Doughnut firm hopes for sweet success at ‘baking Oscars’

Artisan doughnut company Project D has been shortlisted for a prestigious baking award, which recognises excellence in the industry.

The firm has been announced as one of three bakeries to be shortlisted for the Online Bakery of the Year category in the respected Baking Industry Awards 2022.

The news comes on the back of the company’s award success in 2021 when the three founders picked up local, regional and national accolades for their business acumen and baking prowess.

Last year, company founders Max Poynton, Jacob Watts and Matthew Bond, beat off competition from almost 5,000 others to be named among the UK’s brightest new entrepreneurs.

The trio won a Great British Entrepreneur Award, which counts the founders of The LAD Bible, Tangle Teezer and Grenade as former winners.

The bakery, which sells handcrafted, brightly coloured and Instagram-friendly doughnuts across the UK, also picked up two trophies at the Derbyshire Live Business Awards for Start-up Business of the Year and SME Business of the Year.

It also won the Entrepreneur of the Year title in the Generation Next Awards, which were delivered in partnership with the University of Derby and form part of East Midlands Chamber’s new network for professionals and business owners aged under 35.

And in the chamber’s own business awards the company scooped the title Small Business of the Year and picked up an award in the Most Innovative category at the Marketing Derby Food and Drink Awards.

Operations director Max said: “We could never beat the awards success we had in 2021, but to be shortlisted in the Baking Industry Awards is a real honour – in our trade it’s the equivalent of the Oscars.

“It’s particularly pleasing to be nominated in the online category because we thought this would be a short-term measure to get us through the pandemic, but in fact it has been the catalyst for the success and expansion of Project D.”