Our founder, Harriet Hastings, founded Biscuiteers in 2007 after identifying a gap in the gifting market for luxury food gifting. Having started her career in publishing, latterly as a Marketing Director at Penguin, she spent 10 years as Director of Consumer Brands at Trimedia, a top 20 PR agency. With a breadth of knowledge and experience alongside her husband Stevie, who owned a catering and event management business, they put their all into building their own brand.
From writing her first book, the Biscuiteers Book of Iced Biscuits, to opening the world's first icing cafés, Harriet has made her mark in the food and drink sector and has grown Biscuiteers to be a household name in the UK. Over the years, Harriet has won several awards including The LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders (2023), Spears Top recommended Food & Drink Adviser (2023), London Food & Drink Entrepreneur of the Year (2021), Bakery Entrepreneur of the Year (2021), the NatWest Aphrodite Everywoman award (2018) and The Standard’s Power 1000 List (2013).
Aside from Biscuiteers, Harriet is a huge advocate for women in business. As a founding member of Buy Women Built, she helps to shine a light on female led brands just like ours through a community of like minded, female led companies and entrepreneurs. You can read more about this in our blog post. Harriet is also the Commercial Director of the Women's Prize For Fiction, where she helps to celebrate and support female writers, and "change the world through books written by women".