Little Bread Winner Named a Finalist in the 2026 Australian Women’s Small Business Champion Awards
Well, This Is Pretty Bloody Exciting...
Little Bread Winner has been named a finalist in the Sole Operator category of the 2026 Australian Women’s Small Business Champion Awards.
And I’m still pinching myself a little.
What started with me being completely fed up with destroying perfectly good sourdough has somehow turned into an Australian made business, a Brisbane workshop, thousands of bread lovers using our products and now... a national award finalist.
Not bad for someone who just wanted a decent slice of toast.
From Squashed Sourdough to a National Award Finalist
Little Bread Winner didn't start with a big business plan.
It started with a loaf of sourdough.
I loved beautiful fresh bread, but I was absolutely terrible at slicing it.
Instead of those lovely thin slices you see in cafés, I was producing giant doorstops, squashed loaves and enough crumbs to feed the local bird population.
I kept thinking...
Surely there has to be a better way to cut bread.
That frustration eventually became the Little Bread Winner Bread Saw.
And from there, things got a little out of hand.
The Reality of Being a Sole Operator
Being recognised in the Sole Operator category means a lot to me because Little Bread Winner might look like a bigger operation from the outside, but behind the scenes there is a whole lot of me.
Designing products.
Making products.
Packing orders.
Talking to customers.
Finding stockists.
Working on the website.
Coming up with ridiculous bread jokes.
Solving problems.
Trying new ideas.
Making mistakes.
Fixing those mistakes.
And occasionally wondering why on earth I decided running a business would be a good idea.
Being a sole operator means wearing a ridiculous number of hats.
Some days I feel like a product designer.
Other days I'm a manufacturer, photographer, salesperson, customer service department, marketing team, packer and cleaner before lunch.
But I genuinely love what I have built.
Australian Made Matters to Me
One thing I have never wanted Little Bread Winner to become is just another business importing products and putting our name on them.
Making things here matters.
Our bread saws are handcrafted in Brisbane.
We work with Australian materials and local businesses wherever we can.
And as the business has grown, sustainability has become an even bigger part of what we do.
One of the things I am most proud of is finding ways to take beautiful solid surface manufacturing offcuts that would otherwise be treated as waste and turn them into products people actually want to keep and use.
To date, Little Bread Winner has helped save more than 22 tonnes of material from landfill.
Twenty two tonnes.
Sometimes I have to remind myself of that number.
Something that started because I couldn't cut sourdough properly is now helping give waste materials an entirely new life.
That feels pretty special.
This One Means a Lot
Awards are funny.
Most of the time when you are running a small business, you don't spend much time looking backwards.
You are thinking about the next order, the next product, the next problem that needs solving and the approximately 47 things you forgot to do yesterday.
So being named a finalist has made me stop for a second and look at what Little Bread Winner has actually become.
And I'm proud of it.
I'm proud that we make things here in Australia.
I'm proud that people choose our products.
I'm proud that something I created because of my own frustration now helps other people enjoy their bread.
I'm proud of the waste we've diverted from landfill.
And I'm incredibly proud that Little Bread Winner has been recognised alongside other Australian women building their own businesses.
Off to Sydney We Go
The 2026 Australian Women's Small Business Champion Awards presentation evening will be held in Sydney on Saturday 26 September 2026.
So now we wait.
Of course, winning would be absolutely bloody brilliant.
But being selected as a national finalist in the Sole Operator category already feels like a pretty big moment.
Especially when I think back to where all of this started.
One woman.
One loaf of sourdough.
And one very badly cut slice of bread.
Turns out that terrible slice might have been one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Thank you to every single person who has bought a Little Bread Winner product, told a friend about us, stocked our products, shared one of our posts, sent me a message or supported this slightly bread obsessed little Australian business.
You are part of this story too.
Now keep your fingers crossed for Sydney.
Cascie xx