The perennial and universal questions are: Who is sent a present as an appreciation for a good business relationship? What is appropriate as a gift when the selection of recipients has been made?

The answer to the first question is relatively easy; those businesses who over a period of time, have added significant benefit to the donor’s business. However, the answer to the second question is not quite as simple.

For a long time in New Zealand, businesses dispatched bottles of wine or spirits with an appreciation card to favoured clients, customers or suppliers just before Christmas.

However, New Zealand business has recently sensed a change in attitude towards alcohol, not only in respect to ‘drinking and driving’ but also to alcohol in the workplace. A major factor in this has been the steady increase in the number of women who have risen to senior executive positions in New Zealand companies. Many of these executives feel their corporate image is not in any way enhanced by receiving a bottle at Christmas.

But now there is an innovative alternative. Queenstown woman, Lucy Newell, produces what is regarded as the ideal gift of appreciation – the corporate cake.

Newell came to New Zealand 12 years ago for a week’s skiing. She had taken an extended holiday in Australia from her position as a financial consultant with a leading UK merchant bank that operated globally. Newell had been working almost 24/7 and felt she needed a break to sort out her priorities.

The skiing at Australia’s Mount Kosciusko’s resorts had collapsed for want of snow, so Newell flew to Queenstown for a week. She loved the Queenstown resort and the skifields in the Southern Lakes region so much that she never went back to Australia.

Her introduction to the New Zealand food and beverage industry began as a part-time dishwasher at the Naff Caff – Queenstown’s long time and world-renowned meeting place for the serious skier. As time went by she became initiated into the black arts of making serious coffee for skiers and did a little baking in between.

More time went by and more baking went on in the kitchen, until Newell’s cooking and baking ability was so appreciated by management that they subsequently appointed her head cook for the café.

From there, her fame spread as the baker of astonishingly delicious cakes. More and more friends, then acquaintances, and finally total strangers engaged Newell to bake and decorate cakes for special occasions.

In 2004, Newell realized the cake-baking business had grown much bigger than her day job. After due consideration and market appraisal, she decided to go it alone and set up her cake baking business under the name and style of "Loose Cakes". She says while this is a pun on her name it was chosen because her cakes were known throughout the Wakatipu Basin as "Luce’s cakes".

Newell then designed a fully-equipped commercial kitchen and this was built in Queenstown’ commercial district. From this site she made, decorated and delivered cakes of all descriptions; weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and other special occasions.

Then one day the man who serviced her vehicle asked if she could decorate cakes with edible photographs.

Newell immediately set about learning how to scan images onto cakes from photographs supplied by customers. This involved not only becoming proficient in operating particularly sensitive software but also finding an edible ink that was high enough quality for commercial use.

Newell accomplished her goal and at the same time learned much about the creation of basic graphics. She later found this knowledge useful in designing her own borders and business cards.

By Christmas 2004 Loose Cakes had supplied more than 150 cakes for local and other businesses further north. These included AJ Hackett Bungy Jump, Millbrook Resort, Placemakers, Mortgage Link and a number of other businesses.

Loose Cakes’ customers reported that their gifts were most appreciated. Indeed, one recipient emailed Lucy on receipt of this cake to place an immediate order for a batch of ten cakes for his company.

Since Christmas 2004, demand has increased. One national real estate company orders cakes for presenting to new homeowners on the day they shift in. Other companies are presenting cakes with their branding on the completion of a successful business transaction or to commemorate an important occasion.

Newell finds living and baking in Queenstown no handicap in the marketing and expansion of Loose Cakes. She says email and an efficient courier system conquers the tyranny of distance.

Her website (www.loosecakes.co.nz) contains photos of the types of cakes she markets as well as sizes and prices. Packaging is also carefully undertaken and customers may even have cakes delivered in a specially designed
wooden box.

Considering the future, Newell says, "I would love Loose Cakes to become well known as THE gourmet cake company. The one that delivers custom-made cakes and stylish photo-cakes anywhere in New Zealand."

It’s all a long way from a week’s holiday in Queenstown for a fatigued London financial consultant.