How ‘middle-class’ bakeries took over the high street
Spot a queue of people on your local high street? Chances are, they’re there for bread. Or a cinnamon roll. The sight of seeded sourdough loaves and brown-paper-wrapped pastries being toted down residential roads is a sign of a good thing: a thriving bakery.
There have been recent openings the length and breadth of the country, confirming what small business payment provider Tyl by NatWest reports as a 267 per cent rise in new bakery shops nationwide from 2017 to 2022. And not just in city centres: on the corner of Upland Road in East Dulwich, south London, Helen Evans’s bright yellow Eric’s Bakery has become a beacon in the neighbourhood since it opened in April. East Anglia-based Two Magpies Bakery has grown from four sites pre-pandemic to nine, with owner and director Steve Magnall recording -double-digit growth year on year. The middle-class trend marker that is Gail’s, meanwhile, expanded its northern operations with a new site in Didsbury, a suburb of Manchester, last month.
In the Lake District, Catherine -Connor, co-founder of Lovingly -Artisan, on the outskirts of Kendal, has witnessed a similar boost. “When we first started, we were a bit of an oasis in the desert, pioneering the story of the artisan baker,” she says. “But now we have lots of like-minded neighbours.”
Just as good bread can shoehorn its way into almost any meal – the foundation of a great sandwich, the opener to a meal, a late-night snack – so a good bakery can transform the community in which it sits. We saw this in the pandemic, when we not only baked our own loaves but sought them out from local producers. Award-winning pastry chef Anna Higham, who will open Quince bakery in her Islington neighbourhood soon, believes the lockdown baking craze helped people to understand the skill, time and labour it takes to produce a good loaf. “There is an increased value and respect from customers for bakers and bakeries,” she says. “Many of these neighbourhood bakeries became a lifeline for people. They may not have shopped there before, but the nourishment they felt – not just in terms of food – during the pandemic forged a real loyalty.”
That loyalty is borne out in the queues for products that are a step up from sliced white. “People are seeking out a food experience,” says Matthew Jones, founder of Borough Market sensation Bread Ahead, whose ￡4 doughnuts have a cult following. Customers “want to eat something that’s meaningful,” he argues, and standing in line is part of that experience. “They want to feel a part of something.” Jones recently opened a branch in Bromley, near where he grew up in the south of the capital, in what some have dubbed his “homecoming”.
It’s not just Instagrammable buns and brownies that have fuelled a resurgence of local bakeries, but the demands of increasingly health-aware consumers, too. People are “hungry for good bread,” says Higham. In many cases, locals get to know each other while queuing for a loaf, ending up in a space that nurtures customer relationships – and with a product that is good for them. Gut health awareness has led to an increase in interest in ingredient provenance and ancient grains, Connor explains. “People are interested in low-GI [glycaemic index], whole grains, ancient grains,” she says. “They’re looking to buy something tasty, but are actively searching for ingredients that are going to impact their health.”
There is a better understanding these days, says Higham, “that supermarket bread is often an ultra-processed food and not offering the goodness it -promises”. Pascal Bishop, the owner of Birmingham-based -independent French artisan bakery Levain & Cherry, has found that -“customers are asking, ‘What goes into the food I’m eating?’ which can only be a good thing. People will travel far from their local supermarkets to buy it when they know the quality is great,” he says.
The return of independent bakeries to Britain’s high streets is, for some, a reminder of simpler times. “For our older customers, there’s the nostalgia of having a bakery in your town or village,” observes Lac Hincu, owner of Revel Bakery in Rugby, Warwickshire. “They can remember how proper bread used to taste.” Jones agrees. “In the 1950s and 1960s, the baking scene was really good. [High street bakers] made sourdough but didn’t call it that; that was just how they made bread. We had cream horns, custard tarts, all those lovely things. And then the 1970s came, the Chorleywood bread process, industrial baking.”
The high-speed bread making method, which uses added fats and chemicals to allow for lower-protein flour and quicker production times, is widely criticised for its nutritional deficiencies. But Jones believes bread has come “full circle” with the return of artisan bread making, part of a wider, new-found respect for British food. Having opened two Bread Ahead bakeries in the Middle East, he notes that in the eyes of customers there, “being from London is a big deal. We were laughed at globally for our food not long ago, but we’ve turned it around.”
These days sourdough may be the star of the show, but there’s great bread to be found beyond these air-pocketed boules. The 2,000-plus loaves produced on a typical Saturday by Two Magpies extend beyond its classic Magpie sourdough to wholemeal, spelt and baguettes. At Coughlans, a third-generation artisan bakery with 29 branches across south London and Surrey, customers “love good old-fashioned crusty bread,” says managing director Sean Coughlan.
Coughlans’ multi-seed loaf may be its most expensive but is also its bestselling bread. During the cost of living crisis many bakers have had to raise prices as they face energy and ingredient price hikes. Some are taking pains to ensure they still appeal: at Lovingly Artisan, quarter loaves are sold for those who can’t, or don’t want to, buy a whole one.
But it seems a higher price tag is not putting bread-lovers off independent bakeries. For many, it’s a way to avoid the high salt levels and long lists of additives and preservatives associated with Chorleywood-produced loaves. “We do not add any of the unnatural chemicals and preservatives that most supermarket breads use to extend life beyond what nature intended,” says Gail’s co-founder Tom Molnar. “Freshness should not rely on chemicals – it’s a poor trade-off, from a health perspective.”
The contrast between artisan bread and its supermarket equivalent – often dubbed “sourfaux” because of its many ingredients and shorter production process – is something independent bakers are keen to highlight. Some “supermarket bread has 18 or more ingredients. It is an ultra-processed food,” Magnall argues. “Sourdough has four ingredients – flour, water, salt and levain (natural yeast). It takes over 48 hours to make – not six or less.” In addition, the ability of local bakeries to cater for allergies and intolerances is winning over shoppers. At Two Magpies, an increase in “gluten-sensitive” customers has resulted in it developing two styles of gluten-free bread, while at Coughlans 97 per cent of its entire bakery range is vegan – part of a long-running drive to be “completely inclusive”.
Business may be booming, but -baking is a labour of love. For Bishop, it means getting up at 3am and working 14-hour days – common hours to most bakers. “There’s a vision of an artisan baker with their hands in dough, the fragrance of baking, and it’s all gorgeous and holistic,” explains Connor. “There is a lot of that, and it’s what gets us out of bed in the morning. But the reality is the trays are heavy, the hours are significant, and it’s hard.”
Higham agrees. “It is tiring and repetitive – you don’t go into it if you don’t enjoy repetitive tasks – but I enjoy the physical tiredness, it feels honest and wholesome somehow,” she says. “I love the feeling of alchemy and a little magic that comes when you pull a beautiful loaf that you created from the oven.
“It is our responsibility to keep these crafts alive,” Jones stresses, but as consumers we have a role to play, enabling bakeries to keep their doors open as a fundamental part of society. “We’ve come a long way and we just need to keep going,” he says, “so I’m not stopping any time soon.”