Cambridge-based bakery business Stir is accelerating expansion plans after smashing its crowdfunding target for the second successive year.
Having exceeded its £100k goal by 50% in June 2024, the firm achieved a similar amount of overfunding in its £200k campaign which concluded last week on the Republic Europe platform.
A total of 128 investors pledged over £291k towards Stir Cambridge’s plans for short-term growth and diversification. These include expanding its shop estate (currently at five locations across the city), creating a new smaller store concept, and increasing the capacity of its bakery production site and centralised kitchen. It also was looking to launch a new Stir Kitchen brand of self-produced sauces, jams, and pickles in time for Christmas.
Stir co-founder and director Matt Harrison noted that, like in its previous raise, the majority of investors know the company very well as they are either residents of Cambridge or frequent visitors. “The beauty of this kind of crowdfunding is that the people who invest immediately become a part owner of the business and as a result of that, become your biggest advocates,” he told British Baker. “They do a lot of the marketing.”
Harrison revealed the extra £90k of investment meant the company would be able to action its expansion moves at pace. For example, the business can now open two new sites for its Marvin’s sandwich brand in parallel with each other.
Hankering for a Marvin’s
Stir unveiled its first Marvin’s outlet just six weeks ago, which was created from the refurbishment of its existing café on Green Street.
According to Harrison, the idea came from witnessing the “explosion in gourmet sandwich shops in big cities like London”. This appealed more to the younger generation, however, and with the Stir brand being well established amongst a core demographic of middle-aged consumers over the past decade, a fresh brand name was sought out for the new sandwich business.
The co-founder recalled a staff member saying they were “absolutely Hank Marvin” – cockney rhyming slang for ‘starving’ – with the phrase transformed into a brand name that everyone seemed to like.
Stir then worked with local illustrator Martha Doyle to create the Marvin’s logo and character, a cowboy boot-wearing sandwich bandit.
The interior design of the Marvin’s shop is almost the opposite of Stir cafés, which favour a palette of black, white, and grey and minimalist décor. At the updated Green Street site, this has been replaced with bright red and white hues, walls are completely covered in artwork and hanging plants, and there mismatched, multicoloured furniture.
Loud music is played to create a vibrant hangout spot, with the menu featuring “big fat, juicy dripping sandwiches” wrapped in paper and served on metal trays. “So, it’s very, very different to Stir and we’ve done that all deliberately,” said Harrison, who adds that “feedback has been incredible” since the opening.
Currently selling out every day is ‘The Miracle on Green Street’, its version of a Brick Lane salt beef bagel. There’s also the ‘Banh Marv’ (Vietnamese-style crispy tofu on a sesame sub), the ‘Heat Seeker’ (spicy Caribbean chicken, pineapple, and plantain on white bloomer), the ‘Parmaggedon’ (breaded aubergine and mozzarella on focaccia), and ‘The Seoul Mate’ (Korean-style beef brisket on black sesame bloomer). Selected items have also gone live on Deliveroo.
One of the proposed locations for the next Marvin’s site is said to be Mill Road, a buzzing area popular with students which Harrison describes as “Cambridge’s equivalent of Camden”.
Biting into ‘Bite Size’
Stir operates four cafés around Cambridge – in Chesterton, in Histon, in the Old Swiss Laundry building on Cherry Hinton Road, and Addenbrook’s Hospital – with each accommodating more than 60 covers. The latter site encounters a higher percentage of grab-and-go sales from the busy workers on campus, which has given rise to another new idea, a ‘Bite Size’ store format. Both Greggs and Co-op have unveiled similar initiatives in recent months.
The pitch deck for Stir’s crowdfunding revealed its plans to open three of these smaller outlets. “With a tightly packed city like Cambridge covering quite a small geographic footprint, it gives us the opportunity to open Stirs in locations that we probably previously wouldn’t have considered,” commented Harrison.
He confirmed the sites, scheduled to open over the next 15 months, will offer a slimmed down menu that still includes more than half of the café dishes, such as sandwiches and salads prepared fresh onsite, as well as the full bakery range. They will be branded as ‘Stir Bite Size’ so customers don’t arrive expecting the full menu, he added.
Upping production
Supporting growth ambitions is an ongoing project to increase capacity at its bakery production site in Cambridge North.
Baker of the Year 2024 finalist Sandor Bagameri helped set up the facility in 2022 but left last year to establish his own bakery café, Crustiq in Leeds. Stir then welcomed a new head baker in Frederic Guilbeau last December, who enacted changes to the layout and processes that has already delivered up to 40% in additional production capacity without growing the physical space.
“From a production efficiency and policy point of view, Fred’s taken us to the next level,” commented Harrison. “We were worried about beginning to bump up against capacity in the bakery through the start of this year, but actually we’re really quite comfortable now. We’ve already got enough space up there that we will be able to cope with the openings that we’ve got planned over the next 12 months for sure, and hopefully that those improvements can continue during that period.”
Some of the new products that Guilbeau has helped develop include a range of sweet brioche items and a Stilton & Olive Loaf as a weekend special.
Stir has also hired a new head pastry chef, 22-year-old Arthur Quaireau, who studied in his home country of France for three years before moving to Ireland and subsequently joining the Cambridge business a few months back.
The size of the bakery production team (around 26 people) is to be maintained with Stir only looking to recruit new senior bakers that can work at a higher quality and with greater volumes compared to junior staff. It will also be investing in equipment in 2026.
In addition, to help maintain a focus on its growing shop estate, Stir has dropped some of its wholesale accounts to streamline its customer base with no intentions of pursuing any more supply deals at present.
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