By bizn_fun 
The 36-year-old founded Dunk Cookies just before the pandemic. She installed the honesty box earlier this year and it has brought in enough money to pay the rent at her bakery on a nearby industrial estate.
“The honesty box means we can be part of my community – bringing something to them, rather than the business being solely online,” says the affable Annabelle.
Various food festivals gave her a following and some local custom. Now, she opens the honesty box every day at 9am until locking it back up at 8pm. Despite plans to scale back the bakery next year, to spend more time with her young son, the honesty box will remain.
It is on a school run route, can empty within hours, and is regularly refilled.
Annabelle films the re-stock and posts it on Instagram. The coverage has brought in customers from further afield. Annabelle also posts pictures of her adding up the takings, to test the honesty or dishonesty of customers.
Almost without exception, they pay. One customer who arrived during the BBC’s visit filled a bag, scanned the QR code, and promised to transfer the money once she had a signal. There was no doubt she would.
Annabelle says 90% of customers pay online after scanning the QR code inside the box. Many other honesty boxes around the UK use the same technology, some even leaving a calculator inside for customers to tot up the cost of what they take.
Anyone who is confused can press the video doorbell, for a hotline to Annabelle’s bakery a few miles away.
That also helps with security, as does the fact the box is placed outside the window of the local pub – The Hare at Blean.