‘I never imagined it would get to this level’: Cork Flour Patch girl on TikTok success and local food 

To her family, Anna O’Leary will always be Anna, but to everyone else she is The Flour Patch Girl.

In June, Anna opened a cutesy cake shed built out of her childhood playhouse at the end of the lane at the farm she shares with her boyfriend, Conor, in Castlefreke, West Cork.

It was an instant hit, grabbing attention, followers and customers, with her regular TikTok and Instagram videos showing the freshly baked breads, tarts and treats, along with farm fresh vegetables, honey and jams from her parents’ farm in Kilmichael - all on an honesty system.

In the six months since first opening, The Flour Patch has grown into the kind of success Anna could only have dreamed about, with two locations in Castlefreke and Kilmichael regularly selling out of everything within hours of opening.

Not only that, but in November Anna graduated from MTU with a degree in Culinary Arts.

It has been quite the year!

Before you think this is just another TikTok craze, there is more to Anna than baking delicious things. She is on a mission to spread her message about knowing where food comes from - farm to fork.

It all began on the O’Leary family farm in Kilmichael where Anna and her carpenter brother Barra grew up fully immersed in every aspect of farming life.

“We’re majority beef farmers, but we also keep sheep. Sometimes we have goats and hens, we used to have turkeys and broilers as well when I was younger. We have a polytunnel and we also set potatoes. We were self-sufficient,” says Anna.

As well as growing their own food, home cooking was at the heart of family life and Anna could be found in the kitchen beside her mom baking and cooking meals.

“When we’d sit down for dinner, dad and mom would always make a point of telling us that everything on the plate came from outside the back door. That stuck with me, and it made me really appreciate it. We were involved in every aspect of our food.

“We were brought down to the abattoir with dad when he dropped off an animal and again when he picked it up. That’s where my love and my appreciation for food grew,” says Anna.

The idea for The Flour Patch came when Anna was looking for a way she could sell her baking and farm produce without opening a café.

“A farmers’ market would’ve taken too much time out of my week when I could be baking, but then I started seeing these little cake sheds in the UK and thought I could do that, but on a bigger scale. It wasn’t just about me selling my baking, I wanted people to know about the ingredients I was using in the baking.”

Anna’s brother Barra built the first honesty hut at the Castlefreke location out of an old playhouse they shared as kids where they played cafés and kitchens.

“I opened on Father’s Day and sold out on the first day I opened - I couldn’t believe it!”

Anna continued to sell out every weekend within a few hours of opening for 14 weeks in a row, spurring her to open a second location at her parents’ farm in Kilmichael.

“I had a customer base in Kilmichael from when I first started baking cakes, opened there at the end of August and that’s also doing really well, too,” says Anna.

The second Flour Patch opened as the last shop in the village closed for good.

“It was bittersweet because the elderly community would go there every Saturday and Sunday for their bread and scones. I’m only a stone’s throw from where that shop was, so people are delighted there’s still something here for them without going into town for bare essentials,” says Anna.

These little honesty huts have both become part of the community and created a community around them, reaching people Anna thought would never be interested.

“I meet people every single weekend,” Anna says. “Some come on a Saturday and a Sunday and might get one thing or a bag of baking. People have really made it part of their regular routine, which is amazing.

“I’ve often noticed the same car could be parked at the end of the lane for half an hour or more and it’s just people meeting each other. It’s reached all demographics. I really thought it would be moms, older people or girls my age that see it as an idealised thing to do on a weekend, but I hear the boy racers pulling up or farmers stopping in tractors. It appeals to everyone.

“I got a lovely anonymous note one weekend saying The Flour Patch had brought a lovely sense of community to the area, and in a world that can be so dark at times, it’s a bright little place.”

“I couldn’t get over it, and that made me realise this is not just about buying bread or a cake, it’s for people coming here, meeting people; people stopping at the end of the lane and chatting. It’s such a lovely sense of community around both locations.”

“When I first started, I only lived here for three months, and I did worry I didn’t know the community very well. It wasn’t my community at the time, but now I feel like it is,” Anna says.

“Before I opened The Flour Patch, I didn’t know how to make friends on my own because I’m not involved in sport or anything like that. Now, I could walk into the local pub and people don’t know my name, but they’ll says, Oh, you’re The Flour Patch Girl!”

“I couldn’t have imagined this ever doing this well. I was always waiting for the slump to hit, for it to level out, but it’s still going; still selling out, so, I’m delighted.”

As well as creating a community in real life, Anna has used TikTok and Instagram to create an online community where she promotes her traditional bakes and shares her passion for local food.

It wasn’t until secondary school that Anna realised not everyone had the same experiences growing up around food and farming.

“The cluelessness of where food comes from shocked me, to be honest. It made me realise not everyone knows where even their milk, never mind their meat, is coming from,” says Anna.

“I did a poll on my Instagram last year asking if people knew where their food comes from, and the amount of people that said no frightened me. I’m not sure whether it’s from the point of not caring or just purely just not knowing. I took it for granted when I was younger. I thought it was normal. Now I realise how lucky I was to grow up with that, to have that at home. What we were exposed to makes me appreciate what I have now.”

At the heart of The Flour Patch is Anna’s commitment to showcasing why local food is important, and to encourage young people like her to engage more with the food they eat.

“My idea for The Flour Patch was to prove you can cut out the middleman, and I try to do that as much as possible with my ingredients; the eggs, milk and butter I use is all local. That’s very important to me.

“There’s no point harping on about supporting local just at Christmas when we should be supporting local all year round.

“I hope I can inspire people to try and go back to their roots, relearn older habits and traditions that their grandparents or great-grandparents had.

“You can live in an apartment and still grow some herbs. It starts as small as that. You don’t need a hundred acre farm to produce something, but if you don’t want to do that, find someone that is. There are people in every corner of Ireland producing food and trying to make money from it.”

The dream is to one day open a farm shop and café to showcase all her passions for local food.

“That’s the only downside of The Flour Patch, that I genuinely miss not getting to meet everyone that calls, unless I’m down there stocking the box. That’s why I’d love a shop; to meet my customers, offer more things from my farm, and expand my menu because I love cooking for people - it’s my love language!

“But the right spot will have to come up first. I’m still young, I’m not going anywhere!”

It’s been a whirlwind year for Anna, and I wonder what she has learned about herself after all her success at a young age.

“I have learned not to have a negative mindset from the get-go. I’m an overthinker; I make up scenarios in my head that I know will never happen, so just to believe in myself is one of the biggest things I’ve learned.

“I could never have imagined The Flour Patch would get to this level when I started out, and I’m proud of myself because it has worked and I’ve kept it going. I haven’t got my head around hearing people talk about it - it’s still so surreal. I’ve learned not to doubt myself because others will be doubting you already, so you might as well get on your own side first.”

Anna’s popularity online has unexpectedly put her in the position of mentor to others who love what she is doing and want to follow in her footsteps.

“I love seeing people start their own cake shed or honesty box because it’s not an easy thing to start out. You’re relying on your community to support you, and it won’t work in every community, so don’t try and be like someone else,” says Anna.

“Instead pick your own niche and put your own stamp on it. People will always value that over a carbon copy of something else, and you won’t get enjoyment out of it if you’re chasing what someone else is doing. There’s plenty space for other people doing what I’m doing. I’ll always be different to someone else, the same as someone else will always be different to me.”

• The Flour Patch Castlefreke is open Saturday and Sunday, and Kilmichael Sundays only. 10am until sold out, so get there early to be sure.
• Anna will be offering a special Christmas hamper from both locations with details posted on TikTok and Instagram @chefannajane.