AN ENTERPRISING sister and brother have set up their own business while on furlough from work.

Leanne Bartlett, 30, and her brother Carl, 26, have been cooking up savoury and sweet treats with their own bakery firm in Portslade.

They have already enjoyed success, with orders and contracts coming in from new customers, and now hope to build the business as lockdown restrictions begin to ease.

Leanne said she usually works in a school kitchen in Hove, so already has food hygiene and safety certificates, but has been on furlough since schools were shut.

Carl has worked as a production manager at a bakery firm himself, and also has all the qualifications needed, and is continuing to work night shifts while helping to cook batches during the day.

But Leanne admits they have had to organise themselves to use their kitchen space at home, while her fiance Jamie Knowles, 31, has helped by becoming a delivery driver for their bakery when he is not busy working as a fisherman.

Leanne said: “It has been a lifelong dream for us to start a business. We thought we would try to make a negative into a positive and just start.

“This is the first time we have worked together but we are getting on. We are really proud of ourselves, we just thought we should give it a go and see what happens.

“We really didn’t expect it to take off the way it has. It has been brilliant and we have already gained some regular customers.”

Among the first to sign up was a recruitment firm which has ordered boxes for its workers and children.

Leanne said the company, Bs bakery, was set up in April and has now been operating for a month.

It includes getting all the paperwork sorted for the council and HMRC registration.

She said Carl has been living at her home during the lockdown, and they have worked around each other, and has balanced the work with looking after her son as well.

Leanne said: “We have set up a system and we look at our orders as they come in. We fresh bake all our orders, and sometimes its a challenge when we need a cool part of the kitchen for the pastry with the cooking as well.

“Every day we discuss it. We have been doing savoury and sweet snacks, so everything from sausage rolls, scotch eggs and cheese twists to flapjacks and brownies.”

But she admits the future for her business is not yet fully clear, as the impact of other businesses returning over the next few weeks is not yet known.

Together though the entrepreneurial siblings believe they do have good prospects to make their bakery successful.

“We have got leaflets and business cards printed, but at the moment we can’t go and post them through people’ doors,” she said.

“It would be good to go out and tell people when this is over. We want to expand as much as we can, and look at getting our own shop.

“We are a little bit concerned about what it will be like afterwards, but we have regular customers now.”

They are still keeping up with orders at home, and for now that is where they will continue, but they will be alive to opportunities to use a bigger kitchen in future.

For the moment, their delivery service uses special crates to take goods to people’s doors to stop the spread of coronavirus.

For more information about the Bartletts’ enterprise visit Bs Bakery on Facebook or bsbakeryltd.com.