# How Two Sisters Turned a London Bakery Into an 8 Million Pound Gifting Business > Annabel and Emily Lui left careers in finance and law to start Cutter and Squidge in 2012. Without ever taking outside investment, the sisters rebuilt the bakery around online gift boxes and are now targeting 10 million pounds in revenue by 2027. - Source: Continental - Canonical URL: https://continental.today/article/cutter-squidge-lui-sisters-bakery - Author: Continental Newsroom - Section: Business - Published: 2026-08-23T12:40:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-23T12:40:00.000Z - Tags: Small Business, Retail, United Kingdom, Entrepreneurship --- Annabel and Emily Lui both walked away from steady corporate careers, one in finance and one in law, to start a bakery out of a small London kitchen in 2012. Fourteen years later, that bakery, Cutter and Squidge, has grown into an eight million pound business built almost entirely on gift boxes sold online, without ever taking outside investment. Annabel, now 40 and the company's chief executive, has described the decision in blunt terms: if she was going to work around the clock either way, she wanted to be doing it for herself rather than for someone else. Her older sister Emily, 47, left law to become chief operating officer, and the two have run the company jointly ever since, keeping ownership inside the family. The business looked very different before the pandemic. Cutter and Squidge operated three physical stores in London and supplied cakes and pastries to retail accounts around the city. When lockdowns closed its shops, the sisters rebuilt the business around shipping treats directly to customers' homes, starting with an afternoon tea kit that let people recreate the cafe experience in their own kitchens. That pivot proved durable. Direct to consumer sales now make up roughly 80 percent of revenue, with the company's remaining Soho flagship on Brewer Street contributing about 7 percent and wholesale and corporate orders making up the rest. The gifting side of the business has kept accelerating. Hamper sales climbed 175 percent between 2025 and 2026, and the company shipped roughly two million brownies through its online store last year alone. Revenue reached about eight million pounds in 2025, and the sisters are projecting 12 percent growth this year, with a target of ten million pounds in annual revenue by the end of 2027. Biskies, the company's signature stacked biscuit and buttercream treat, remain its best known product, while boxed brownies have become the top seller online. Cutter and Squidge now employs about 50 people year round, a figure that climbs past 60 during its busiest gifting seasons, and the company says it has served more than a million customers since it opened. --- Originally published by Continental. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://continental.today/article/cutter-squidge-lui-sisters-bakery.