Female Entrepreneur from Edinburgh Aims for Gender Equality

Nan Zhang

20/03/24

(Image Credit: Sourced)

Rachel Hanretty appears on a computer screen on a March evening, holding her two-year-old daughter, looking tired but calm. How challenging is it to be a female entrepreneur? Perhaps we already have one part of the answer.

Ms Hanretty is the owner of Mademoiselle Macaron, an artisanal bakery based in Edinburgh. After various attempts at bricks and mortar retail, she has developed Mademoiselle Macaron as an online business with an industrial kitchen in Leith, making tens of thousands of macarons a week.

“We were more weighted towards trade and wholesale. About 40% to 50% of our production was to companies who were using our products on a white label basis. And for this coming year, we are seeing a swing to more ecommerce and direct consumers,” Ms Hanretty told Blether Magazine.

This change of direction was based on a risk assessment and aiming for higher profit margins. In Ms Hanretty’ s words: “You have to constantly adapt. If you don't adapt, that's when it goes wrong.”

A Sweet Journey

As a fan of tasty macarons herself, Ms Hanretty is also doing a macaron-making class. “It takes me back to the beginning,” she said.

(Rachel Hanretty, Image Credit: Sourced)

Ms Hanretty lived in Paris for a year in 2009/2010 as part of the English and French degree she took at the University of St Andrews. During that time, she learned how to make macarons at the Alain Ducasse Cooking School.

Ms Hanretty recalled, “I think I had quite a different experience of Paris than say Emily in Paris (A Netflix romantic comedy-drama series released in 2020) would have, because it was offline. I just kind of really lived in the moment. I embraced myself as much as a kid in the culture and learned how to do things and stuff.”

She decided to take a little bit of Paris back to Edinburgh, the small, pretty and sweet meringue-based confection. She started making macarons at home, selling them at a weekend market and teaching how to make macarons at the Edinburgh School of Food & Wine.

This sweet journey has given Ms Hanretty many unusual experiences. And one of them came thanks to the hit film Barbie.

“Building One, Barbie Set, Warner Bros Studios, Leavesden.”

Mademoiselle Macaron became an overnight hit on social media because of this delivery.

“There was real hype in the kitchen and the office,” Ms Hanretty said.

According to its tracking data, there was a 70% increase in traffic visiting their website, as well as a 20% increase in sales during the first week of the film's release.

(Image Credit: Warner Bros Studios)

A Determined Entrepreneur

There were a number of hurdles to overcome throughout the exciting journey. When Ms Hanretty first had the idea of making money from selling the macarons in 2013, it was an unusual approach, which her family didn’t understand.

“Back then Instagram was only just taking off. We didn't have girl bosses, there wasn't a start-up mindset. There was Apple and there was Silicon Valley, but this idea of self-employment of starting a business was quite not accessible, I would say, that wasn't common,” she recalled.

Impostor syndrome is another problem that she has to deal with. It's not exclusive to business owners but it's more common among women compared to men.

Ms Hanretty explained: “That’s really hard. You don't know if you're doing the right job as a business owner, leading a team or as a mum and you just don't really know who you are. It's not quite impostor syndrome per se by definition, but it is a behavior that shows a real lack of confidence.”

A recent survey from Business Gateway has found that 59% of female business owners in Scotland are confident about the future of their business in the next three years. But a third (35%) indicated that a lack of funding was the biggest challenge when setting up their business.

“I think women are inherently more prone to doubting themselves and their abilities than their male counterparts. And studies have shown that women are less likely to get access to funding because of lots of reasons. One of them can be about how they are putting a cap on the size of their business. It’s a self-imposed glass ceiling for female entrepreneurs,” Ms Hanretty told Blether.

She would like to “smash” that by aiming for a £5 million turnover: “We're sitting at a £1.2 million turnover so we’ve got a way to go. But that's my goal because the number of women entrepreneurs at that level just isn't there. It is just so far behind men.”

You can check out Mademoiselle Macaron website to find out more about Ms Hanretty’s business or take a look at her delectable macarons.