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Bringing Jamaican patties to the masses
Mike Williams and his father, Paul, co-founded Flake Bake in 2012. Their authentic Jamaican patties were successful in Aldi’s Next Big Thing competition and have been flying off the shelves since April 2024. We spoke with Mike to hear about the journey so far and what it means to be a winner of this year’s Channel 4 and Lloyds Black In Business initiative.
Read time: 6 mins Added: 03/06/25
From street food to supermarket shelves
Having grown up in Jamaica before moving to the UK, Paul and Mike Williams knew there would be a demand for their tasty patties among the Caribbean community. After working in his uncle’s bakery, Paul took over the lease for a few years before he joined forces with Mike when he finished university.
Their initial success came from selling to takeaways and street food vendors, with the Notting Hill Carnival being a significant date in the diary. The business has supplied carnival-goers for 12 years. A promotional video with Lloyds supported this effort as part of the Black Entrepreneurs program. This video helped increase sales from 40,000 patties in 2023 to 150,000 the following year. The range is also available online from the Flake Bake website.
Keen to reach new markets, Flake Bake successfully achieved a listing at Aldi after participating in the supermarket’s Next Big Thing TV competition, aired on Channel 4. It’s safe to say the products proved popular, with over a million flying off shelves across Aldi’s 1000+ UK stores since launch.
Discovering the magic of mentoring
Flake Bake hasn’t been an overnight success, so perseverance has been essential. The business is now getting well-deserved exposure 12 years on. The Black In Business initiative will further accelerate this with £150,000 worth of TV advertising airtime on Channel 4 and mentoring from a senior sponsor executive from Channel 4 and Lloyds. This invaluable advice will help the business navigate the challenges and opportunities of things like distribution and exporting to new markets.
Mike has been paired with Elyn Corfield, CEO of Business & Commercial Banking at Lloyds, as his mentor for 12 months and is already seeing the benefits. “How often do you get to speak to someone at senior level in any corporation? Our first meeting was absolutely incredible because of her contacts and experience in the areas we want to focus on moving forward,” he comments.
The Channel 4 mentoring will focus on marketing and branding. Mike admits they’re not experts in this area and is looking forward to getting help developing a more strategic outlook.
With 67% of Black-owned business owners saying they’ve been negatively discriminated against in their entrepreneurial efforts, Mike appreciates the doors the TV advertising and mentoring will open.
Minority businesses don’t often get amplified in a way they probably should, even if they’re successful. The Black In Business initiative isn’t just recognising businesses because they’re minority-owned, it’s because these businesses deserve to be seen by a wider audience.
Mike Williams Co-founder, Flake BakeAn unexpected brick wall
Looking from the outside, many people would assume securing a listing at Aldi would make things easier. But, it presented a significant and unexpected challenge for Flake Bake.
“We’d gone viral with the product and had sold 100,000 units at Aldi over 10 days. Despite having a six-month contract in place to supply 30,000 patties per week, we couldn’t source a permanent manufacturer,” Mike states.
The team at Aldi helped Flake Bake find the right partners. They needed these partners to handle the volumes they wanted to produce after about 30 different places turned them down.
As of March 2025, Flake Bake had sold over 1 million patties at Aldi alone, so overcoming that initial barrier has reaped rewards. Mike feels there were a few reasons behind the difficulties, including:
- The fact that he had no previous relationships with retailers or a high profile
- Manufacturers having no prior experience making Jamaican patties
- The associated costs when only 1 in 10 food brands ever make it to market
“We could demonstrate the demand but couldn’t fulfil it, which shocked me. I thought it would have been much easier than it was,” Mike reflects.
Creating a little piece of patty history
While the father and son are no strangers to publicity since appearing on TV and in various press articles, the Channel 4 adverts will have special meaning.
Caribbean people have been in the UK long before the Windrush generation, and there’s never been a TV advert for Jamaican patties before, so that’s the thing I’m going to be most proud of when I see it for the first time. Thanks to Channel 4 and Lloyds, we’re creating history together.
Mike Williams Co-founder, Flake BakeHe’s also hopeful the brand awareness will help push the narrative that Jamaican patties are for everyone to enjoy, not just the Caribbean market. It’s about having pride of place in the pies and pastries chiller section rather than being placed in the ‘World Foods’ aisle.
Beyond the pastry - a recipe for giving back
Mike’s desire to grow the business is fuelled by more than finance. Flake Bake is part of the Brixton Community Outreach Ministry (BCOM) programme that feeds people in the area every two weeks. It’s not just patties though; he uses his industry contacts to supply other ingredients such as beef mince and chicken.
Back in Jamaica, he’s been looking at ways the business can fund improvements to the education system. Teaming up with the Victoria Mutual Foundation (run by the Jamaican bank of the same name), they bought new water tanks for schools after some had theirs damaged by Hurricane Beryl in 2024.
Mike has also been speaking to the Jamaica High Commission, looking at data to identify the schools that need the most support. “We want to help more kids go to school in Jamaica, as it’s expensive. It’s also about keeping more pupils in school for longer so they can complete their education. We can’t solve all the problems overnight, but I want to use the platform I have to help,” he says.
Bake to the future
Flake Bake has exciting aspirations for the next few years, including new product development and pitching to investors. The reasons for this are three-fold:
- Expansion into new countries within Aldi’s network of 12,000 stores worldwide
- Securing distribution into food service markets, including schools, NHS Trusts and universities
- Getting Flake Bake products into new retail channels
“The patties are a popular product, so why shouldn’t they be available?” Mike questions. With such ambitious goals and a fantastic team behind the brand, no doubt more people will be shouting about Flake Bake’s moreish Jamaican patties in the years to come.
Be sure to mark your calendar for July, when Flake Bake’s ads will air on Channel 4.
Delivering game-changing advertising opportunities
Read more about the other Black In Business winners and what they hope to gain from the initiative.