Hannah Worth

Hannah Worth - Owner of Bowla
MSc Engineering Leadership and Management, Class of 2022

Why did you choose to come to Swansea University? 

I enrolled in a master's programme in September 2021, coming from Bristol University to Swansea University. It was close to home for me and my sister went to Swansea Uni. I think Swansea had won a few awards and accreditations, and I’d also heard that the student support, support from the Enterprise Team and the overall student satisfaction was good. Also, it's a really nice beach city! 

Do you have any go-to spots for food in Swansea? 

My business is based in Swansea Market, so obviously, Swansea Market! I’ve been to a lot of places to do research. I really like The Observatory cafe and the location there. 

Where did the idea for Bowla come from? And did you see a gap in the food scene? 

It started with my dad’s idea after a bread making accident back in 2007, which resulted in an interestingly shaped loaf. The bowla is a hat-shaped loaf of bread; when you take the top off, you have a bread bowl with a bread roll, and fillings and toppings. And then you dunk the top in. My dad worked for 10 years creating a mould to create the shape. And then, in 2020, when the pandemic happened, I moved home for what was meant to be 2 weeks but ended up being 6 months. My dad was telling me about the idea all the time on our lockdown walks. And then I thought, right, I'm going to move home - and then we're going to start a business together. I live between Cardiff and Swansea, so I made the decision to make Swansea the first place that we started. I enrolled in a master's at Swansea Uni and worked closely with the Enterprise Team to come up with business plans and secure grant funding. And then we needed somewhere to bake the breads to prove the concept. So, we chose Swansea Market to be our bakery base and our point of sale. There is a gap in the market. There's no one else selling bowler-hat-shaped loaves of bread. 

Were you always interested in entering the food business? 

I've always been a foodie. Whenever a new place opens, I'm always the one pulling my friends along to try it. But I'd never baked anything before. My background is in physics, so it's got nothing to do with baking at all. I've had to learn a lot about the food and drink industry in the past three or four years. 

What is it like running a business alongside your dad? 

It's good working with family. It's mine and my dad's business. But my uncle bakes the bread. My sister's girlfriend is doing the social media. My sister is heavily involved as well. My mum helps. Everyone kind of mucks in. Working with family can be challenging, but at the same time, I trust them. We squabble a lot. But there's also an underlying trust that wouldn't be there with other people. 

What inspires the flavours you create for The Bowlas? 

We have three flavours. We have the classic white bowla, which is really popular with new customers. A lot of the new people who walk through the door want to try just the plain one. We have garlic and rosemary, which is the best seller. We've had the protein loaf, with 15 grams of protein, inspired by people wanting a healthier option, like gym goers. And then there's also cracked black pepper flavour, which is my favourite. We've had different flavours as well. It's just whatever we fancy, but I've got to listen to what sells and what doesn't. It's quite hard when we make a flavour and then it doesn't sell. It's a balance between trying to keep it fresh and trying to keep things moving forward, but also not wanting to waste loads of food and then fillings. The Welsh lamb cawl is our best seller. Lots of people, whether they’re tourists, students who aren't from Wales, or even Welsh students as well, want to try the cawl. We try and keep Welsh and as local as possible. So, most of our fillings are made in Wales. The butter and cheese are all Welsh.  

Do you have a favourite filling for Bowla? 

My favourite, I'd say, is the meatballs and marinara, in garlic and rosemary, with all the toppings. 

How much does a Bowla cost? 

The bowla with the filling and all the toppings is £7.50. A lot of people don't know, but we also sell the breads by themselves. It’s £2.60 for any flavour, or 2 for 5, or 4 for 9. We also post them UK wide. 

I saw that you were going to do sweet flavours. 

Yeah, we've got a sweet one as well! We generally sell it over summer, when the weather picks up. The sweet one is a donut bowla, which is lined with Biscoff, then filled with ice cream, sauces and sprinkles. There’s an Easter special with mini eggs in it as well.  

Do you do different ones for different seasons?

Yes. We did a festive one, which was any bowla, filled with turkey, pigs and blankets, roast potato, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce and then all the toppings as well. That was very popular.

What would you say is the best part of running your own food business? 

Trying to push a new concept. One of the things that keeps me going is the reaction of people when I explain to them what the product is, and the story behind it. Whenever I explain bowl hatching with bread, people get really excited. The best part is people. Some of the customers get really into the story, and they tell all their friends. It's really cool. 

Are there any challenges that you face? 

Rising costs. Staff costs, ingredients, rent. Everything's going up and that's an underlying challenge that we all have, that every single food business owner has. Another challenge for me is communicating the product - and not overspending. I could spend a million pounds on marketing, and then everyone in the UK would know what Bowla is. But we don't have that kind of money, so we are trying to push a new concept in an exciting way on a low budget. 

Do the TikTok videos help? 

Yes, social media has been game changing. Probably 90% of my customers have come from social media. People have come from Cardiff and Bristol, and other places in Wales and England. 

