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Where have all the bakers (and traditional grocery staples of your youth) gone? (Long time passing). 🍰🍞🥧

Where have all the bakers gone?

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I do have a grocers, bakers, fishmonger and butcher near me in Addiscombe (Croydon) that look very much like the sort of thing that I was used to being on the high street of my Wiltshire village in my youth . . . however, some of the prices are eye-watering. The only time I went to the grocers I noticed no prices on anything, I expected independent retail prices but figured it couldn't be that bad . . but it ended up being at least four times the price of my normal shop.
The fish monger is good quality and fresh, (shop doesn't smell of fish either) so I don't begrudge the premium prices. . . but I obviously do mind paying them as I have not been in since the pandemic. I don't eat enough meat or bread to justify the butchers or bakers. . . . can use old bottles for candlesticks.



. . . but yes in my youth the bakery is where we got all our bread. Wouldn't dream of it now.
 
I’m impressed by and jealous of the huge range described in danny la rouge ’s OP.

On the Greek islands and in smaller towns they still have bakeries (often more than one) that sell all kinds of stuff baked on the premises. In the not too distant past people would bring their family meals to be cooked in the baker’s oven after the daily bread was done, not only to save on fuel but also to avoid heating up the family home in the hot summer months. Even today you sometimes see women and older children carrying a tray of stuffed tomatoes or fish to or from the bakery.


Brixton has the Old Post Office Bakery, which nearly closed recently but thankfully didn’t. Not what I saw described or asked for in the OP, it worthy of mention nevertheless. It’s famcy cos it does organic baked goods but it’s pretty basic too.

They do bread, cakes, pastries and savouries. Sell in house and also deliver to local outlets.



The Old Post Office Bakery, London’s Oldest Organic Bakery, was born in the early 80’s, the child of an illicit union between London’s 60’s and 70’s counterculture and an ancient European tradition of artisan bread making. Flowing through its veins was always a DIY ethic, a deeply held belief in resourcefulness, and the desire to create wholesome foods from simple ingredients.

In 1982 Karl Heinz Rossbach arrived in London from Berlin to study psychotherapy. Using his finely honed powers of Teutonic reasoning, Karl deduced that it was almost impossible to find the traditional, nutritionally rich breads he had grown up eating on his family farm in Southern Germany, and, needing to fund his studies he killed two birds with one stone (another of his actual skills) by starting to make his own bread at home, and also selling it to local shops. At the time he lived in a squatted building off Acre Lane, Brixton, that had been a Post Office: hence the name. Karl found and repaired an abandoned gas cooker and built himself a prooving cabinet from scrap metal. He bought freshly milled flour from Neals Yard in Covent Garden but also built his own mill using a coffee grinder and a motor from a washing machine. He soaked grains and produced his own sourdough to begin making the loaves (using an old bathtub as a mixing bowl) that are still the staple of the bakery. 100% wholewheat with sunflower seeds and 100% rye sourdough. Dense, chewy, flavoursome and nutritionally rich loaves whose slices provide a meal in themselves. The bakery was a success because what Karl made was virtually unique in 1982.

Within a few years Karl was joined by John Dungavel and Richard Scroggs (the current owners of the bakery), both of whom were living in Brixton because of the vibrant alternative/squatting scene of the 80’s. Many of the characters from that culture ended up working for or with the bakery, helping John and Richard in building on Karl’s foundation, to add the elements that have created the present day bakery, which, thirty years on and two premises later, now lives at 76 Landor Road just off Clapham High Street. Karl (now 64) still works part time at the bakery using his legendary bodging skills to keep any and every piece of equipment working. John and Richard hold the spirit of the bakery as crucial to its existence: a belief in community inclusion both in their employment policy and their support for local activists, festivals and events; a belief in keeping the bakery to a size and in a location where it can retain its proper artisan ethos; a fascination with the learning and development of specialist craft baking skills which maintain and continue the use of centuries old techniques. All these principles underpin our core business: the production of a range of truly handcrafted products, sold at reasonable prices without the mystification and elitism attached to much of the artisan food scene.

Over the years many highly skilled bakers and cake makers from all over the world have joined the bakery, along with enthusiasts from any and every walk of life looking for a change of direction, and have contributed their recipes and techniques, resulting in a list of products that includes traditional British baked goods: Chelsea buns, eccles cakes, apple turnovers, white bloomers, homemade cakes pastries and pasties, alongside ciabatta, focaccia, pain au levain, croissants, pain au chocolat, pain aux raisins, a range of sourdoughs, and our staples, the tin loaves: wholewheat, malted grain, 3 seed, sunflower, stoneground white, spelt and rye sourdough.

The bakery today is organic in every sense, not only using organic ingredients (exclusively for most of our breads) but also being the result of the skills and spirit of many different people: bakers, cooks, artists and all sorts: everyone with enthusiasm and spirit who has understood what we’re all about and joined in for the ride.

