The bakery and other businesses

(published July 2000)

Here’s a terrifying thought for many of you. Imagine a future where bakers worked together with restaurant owners and chefs, with publicans, with delicatessen managers, or with greengrocers, creating hybrid “bakery &” businesses. Just the thought creates the same fervour as an England vs Germany match. What would happen to our individuality, our guild pride and our past? Well, you know, a marriage like that might help us protect our traditions, create a future for young bakers, and make for a dynamic relationship that could inspire both us and our customers.

These bakery adaptions already exist. But if I was to predict the future of the high street, given the increasing rents, difficulty to find prime sites, and the cost of labour, I feel that we will see many more varied and inspiring bakery partnerships. Its not driven by desire to be all things, but rather that if two businesses have common needs, are already associated in the customers mind, and offer the potential to stimulate sales through their union, then surely their partnership is a good thing. Enjoyable for the consumer. The possibility of creating a vibrant and innovative place to purchase and to eat.

I have worked in such bakeries for many years, and I know the problems that occur. The risk you face of creating little spaces of tension, where bakers fight with chefs, chefs fight with shop assistants, partners fight with partners. But would I do it again. Of course. Because beyond the difficulties there is a real chance to create a level of excellence that is rare. And if I’m going to manage a difficult situation I, at very least, want the end result to be rewarding for my customers.

My first choice every time is a bakery as part of a restaurant/café, or wine bar/brewery. Wonderful fragrant bread baked on the premises, with counter sales and limited wholesale supplied delivered simply by a man and a van. A central area with simple wooden chairs and table service. Serving food with bread, or wine with bread, or beer with bread. As the bread is the draw for the public, the food/wine/beer becomes the ‘lubricant’ for consumption. And, naturally, sales. This is the most common enquiry I receive from chefs, restaurateurs, publicans and brewers.

The other is simply a stylised version of an indoor market. In New York, for example, shops such as Dean and DeLuca, Eli Zabar’s, & Balduccis have for years offered combined bakery/deli operations. It’s hardly new, nor should it be precisely imitated, as these store’s dependence on the finest ingredients (and highest cost) would be hard to maintain in the UK.

However a simpler version which offered locally grown ingredients, foods crafted by local producers, alongside the very best bread we can bake, is sustainable. Yes, it will need in areas of relative affluence, but as it supports both the small regional producer and farmer, I believe these bakery stores are both a good thing and profitable. They don’t work everywhere, they are very dependent on the visibility and accessible positioning of the site. But delicatessens of this sort are continually opening and would be enhanced from the association with a baker on site. Get the phone book out and call them, meet and talk. You might be surprised.