The Bread Factory has partnered with Wild Thexton to up its gluten-free offering, as it opens its new 30,000sq ft bakery.
The Bread Factory, which supplies Michelin-star establishments as well as Waitrose and other restaurant chains, hopes this means triple-digit growth for its gluten-free business.
Wild Thexton is run by the BIA 2014 Rising Star winner Tom Thexton, who has now moved from his shared kitchen to an area of the new Bread Factory bakery. The venture is an even split, with each company owning 50% of the partnership.
Dean Arbel, managing director of The Bread Factory, said: “With such a growing demand from our customers to provide high-quality gluten-free bread, we were excited to come across Tom (Wild Thexton), who was already offering top-quality gluten-free products to the best restaurants in London. It was a very natural fit for us to partner and to build a gluten-free bakery to fulfil this need.”
The new bakery is located at the same site as its existing bakery in north-west London near Wembley Arena. It is divided up to increase space to operate its bread, cakes and now gluten-free production. Thexton began operating from the new site in May this year.
A growing business
Arbel said the company had gained around 700 new customers in the past year, a growth rate that he did not expect to slow any time soon. In the next 18 months he would ideally like to open a second central bakery outside London, so the company could improve its logistics operation to deliver products across the UK.
The new gluten-free collaboration currently supplies purely Michelin-star restaurants, but will slowly look to grow its offer to other customers as the business expands. The range is based on white, rye style and seeded doughs, and are all made without preservatives.
Tom Thexton said: “I am currently working to keep up with the demand of what we’re doing at the moment. Then once we can satisfy that, there will be more new product development. We’ve been approached for different things.”
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