Connect
To Top

Meet Sofia Fransson Krall and Åsa McKenzie

Avatar photo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sofia Fransson Krall and Åsa McKenzie.

Sofia and Åsa, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
We were both born and raised in Sweden and moved to the US as young adults. Our Swedish background is a big influence on our lives in the US, and we continue to stay connected to Sweden as well as the Swedish community in San Diego. We knew that we would be a great team since we have worked together for many years in Swedish organizations. For example, we were part of a group who started The Swedish School of San Diego. The school celebrated its 20th anniversary this year.

Baking has also been a big part of our lives, and we weren’t able to find anything that tasted like Swedish baked goods in San Diego. For years, we would fill our suitcases with Swedish ingredients on return trips from Sweden so we could replicate the authentic taste of Swedish baked goods. Our baked goods have always been popular with our family and friends, who many times jokingly said that we should open our café or bakery. About two years ago, we started talking about doing something together. Baking was something we both seemed to be drawn toward. Since we didn’t have any experience in the food industry, it took another year to figure out what our options were. Owning an actual café or bakery seemed very appealing, but at the same time, it is such a huge undertaking, in terms of both money and time, so we decided to start an online baking company. We started operating last February.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The baking part of the business has gone smoothly and been lots of fun. The business part, on the other hand, has been a challenge since neither of us had any previous experience with running a food business. Everything from designing our webpage, to getting the right licenses, to marketing our business has been hard. Since our business has to do with food, we had to get approved by the San Diego Department of Environmental Health. The process of finding out what licenses we needed was difficult. We got different answers from different people and it took much longer than we anticipated. Just getting our recipes approved took a couple of months. There has been a lot of backtracking since we sometimes missed important information along the way. We often say to each other that if we wouldn’t have been a team, we probably wouldn’t have done this. It has helped us that we get the support and encouragement from each other. If one of us feels it’s difficult, the other will get the ball rolling again. We have now been in business for almost a year and our next challenge is to market ourselves in the corporate world. It has been hard to navigate through all the information that’s out there and find what is useful to us.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Swedish Fika San Diego is a bake-to-order company. We get an order by either email, phone, or social media and then we bake the day of delivery or pick-up. We often bake early mornings since our buns, for instance, take about six hours to make. What sets us apart from other businesses are that we bake authentic Swedish goods. The key ingredients are imported from Sweden.

Our authentic Swedish baked goods are different from what one usually finds in the US. First, they are not as sweet as a typical American pastry. Second, our baked goods are more, shall we say, elegant. Our cookies, for example, are smaller than some American cookies. Our most popular items are cinnamon buns, and cardamom buns, carmel almond cake, and sugar cookies. We are also unique in that only we make traditional Swedish baked goods in San Diego.

“Fika” is a concept that also makes us different from other companies. It means, “taking a break for coffee (or tea) and a bite to eat”. But it means much more than that. It’s a moment to relax by yourself or to catch up with family and friends or coworkers. Fika is nothing revolutionary in Sweden; it’s simply part of everyday life. There are Fika breaks at every workplace and home at least twice a day.

We would like to bring “Fika” to San Diego. In a world where we are always on the go, we want San Diegans to see the beauty of sitting down to have a cup of coffee and perhaps ask a friend to join. We are very proud of what we have accomplished so far, but we also know that we have much more work to do to accomplish our goals.

Contact Info:


Image Credit:
Åsa or Sofia

Suggest a story: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.

Related Items

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More in