Sweet Success: How Brooki Bakehouse Founder Brooke Bellamy Is Scaling Her Australia-Born Dessert Brand Into The UAE And Beyond

Brooke Bellamy is the Australian entrepreneur who transformed her love for baking into one of Down Under’s most viral dessert brands: Brooki Bakehouse. And now, having secured an AED60 million (US$16.34 million) investment from UAE-based property developer Arada, Bellamy is all set to take the brand that she launched in Brisbane in 2022 beyond Australian shores.

Brooki Bakehouse isn’t Bellamy’s first entrepreneurial venture. While at university, she had launched a travel blog to fund her goal of travelling the world in her twenties. “The idea was to write a travel blog, so that I could somehow make money while I was travelling, which ultimately ended up being quite lucrative,” Bellamy recalls. “I was able to complete my university, travel the world, and get paid, all at the same time.” And it was during these travels that Bellamy started to conceptualize what would become Brooki Bakehouse. “I discovered a lot of great bakeries, new flavor combinations, and new ways of doing things that I hadn’t yet discovered back at home in Australia,” Bellamy remembers. “So, I started compiling ideas and inspiration that would one day turn into Brooki, the bakery I would go on to open when I turned 30.”

As someone who has always loved baking and eating sweets, becoming a bakery owner felt like a pretty natural evolution for Bellamy. But launching and running Brooki Bakehouse was not without its challenges. “The bakery was not busy for the first eight months, and I quite quickly realized that I needed to promote the bakery better if I wanted to survive in business,” Bellamy remembers. “At that point, it was just myself and one other casual employee. I started sharing ‘a day in my life as a bakery owner’ daily vlogs as a way to keep myself busy each day, as I was spending so much time alone working 12-15 hour days.”

Brooke Bellamy, founder of Brooki Bakehouse.

Bellamy’s vlogs—which she shared on the social media platform TikTok—put her business on the map, literally and figuratively, and soon, demand surged beyond its modest footprint at the time. “Within a week, people were visiting the bakery saying they found it on TikTok, and within a few months, we had a queue of customers wrapping around the block daily,” Bellamy says. “Today, we have more than 60 team members, which has grown organically, as we continue to expand and open new locations. We’ve also expanded into a 600+ sq. m. warehouse in Australia—quite a leap from the 41 sq. m. kitchen we started in just three years ago!”

According to Bellamy, the brand’s ascent on social media is thanks to a key principle she maintained from the start. “From day one, I focused on storytelling, not selling,” she says. “If you watch and listen to the videos, you’re being introduced to our products in an organic way–be that the genuine excitement of launching a new product, or the process of creating new flavors. Our followers are a community who have become a part of the brand in every way shape and form, as I’m always asking them for new flavor ideas, or getting them to vote on the next location. By involving our community so heavily in the decision-making process as we grow in public, they have become the brand, not just a part of it.”

Brooki Bakehouse has also grown to become more than just an Australian success story. “The brand has grown in real time on social media, which ultimately paved the way for us to go global,” Bellamy says. “The comments section was full of people from all over the world, as far as you can imagine, saying that they wish they lived closer so that they could visit the bakery. My next thought was if we can’t bring people to the bakery, let’s take the bakery to them, which is when we started shipping our most popular product, our cookies, in the mail. The next extension of that was to open stores outside of our city; so, we began opening in the Gold Coast and Sydney to cater to more of Australia. Now, we’re getting ready to open permanently in Dubai. There’s no better city for us to start with on our global journey, as Dubai is already frequented by so many travelers and expats, that it gives us the perfect launchpad to reach people from all over the world.”

A Brooki Bakehouse pop-up in the UAE.

The new Dubai outpost isn’t Brooki Bakehouse’s first foray into the UAE though—the brand has staged several pop-ups across the country in the recent past. And it was one such activation in Abu Dhabi in 2024 that ultimately paved the way for the investment Brooki Bakehouse secured from Arada. “Arada reached out after they had seen us grow online, and suddenly, we were in Abu Dhabi with a queue of two-plus hours long just to try our cookies,” Bellamy shares. “Someone from their office came to the pop-up to introduce themselves, and they saw first-hand just how enthusiastic the market was for our products. The conversation about investment took place shortly thereafter at Arada’s headquarters in Dubai. Until this point, we had been in lengthy discussions regarding a franchise agreement in the region; however, Arada showed us they believed in the brand even more by offering to buy into the brand. Their confidence in us being a reasonably new brand was encouraging, [and it was] further supported by their hospitality division, which has been investing in F&B brands globally recently. Given their eye for spotting brands on the rise, support from the F&B division,and their enthusiasm to take Brooki global, we knew that this was the right partnership to take us outside of Australia, to the world."

For Bellamy, the UAE is the perfect launchpad for Brooki Bakehouse’s global ambitions. “The UAE loves quality, and so do we,” she explains. “Our product is highly visual, indulgent and instantly shareable. And because the brand was born on social media, we speak the same digital language that consumers here already live in. As we enter the market, it is important for us to maintain quality above all else. That’s why we won’t rush into multiple locations at once; we’re rather focusing on sustainable growth, limited edition drops, and continued hype for our never-ending catalogue of flavors and new products. We’re an innovative baking brand, and we will always keep it that way.”

But the UAE is just the beginning—Brooki Bakehouse has markets like Europe and Asia in the pipeline as well. “We’re starting in the UAE, specifically Dubai, so that we can tap into a truly global audience of locals, expats, and travelers who visit Dubai,” Bellamy shares. “From there, we will continue opening new locations across the UAE as we scale production. Next up will be the UK, starting with London. With some of the highest visitor numbers of any global city, we believe London will be the biggest launch for our locations to date. After that, we’ll continue growing in the UK and Europe, followed by Asia. Our rollout plan focuses on the cities and countries where our audiences are located, while also considering which markets are ripe for opportunity.”

Brooke Bellamy, founder of Brooki Bakehouse.

But behind all of Brooki Bakehouse’s expansion plans is a founder whose fundamentals haven’t changed. That mindset is evident in the advice Bellamy offers other female entrepreneurs today—consider this a primer:

1. Start before you feel ready. “Most of my biggest breakthroughs happened not because I had everything figured out, but because I took the first step. We wouldn’t be opening stores internationally if it wasn’t for saying yes to an opportunity to attend a food festival in Abu Dhabi, which exposed us to investors and caught their attention.”

2. Authenticity is your superpower “The Brooki brand was built on my genuine love for baking, but it was my decision to take viewers behind the scenes that really made the difference. Too often, we only share the highlights and finished product, when the journey itself and what you learn along the way is what makes life interesting. By building in public, I was able to connect with viewers in a way that made it feel like we were all on this journey together–and we still are!”

3. Build a community, not just a customer base “We’re building a legacy brand at Brooki, and we want it to be the first brand you think of when you think of sweets and celebrations. In order to have a lifetime impact as a brand, you need to focus on building a community of cheerleaders who are just as passionate about your brand as you are.”

Pictured in the lead image is Brooke Bellamy, founder of Brooki Bakehouse. All images courtesy Brooki Bakehouse.

This article first appeared in Inc. Arabia's February 2026 edition. To read the full issue online, click here.