Gluten free baker Kirsty Gillies bags finance boost

A FORMER accountant who set up a brand of gluten-free biscuit is poised to treble turnover and expand her exports after securing a finance boost.

Kirsty Gillies is growing her business that makes gluten-free biscuits. Picture: Robert Perry

Kirsty Gillies, 27, developed the recipes for Angelic Gluten Free in her parents’ kitchen in Inverness after working for accountant Ernst & Young.

The entrepreneur, who is gluten-intolerant, left E&Y in July 2011 and launched her business in February 2012, with support from Shell’s Live Wire competition and the Strathclyde Entrepreneurial Network.

Her biscuits and cookies are produced by JG Ross’s gluten-free factory in Portsoy and are already stocked by 300 shops in the UK.

Angelic’s turnover stands at about £100,000, and Gillies is unveiling plans to treble revenues next year, thanks to the firm’s overseas expansion.

Having pumped about £22,500 of her own money into the business, Gillies has now secured a £17,500 loan from Royal Bank of Scotland to help her target markets in Europe and, later, North America.

She said: “The United States represents about 60 per cent of the global gluten-free market so there are massive opportunities there.

“I want to approach it in the right way and so it will be towards the end of 2014 when we begin moving into America. There are lots of other opportunities in Europe and the Middle East.”