Craft Focus - Aug/Sep (Issue 68)

curved words, which allow inscriptions such as Happy Birthday, Just Married and You & Me to be crafted from a single piece of paste. The product is simple enough for beginners to use, and will also save time for professional cake makers. Our Easiest Ever range fits into this category too. The concept offers a revolutionary way to assemble flowers, making it possible to create beautiful blooms in minutes rather than hours. What’s new in sugarcraft this year? Trends such as mermaids, unicorns and fairy tales have been popular for some time, and this looks set to continue. In response, we have developed cutters that make it easy for people to create their own cakes and bakes. Easy-to-use products are also in demand, with families increasingly using cake-making as a fun activity to do together. Tropical leaves and bright florals look set to be big in the wedding category this year, with watercolour marbling and gold leaf details making a real design statement. Tell us more about the FMM FunCraft brand. We launched the brand in 2017, because many crafters were already repurposing our sugarcraft tools and equipment for their projects. They love using our cutters and textures to make embellishments for their cards and home décor creations. In response, we decided to target this market with products ideally suited to a craft audience. We have also introduced Bright and Light air-drying clay, a super-lightweight modelling material that can be used in a multitude of ways. Where can retailers get to see the company’s products? We have two websites, fmmsugarcraft.com and fmmfuncraft.com . As a manufacturer, we operate via a distribution network. Retailers interested in stocking our products can get in touch with us directly and we will be happy to help. How are you finding the current economic climate? There are challenges in any marketplace and our industry is no different. We have to work hard to maintain our share of the market, constantly promoting our brands and products and looking for ways to leverage social media and new technologies. Our approach is to build recognition of FMM as a brand through generating regular content across all media, in order to keep audiences engaged. Like any business, we need to constantly work on moving forward. This includes keeping an eye on trends, developing innovative products, finding new markets and most importantly, looking after our existing customers. Do you offer marketing support to retailers? Yes, full marketing support is provided to help retailers sell our products. This includes posters, projects, tip sheets and video tutorials. We even have a free resources website, educate.fmmsugarcraft.co.uk , where retailers can download marketing content. What’s coming up next? We’ve got lots of new products in the pipeline that we will launch over the coming months, which is all part of our plan to keep innovation at the heart of what we do. We’re even bringing out a limited edition More Than a Dahlia cutter to help celebrate our milestone year! Developing our overseas business is another part of the strategy going forward. We currently export to more than 50 countries worldwide, so there is still lots of opportunity to be explored. Increasing awareness of the FunCraft brand is also on the list. It has been very well received by the craft community but we need to build on this by generating lots of educational content so that people become familiar with the entire range. FMM SugarCraft & FMM FunCraft +44 (0)1442 292 970 fmmsugarcraft.com fmmfuncraft.com craft focus 35 company profile