 
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I think most of them will be in the sort of shopping high streets like Broughty Ferry, the ones with a mix of charity shops, art galleries, independent boutiques, M&co, Bonmarche, and regular daytrippers.
Near me, Springburn shopping centre is mostly empty shops, except for charity shops, B&M and Gregg’s. Closer to me, Maryhill shopping centre (which features in Still Game) has gone. It’s now a massive Tesco, with a post office a charity shop and a Gregg’s underneath it.

I don’t mind Gregg’s. It’s the monoculture I dislike. Where does my auld Dad get a bridie? (That doesn’t involve getting a bus tae Broughty).
 
I think Devon and Cornwall bucks the trend due to the demand for pasties, so the local bakers may well be more of a pasty shop that does bread, cakes and other items from the beige food group or a bakers that does lots of pasties. Can think of a few in various West Country towns, plus local chains like Rowes, Oggy Oggy and Barnicutts.
In Plymouth, it’s all about Warrens, Ivor Dewdney and Friary Mill.
 
Brixton people, do you remember Labrox Bakery on the corner of Brixton Hill and Trent Road, right by Corpus Christi Church? Owned by a Greek Cypriot family. They had a bakery in the back and a shop at the front. Bog standard iced buns croissants and crusty white loaves etc but also delicious dactyla Greek bread and other good things. I worked there for a while, was an interesting interlude in my life.
 
I do have a grocers, bakers, fishmonger and butcher near me in Addiscombe (Croydon) that look very much like the sort of thing that I was used to being on the high street of my Wiltshire village in my youth . . . however, some of the prices are eye-watering. The only time I went to the grocers I noticed no prices on anything, I expected independent retail prices but figured it couldn't be that bad . . but it ended up being at least four times the price of my normal shop.
The fish monger is good quality and fresh, (shop doesn't smell of fish either) so I don't begrudge the premium prices. . . but I obviously do mind paying them as I have not been in since the pandemic. I don't eat enough meat or bread to justify the butchers or bakers. . . . can use old bottles for candlesticks.



. . . but yes in my youth the bakery is where we got all our bread. Wouldn't dream of it now.
I think Coughlands the bakers are a local chain. Used to live near the warehouse? Bakehouse? So you had cake smells wafting around on the breeze Inthe early hours
 
Don't think there are any non-chain traditional bakers round here any more - loads of greggs obvs, and some eye-wateringly expensive artisan places, but nothing traditional which is a shame. Used to have a few bakers in my home town when I was a kid - can't remember their names now.

eta - found a two which would need a bit of travel to get to - one Polish, one Caribbean. Will have to make some trips to get some stuff from them to see what they're like.
 
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This is just around the corner from the inlaws. It is a large chain and not particularly good
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I have never understood the fuss about Birds in the East Midlands, but the queues in the morning are sometimes quite long (certainly at the branch near where I live).

ETA- I was up in Sheffield recently and bought some things from Roses (which is a small chain) but really liked what I had.
 
In Plymouth, it’s all about Warrens, Ivor Dewdney and Friary Mill.

We used to have an Ivor Dewdney in Exeter but it closed along with most of the other non-Plymouth outlets. Wasn’t there some feud with his brother, Ron? I remember in the 80s going to the Cornwall Street Ivor Dewdneys with the queue going out the door at lunchtime. No veggie or vegan, no curry or cheese and onion, just small, medium or large, plus a handful of sausage rolls for the heretics who didn't like pasties. 😄
 
Don't just focus on bakeries. I want to hear about regional institutions, brands and products that haven't spread across the UK. Can you still get them where you live?
Massive Italian community in Bedford - they used Italian prisoners of war in the brickyards and post 1945 loads of them came back with their families to the same jobs. As a result their are third generation Italian cafes and restaurants including awesome tray baked pizza which is completely different to either American or 'Neapolitan' style pizza, although there is one great place for the latter as well. Does that count as local.
 
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Massive Italian community in Bedford - they used Italian Prisoners of war in the brickyards and post 1945 loads of them came back with their families to the same jobs. As a result their are third generation Italian cafes and restaurants including awesome tray baked pizza which is completely different to either American or 'Neapolitan; style pizza, although there is one great place for the latter as well. Does that count as local.
Most certainly does! Like Scots-Italian chips shops and ice-cream.
 
Is it just me or did the bakers themselves always seem to be pretty grumpy? All that getting up in the middle of the night to feed the village, I guess.

In the part of the Devon seaside town I grew up in back in the 70s, the local bakers were Danish, which was a bit unusual looking back on it.

They weren't grumpy. Or friendly. They didn't really say anything and got their English-born kids to do what little talking was required. Think they were devout Lutherans of some kind, but they were the muthafunking dope shit when it came to baking, I'll give them that.
 
They're quite the thing aren't they? I mean, what's not to like? BRB off to assemble a pitch deck to raise investment in artisan clanger food van

Clanger was made using shoulder of Pork again cooked slowly, this time in Sage and Cider. The dessert side was made from Granny Smith apples roasted with honey, butter and brown sugar - just sublime!

