IWD 2021: Benji's Bites founder Hanna Dilley on launching a business in a pandemic

For International Women’s Day 2021, Bdaily spoke to women across Yorkshire about adapting to life in the pandemic.

Hanna Dilley is the founder of Benji’s Bites, a toddler food company that launched at the beginning of lockdown.

She spoke to Bdaily about how the pandemic impacted her business launch and how the “forced pause” has encouraged women to follow their passions.

As a woman, how have you personally adapted during the pandemic, and what challenges have you faced?

As a mum of two young boys (aged 3 and 5), the responsibility of childcare during the pandemic has naturally fallen to me. I was due to launch my business - Benji’s Bites toddler food - in Spring last year, but then Covid hit and all of a sudden I was at home looking after my boys full time. I’d gone from 4 days a week working on my business to none! I decided to launch anyway, just locally at first, and I have to admit it was a struggle. I did lots of 5am cooking sessions and working evenings around the boys to get my business launched and meet orders. Things got better over the summer as nurseries opened and I was able to offer a nationwide delivery service. Then lockdown hit again at the beginning of the year and all my plans to grow the business were put on hold as I now had to homeschool! I’ve also massively missed my girlfriends, mum and sister who are not only a massive support network for me, but also an outlet to have fun and escape from being “mummy” or “food founder”. This pandemic has definitely tested my resilience and there have been times when my wellbeing has suffered, but I’ve learnt to slow down and appreciate the simple things in life but also that I don’t want to be doing anything other than working on my business and helping other busy parents!

How have you and your business supported women during the past year?

I don’t employ anyone so I’ve not had any women to support within my business. However I am part of a ‘Foodpreneur’ group of other Food & Drink startups, in which we all support and motivate each other. I’ve helped a couple of the women in the group with setting up their D2C part of their business. I’ve already been through the hard work so if I can help in any way with advice or sharing templates etc, then I love to save other people the time and stress! I also love to support other small business on social media, most of whom are run by amazing women. I’ve made a lot of new connections with women in similar circumstances to me and we’ve helped support each other through the pandemic, albeit virtually. And of course my food has supported women across the country by helping to reduce the stress of toddler mealtimes and giving them one less thing to think about!

What opportunities do you feel that the pandemic has created for women, if any?

I think it has given some women the opportunity to take a (forced) pause, rethink what is important to them and allowed them to follow passions they maybe didn’t have the confidence, or justification, to do so. I’ve seen a lot of women-led small businesses launch in the past year which I think is great and I hope this continues even when we’re out of lockdown. The shift towards D2C has highlighted the importance of social media marketing to not only raise awareness of brands, but also to tell the stories behind the brand and the founders and I think women do this very well with genuine authenticity.

**In your opinion, has the pandemic highlighted any gender imbalances in business? **

I don’t like to be too negative about this but I definitely feel most of the burden of childcare and homeschooling during the pandemic has fallen to the women so I do think it has widened the gender gap in business, but probably mostly in the larger companies. Having children at home full time, home schooling and trying to do a job is seriously challenging and I know a lot of women who have felt like they’ve struggled to do their jobs well during lockdown.

As we step into a post-pandemic business landscape, how do you think women’s roles in the sector may change?

I do hope that this experience has given women the strength and confidence to believe in themselves and to follow their dreams and passions, and see others do the same. A lot of start up companies in the past have been started by men so it is amazing to see how many new start ups are emerging and how many of them are now led by women.