You mentioned staff. How many members of staff work for Bowla? 

We've got my uncle baking the bread. We've got 2 part-time members in the shop and myself as well, and we've got my sister's fiancé working on social media. Plus, my dad also, but he doesn't really work in the business. So that's 5. 5 in total. 

Since starting Bowla, is there anything you've learned about food or running a business? Has anything surprised you along the way? 

When we launched in 2023, we naturally had everything as Welsh as possible, mostly due to availability. Not that it's not important to me, but when I launched, I realised how important it is to other people, too. They would come in and ask whether things were Welsh. But it was quite a nice thing, because we had all of that. 

Is there anything from Bowla that you're particularly proud of, or any fond memories that stand out? 

Straight away, we had quite a lot of press interest. Within our first year, we'd had a lot of article entries in both local and national press. Then, within 12 weeks of trading, we were filming a TV show, Channel Four's Aldi's Next Big Thing. That was shown in April 2024 and we were only on there for 5 minutes, but that had 7.5 million viewers nationwide. That's probably one of the things I’m proudest of, getting on national TV within a year of trading. I'm most proud of the fact this was my dad's idea and now it's a fully functioning business. 

You mention that it was only 5 minutes but what was the experience of being on television like? 

We filmed for 7 hours, and it was a really big learning curve. It was a really good experience to be interviewed and to have to speak to cameras. It's all good training for future stuff. It was quite overwhelming to watch myself on TV and know that 7 million people were also watching it at the same time - it was a bit stressful. But it was really fun. 

Do you have any exciting plans for Bowla? 

I made the decision at the end of December that the next step was to get Bowla into every stadium in the UK, starting with Swansea and Cardiff. So, since January, I've been going to networking events and I've been organising meetings with decision makers within stadiums. There's a company that manages pretty much all the food in all the big stadiums in the UK. I've got an actionable plan of how I'm going to try. I need to find another bakery who can make the bowlas at large enough scale. So, my plan now is to try and come to an agreement with a bakery and then try and get into stadiums that way.  

What's a typical day like for you? 

I work 2 days a week in the shop. So, a typical day in the shop would be going in for about 9 o'clock in the morning. My uncle's been in since 7 o'clock in the morning, baking the breads, so then I’d be setting up the shop, putting everything out, making sure everything's okay. Putting deliveries away. Serving customers and making content for social media posts, cleaning up and going home. But for the 3 days a week that I'm not in the shop, it'd be conferences, attending meetings, sending emails, writing social media stuff. I do the accounts.  I'm going to try and start doing at home cooking videos where I make something different every week, like a different filling. And I want to have a mailing list which sends out the recipe every week, and then also put it on TikTok.  

What made you pick Swansea Market?  

I did my master's in Swansea from 2021 to 2022 and Swansea Market is, I think, the 4th largest in the UK. It's got quite high footfall. I didn't want to start in another city again and Swansea is the perfect size. It was a great place for us to start. I've made so many mistakes and so many things have gone wrong. I'm quite glad it was in Swansea, where all my network was based. With the support of the Enterprise Team here at the Uni, it wouldn't have made sense to go to Cardiff.  

You worked with Swansea University’s Enterprise Team. Can you talk a little bit about how they helped you in the beginning?  

I worked with the Enterprise Team and I also worked with Big Ideas Wales, Business Wales and others. We had the idea and the product. And then it was about refining how we actually wanted to start. I did two pitches with the Enterprise Team. I did the big pitch the first time in March 2022. I don't know if you know about the big pitch, but you can win up to £3000 in grant funding. You can also win mentorship, and you can win a space on the business boot camp. At this point I just had the idea, and I had no idea how I was going to trade, so I was allocated 6 months of mentorship, and I was also put on the 6-week business boot camp. I'm still in contact with my mentor now, 4 years later. He was amazing. I won six 1-hour sessions with him, but he'd give me 3 hours, every single time. Then I had a viable business plan. I had cash flow. I had my application submitted in Swansea Market. We had to find a kitchen somewhere. I did the Enterprise pitch again after I'd had the mentorship, and I won £3000. The Enterprise Team themselves are lovely. They did a social media campaign, and I did their social media for a day as a takeover.  

What advice would you give to someone who might be reading this interview and is thinking they also want to start their own food business or go down the food industry route?  

If they're students at Swansea Uni, sign up to the Enterprise Team and have an initial meeting with them. I couldn't recommend the services of Cywain highly enough. That's the Welsh government food and drink support for businesses. Sign up to all the support possible and attend as many free events as possible. Listen to as many different people as you can and try and learn from other people's mistakes. I think that's a big thing, but obviously you have to make your own mistakes as well. There's no getting around it - you do have to just go straight in and do it. Also look out for grant applications to get as much money and support as possible, because food businesses have quite high starting costs compared to some other businesses. 

Joe’s or Verdi’s? 

What's that? Wait! Joe's ice cream. I'll have to try Verdi’s, but I'm going to have to say Joe's. (I've only had Joe's.)