The Bedfordshire clanger was originally the food of farm labourers. A suet pudding with a meat filling, portable cold or eaten hot on returning home. They were considered affordable, filling and very calorific. As the pudding could be left simmering away all day, ready for the family's evening return, it suited an area where many of the women were employed outside the home in the 19th century.

For centuries hungry fieldworkers all over the county have tucked into their Bedfordshire Clangers as their lunchtime snack. We are very proud to have produced the Bedfordshire Clanger for the last 50 years, maintaining the tradition and supplying the county with a little taste of history.


Like the good old days we make our clangers using the same ingredients with suet pastry and a combination of savoury and sweet fillings at either end of the clanger.​
TBF they are more like big sausage rolls with a couple of bites of jam at one end...

But yeah, hit the foodie festival circuit with an old Bedford three toner (did you see what I did their) with ClanGerZ painted on the side, hire a couple of ex public school boys with massive beards and ironic tattoos and charge £14 a pop for artisan takes on 'Bedfordshire street food'...
 
We do have a few local high street bakeries left - our hyperlocal delicacy is the Butter Pie (actually a potato and onion pie with loads of butter in it) and it remains fairly widely available (Greggs don't do a version, but most supermarkets seem too). The local indie bakers are all suburban though - none at all in the town centre. A new indie opened recently and seems to be doing very well.
 
I think Coughlands the bakers are a local chain. Used to live near the warehouse? Bakehouse? So you had cake smells wafting around on the breeze Inthe early hours
Coughlans is a south London, NE Surrey chain yeah. Based in Thornton Heath IIRC. They call themselves "Artisan", but they aren't really and have been around since the 30s.
 
Brixton people, do you remember Labrox Bakery on the corner of Brixton Hill and Trent Road, right by Corpus Christi Church? Owned by a Greek Cypriot family. They had a bakery in the back and a shop at the front. Bog standard iced buns croissants and crusty white loaves etc but also delicious dactyla Greek bread and other good things. I worked there for a while, was an interesting interlude in my life.
Yep - used to go there for bread when I first moved to Brixton in 1995. Not sure when it closed. IIRC there’s a bread and/or sheath of wheat moulded into the brickwork so I guess it was a baker from way back.

Once that closed there was a decent bread interregnum of a fair few years until the posh bakers/farmers market stalls started opening (I never liked the Post Office bakery bread - at least the loaves they supplied to Brixton Wholefoods). Now we have Aries on Acre Lane which is excellent and run by the daughter of a local shopkeeper.
 
Was just thinking about all the terrible sweet things available as standard in every bakery in the land; cream horns, iced fingers, those things that are just a slab of custard sandwiched between two pastry rectangles which are impossible to eat without the custard going everywhere. Do these still exist even? There's a local chain in this part of the world that does most of these items but many 'ordinary' bakeries will have been squeezed out by Greggs at one end and Moustache McMannbun's Inedible Artisan Sourdough Boutique at the other.

A fresh loaf of normal bread is among the hardest things to come by these days, anywhere other than a supermarket anyway :(
 
Remember me Scottish mam buying Scottish loaves when I was a kid in the north east - the one with no crust on the sides, but almost burnt top crusts (I love burnt crusts). Not sure where she bought them from, but I found the same type on sale the other year in Marks and it was awful. :(
 
This is one thing the French got right. Every commune above a certain size (60 people?) has to have access to fresh baked bread.

It’s part of my theory that French villages and small towns are better than British ones ( but our cities are better than French ones…)
 
We had Italian ice cream parlours in the town I grew up in - they families who ran them had been there for decades, and were local institutions. They were great.
I was reading about Pacitto's Lemon Top the other week, and considered a trip to Redcar to try it at some point in the summer (alas, I have been unable to fit it in)
 
Coughlans is a south London, NE Surrey chain yeah. Based in Thornton Heath IIRC. They call themselves "Artisan", but they aren't really and have been around since the 30s.
I was thinking about them so looked at their website and noticed the "Artisan" label. I wouldn't have said they were either.

Although there's two of their shops here I rarely use them. I think the stuff they sell is OK but just get bread at the supermarket as it's easier.
 
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I was reading about Pacitto's Lemon Top the other week, and considered a trip to Redcar to try it at some point in the summer (alas, I have been unable to fit it in)
I loved lemon tops when I was a kid but can't actually remember what they tasted like (apart from lemon) now. Hope they're as good as they were back then.

I made the mistake of buying some gin made in the NE which supposedly had the flavour of a lemon top - it was vile. :(
 
High Street round the corner has one of the posh sourdough places, Greggs and I think that’s it. I’m not counting subway. It’s not bread. I will occasionally get stuff from the posh place. I don’t eat a lot of bread though. There is something from Tesco mouldering on the countertop.
Actually cheesecakes, the ones with coconut shred, are they still a thing? Tried to get one in at a local CAFE/cake shop a few weeks ago. They didn’t have any. This has been the extent of my searching.
 
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