A BAKERY which was forced to change its business model due to the coronavirus pandemic has had one of its busiest months in its 11-year history.
Family-run business Raise Bakery in Worthing saw their wholesale trade collapse overnight when the lockdown was introduced back in March.
The artisan bakery normally specialises in cakes for customers in the retail, wholesale and airline markets, including Virgin Atlantic, Netto and British Airways.
Owner and managing director Jeremy Jacobs said: “I’ve been doing this business for 11 years now and we’ve been through all kinds of challenging situations, but the past few months have been a rollercoaster.
“About a week after the lockdown was introduced we had closed our production facility down and I was at home thinking, what can we do?”
When Jeremy spotted a request on a new community Facebook group for flour, he had the idea to sell bakery ingredients which had disappeared from supermarkets and shops directly to customers.
He said: “I messaged this person to say I had loads of flour if they needed it and it just snowballed from there.
“What started as a way to help out friends and people in the community has turned into a viable new business.”
Jeremy built an online shop within 24 hours and has since been overwhelmed with the demand for baking ingredients.
He said: “It just went crazy.
“We’ve sold ten tonnes of flour and at one point we were doing 350 orders a day.
“We’ve had to employ quickly whilst implementing new health and safety measures to ensure the wellbeing of the team and their loved ones.
“They’ve been fantastic.”
Since Jeremy set up the online shop, Raise Bakery has been able to provide temporary work and pay the living wage to ten people who had recently lost their jobs.
Jeremy said he has received great feedback from customers buying from his new online shop, which sells different kinds of flour and other baking ingredients including nuts, dried fruits, sugars and toppings.
He said: “We are your one-stop shop for all baking ingredients and equipment and we have items you just can’t get in the supermarket.
“We’ve had brilliant feedback from customers who have been baking for years and have just discovered our flour, as their cakes are rising better.
“We have actually wanted to have an online shop for ages but just never had the time.
“The whole lockdown period has taught me a lot. It’s reset everything and made us think about what is important to us.”
Jeremy said the baking ingredients shop will remain a permanent part of the business, even when the wholesale trade picks up again.
He has also been doing all he can to help NHS workers and vulnerable people during the pandemic, having organised a bake-off with the Raise Bakery team to hand deliver cakes and treats to care homes and hospitals all over Sussex, including the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.
Raise Bakery has also partnered with Pay It Forward Direct in Brighton and Hove, which provides meals to homeless people, NHS frontline workers and food banks every week.
Jeremy said: “We got in touch with them to see what they needed, and since then we’ve been delivering cakes and desserts in batches of 5,000. This week we will have sent 15,000 portions.
“It’s very important to us and we’re going to keep that as a permanent feature too.
“It’s been wonderful to be able to give back to the community by donating food to local community kitchens, food banks and NHS frontline staff.”
At The Argus, we are championing the work of traders during the coronavirus pandemic as part of our #BackingSussexBusiness campaign. We are always interested to hear how the community is coming together in this crisis. If you know of a local business battling to do all it can in these tough times and/or offering support to the local community, please get in touch at [email protected] or [email protected].
