Good news story: How an artisan bakery has reinvented itself

We spoke to Birgit Gunz, Director of  Frankonia The Bread House about how her business has changed during COVID-19.

“I own an artisan bakery in Surbiton, Greater London which I set up originally in 1998 as a small bakery and shop in Wimbledon Village. Due to high demand I changed from being a retail bakery to a wholesale bakery a few years later and moved to much bigger premises in Surbiton where we are still today. We make our products by hand, do not cut corners and produce a wonderful range of artisan breads, sourdoughs, sandwich bread and breakfast goods on a daily basis.

I supply/ied many 5 star hotels in Central London but also across the whole of the UK. To name but a few, the Ritz, the Savoy, the Goring Hotel, Houses of Parliament and Fortnum & Mason all belong to my list of loyal customers.

When the crisis hit the hospitality sector my business went into free fall and within 48 hours 90% of our sales were wiped out.

Giving up is not in my vocabulary and it seemed to be such a struggle for the public to buy fresh bread. So I moved like lightening and opened a shop at the bakery. We are on an industrial estate away from the high street but we are in a residential area so I thought this stands a chance. I sent my drivers out leafleting and took out some advertising slots on the local radio station and I am pleased to say the shop is going great guns. We have had the most amazing response and I am astonished.

In addition we have also started to deliver to local CO-OP stores and have set up a home delivery service. The home delivery service is being fine tuned at the moment and once this is done I will start to work on a concept for nationwide deliveries to households, which is what I have been thinking about for a long time but wasn’t sure if the market was ready for it. Well I think the time has come so maybe that is my next project.”

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