking at?
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Chapter 5: How has social media impacted Michelle's business growth?
Yeah.
And because people now are still asking for it.
Wow. So, and that 4,000 sold to people who follow you on social media? Yeah.
Without it? Oh my God, I don't even want to think without it. I probably would have sold... 500 maybe, maybe a thousand through the stores, but it actually makes me feel sick thinking about it. But that was the biggest kick to get onto social media.
So did you have a website at this stage as well with some recipes?
No. That's actually quite new. End of last year?
Yeah. So you do book first. You sell 4,000 copies of that.
So social media was literally, it began by fear, by having 3,000 books in my garage. Not even garage because I don't have a garage. They were in my hallway.
Who sent them all out?
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Chapter 6: What challenges did Michelle face as a female entrepreneur?
And it was an oval-shaped tin. I bought these 10 years ago from Mitre 10. They were $5 each. And I bought probably 80 of them, just buying them online and things. And for some reason...
deline the brand just stop making them so I haven't been able to buy these tins for the last eight years and people ask me all the time and even I was getting annoyed because I couldn't buy these same tins and I was buying ones online that looked the same but sweet I'm sorted now I can find these tins because this is what we do at Mint I literally need more tins to make more cakes to make more sales
And yeah, couldn't find any, couldn't find any similar, like even remotely similar. So I was like, oh, I'll just manufacture them myself. So that's how it started.
So you're a self publisher now of a self manufacturer. So you start manufacturing cake tins.
Yeah. There's something in my brain that just... I'm like, ah, I'll just do it myself. I don't know why.
Have you always been like that?
Yeah.
Yeah. Right. Since being a child?
Yeah. Yeah. Very independent. Yeah. And very risk adverse because I'm like, what's the worst that can happen? I'll have 5,000 tins sitting there. Cool. Right. It's fine.
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Chapter 7: How does Michelle handle the balance between work and family life?
Be a bit more risky.
Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Go risk off a bit.
Yeah. When I first started me and my business partner, Darren, our whole thing was we were going to set up a cafe and flick it. We thought we were just going to be these like master flickers in hospitality. Yeah. We did that once with a bakery in Rimura called Table Talk. That was fun. We didn't make any money.
Yeah, it was fun.
Well, we made like 50K, which we then put into another bakery kind of thing. But the fact that we were 26, we sold this business. It was fun.
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So you're 26, but you start baking when you're younger? Yeah. And then when's your first venture?
Adventure, 22 when I started at, oh, probably even 21, actually. 21 when I started at the Hobbsville Markets selling cakes.
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Chapter 8: What advice does Michelle have for aspiring entrepreneurs?
Perfect. And then moving in a couple of weeks later.
Sign a lease. Let's go.
Oh, barely. Yeah. The landlords there were real cowboy. It was like a hotmail email. She just emailed me being like, this is the rent. Signed something. Yeah. I would never do that now. Oh my gosh, I would never do that now. That's because I was young and I could literally lose it all. But now I'm so... I would never do anything without a lease. It's a good long lease agreement now.
So does Darren come back from Melbourne and this is the first venture together? And this is just the one you sell or is that a table talk?
No, pick that one. Okay. See, I actually can't remember how... He was working at Clooney when he got back from Melbourne. Was that before? See, I can't remember now. My brain just doesn't work sometimes. But he stopped working pretty much straight away when I opened the shop too. So initially it was just going to be me working in the shop. But I was like, nah, Darren, help.
And then, so we were in this little 20 square meter shop. And that's how Table Talk came about because we were like, he needs to do something for him as well and not just do my thing. And also because like being in his space all the time, it's just too much.
We get it. You're being polite.
Is that why we broke up? Probably.
Maybe.
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