Hi, I’m Emily Hamer, and I created Highland Horse Sweets in 2022 when I was 15 years old.
I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit, when I was around 10 years old, I designed three new products and proceeded to ask Father Christmas for them, I think in my 10-year-old mind I was making it easy for the elves!
I left mainstream school when I was 11 and continued my schooling through an online school, which I enjoyed. All through my life I have had a love of creating things whether this be through art and design or baking.
When I got my horse, Katie, it wasn’t long before I naturally progressed from baking cupcakes to baking treats for her as I have always believed that horses shouldn’t be eating artificial additives that can be found in many other horse treats. She is a big fan and our chief taste tester.
I initially thought of the idea of creating a Victorian style pick and mix selection, but for horses. It occurred to me that the market is swamped with dog treat products and that owners will buy lots of dog treats often spoiling them. Knowing how much my horse means to me I thought why wouldn’t horse owners do the same?
My first product was the pick and mix selection, I decided to not only offer different flavours to equines but to make the flavours different shapes to make them easily identifiable to the owners. The pick and mix selection contains, mint, apple, cinnamon, beetroot, carrot and banana flavoured treats. The product cannot be missed in its pink and white stripy bag.
Highland Horse Sweets has developed massively in the last two years, I now offer bags of larger treats (Our “Crunch” collection) that are hard on the outside and soft in the centre. These are currently available in mint, carrot and parsnip and coconut flavours with more to come soon.
At Christmas time I offer a special selection of treats, the Christmas pick and mix which includes a selection of Christmas shapes and flavours, along with the very popular ginger crunch product.
Challenges
I have experienced some challenges along the way whether this be; treats not working out as well as I hoped, equipment breaking down and the cost of replacements, people online copying my business name (which I now have trademarked) or a general lack of spare money to re-invest into the things I want to do.
Most of my sales for the first 18 months were online, and I also supplied to a selection of local shops, however, the big game changer that occurred for me and my business was the purchase of my trailer pod.
I really wanted a pod trailer to attend equestrian and agricultural shows, where I was desperate to expand the business into fresh equine cookies.
I would spend hours designing and creating different cookies that looked just like human food but were safe for equines. The style of pod I set my heart on was thousands and way out of my 16-year-old budget.
After extensive research I discovered no funding was available for someone so young and so I was basically advised to just wait until I was 18 then try again. I really didn’t want to let my business just coast along and so I got a part time waitressing job where all my wages went into my pod savings!
I’m not going to lie this was difficult, I really had to stop myself just going shopping with my wages, but eventually I raised enough to order my pod from China. It took months to arrive and we had to travel down to Folkstone from the Highlands of Scotland to collect it, but once I saw it, all the hours of work had been worth it!
I saved a bit more money and so was able to get my pod customised to my own design. I have been attending shows for three months with my pod and it has been more successful than I could have imagined. I offer not only my bags of treats but also my equine cookies. I have had amazing feedback about my products and my trailer, I have so many plans for the future of Highland Horse Sweets.
I am now nearly 18 and in the second year studying business at college, it’s hard work balancing everything but I’m so lucky to have my own business that I created, it makes me want to work harder to ensure its success.
I hope you enjoyed reading my story, if you would like to find out more about my products you can find them on my website – Highland Horse Sweets.
Or you can follow me on Facebook.
Emily x
