Social media is a driving force in craft bakery these days, and viral trends can translate to a surge in sales.
But can bakeries leverage the power of TikTok and Instagram to do more than just market their brand or products?
Short answer, yes. Long answer as follows:
Signorelli Bakery was finding it challenging to recruit staff for its growing estate across London through hospitality jobs platforms such as Countertalk.
“We have even paid for boosted adds and increased wages, and people kept not showing up for interviews,” says the craft bakery’s co-founder Rebecca Rosmini. “Our funnel was small, it was costing us a lot, and we were not getting the volume of candidates we needed to find the gems.
“We were starting to wonder if they really existed,” she adds.
Help sprung up from an unexpected source. Two representatives of social media and content marketing agency Kaizen Kinetics recently approached the bakery business offering to do some free videos.
Rosmini briefed them to do a recruitment clip, which they immediately advised should go on TikTok with an easy application link. “So, we made a Google form and uploaded the video. It got more than 100k views and 200 applications, many of which are experience baristas,” she enthuses.
Signorelli is currently filtering through the applications and calling to book in-person interviews. “It has completely blown my mind,” expresses Rosmini. “How we have gone so long without knowing we were looking in the wrong places.”
Recruitment via TikTok doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. London-based craft bakery brand Sourdough Sophia has a far bigger following on its Instagram account – currently 272k versus just under 7.8k on TikTok – and notes the two audiences feel quite different.
“My sense is TikTok skews a bit younger, and those followers don’t tend to follow bakery accounts in the same way. Our Instagram crowd is more mid-20s to early-30s,” says co-founder Sophia Handschuh. She estimates around half of their applicants come from Instagram, where they’ve discovered the brand and become a fan.
Selling like hot cakes
On the flipside, there’s bakeries that look to recruit for TikTok – more specifically, for TikTok presenter roles to help flog their products to live viewers.
Sweet treat specialist Candy’s Cupcakes in Ashton-under-Lyne first set up its TikTok Shop in 2023, with founder Candice Bannister initially assuming presenting duties before hiring more staff to support growth. The team has now been expanded to nine presenters and a team leader, with Candy’s following surpassing 110k. The brand is live on TikTok on most days, usually from 9am to 9:30pm, with plans to hire more staff and go daily throughout the week.
Its studio equipment has evolved from just a single iPhone and tripod to have presenters now illuminated with three strong ring lights. They can also see themselves on an iPad and manage sales activity via a laptop.
Bannister notes successful presenters needed to be “extremely good at multitasking”, with the job requiring maintaining a live feed with constant, engaging conversation whilst ordering stock, printing orders, packing products, and running giveaways, flash sales, and auctions.
“Our presenters earn commission for their live sales, so as well as having a rapport they need to be able to pin products to the screen, sell the products in stock, and pack them,” says the founder. “We find that keeping the energy high is the part most people underestimate as well as how much you talk throughout the shift.”
Candy’s TikTok offering has evolved too. Bannister concedes her first idea to have presenters decorating cupcakes live was a challenge in terms of training and quality control. So, she introduced “add-ons” such as its popular Cake in a Box, cake jars, doughnuts, cookies and brownies.
“Within a few weeks, we realised that our cake jars being versatile, with a longer shelf life and being unusual to many, were a clear winner,” she says.
As an online-only retail business, TikTok Shop provides Candy’s with an additional sales channel to its website with minimal overheads and a way to sell excess stock.
But Bannister says she is also conscious not to dilute and cheapen her brand, known for its luxury handmade bakes. “TikTok is a discount-led platform and attracts a different customer base. Therefore, we only offer products on TikTok that we can offer discounts on,” she confirms, adding that customers tend to impulse buy on TikTok compared to a more planned purchase on their website.
However, she praised the platform for allowing her company’s videos to be “authentic rather than the polished content you find on Facebook and Instagram”. TikTok Shop also affords direct interaction with customers, who can ask questions, see behind the scenes of the bakery, and see their orders being packed live.
“The latest introduction of live auctions has massively helped sales and live interaction,” adds Barrister. Sales generated through the social media marketplace rose from £470k in 2024 to £782k in 2025, with this year’s revenue already surpassing that.
Candy’s is looking to extend its range with new seasonal products and update its offers in line with those recommended by the platform – “in order to stay ahead of the game,” says Bannister.
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