Darren Somerville - The Muffin Man filming. Brag tenant supports pantry

Tenant spotlight – Darren Somerville AKA The Muffin Man

A familiar face to those of you who have been watching our “From the pantry” video series, Darren is one of our newest tenants and he has been a great support to the pantry@brag by donating  cupcakes, ready meals and making recipe kits for members to make at home. He has also helped us to create fantastic instructional videos where he shares his recipes with the viewers at home.

Darren has only recently become resident in our kitchen at our Crosshill Community Enterprise Centre. As a New Enterprise Allowance client in February with BRAG he was all set to begin his business when the pandemic struck. As a result the full launch of The Muffin Man had to be put on hold as the bulk of Darren’s business relies on selling from markets and fairs. Darren has been using this time wisely, building an online following and his reputation. He has also been a huge support to our pantry@brag. He aims to sell his cupcakes at Farmer’s Markets and Food fairs and has an online shop set up with delivery offered all over Fife.

Darren first started out by training as a Chef and working in Hospitality Management in hotels all over the UK for many years. He met and married his wife and Darren soon realised that Hospitality hours were not ideal for a newly married couple. Retraining as an accountant, Darren soon joined the family business and worked there for 11 years until his parents retired and sold the business on. Darren got another corporate job for a few years, while relocating the family to France where he worked remotely. Sadly, his marriage broke down and after gaining custody of his children Darren moved back to Scotland, settling in Elie where he still lives. Darren then started working as a financial controller and found himself travelling all over the world, he changed his role to be at home more for his children until the company went under a restructure and Darren found his contract was not renewed.

Darren decided to use this opportunity to re-evaluate, he needed to be more present for his kids and wanted to escape the corporate world and become his own boss. After careful consideration Darren decided to make his hobby his business and The Muffin Man was born.

We wish him all the best for his official launch.

If like Darren you want to be your own boss, find out more about New Enterprise Allowance here.

See Darren’s videos here.

Visit Darren’s online shop here.