Bright coloured packaging, thick-rimmed glasses, and sliced sourdough at a reasonable price – the hallmarks of Jason’s Sourdough.

The brand, produced by Geary’s Bakeries, first hit the market five years ago and has quickly garnered a cult following. During that time, it has secured listings in more than 4,000 stores nationwide as well on Ocado, made its way into three million homes, and claimed the debut title of Bakery Brand of the Year at the 2025 Baking Industry Awards.

It has also overtaken regional player Roberts Bakery to become Britain’s fourth biggest bread brand and is quickly closing the gap on Kingsmill currently sat in third place (although a potential merger between Allied Bakeries and Hovis may change this).

Jason’s current track record is for triple-digit growth every year and there’s “plenty more headroom” up for grabs, according to Geary’s marketing & sales director Barry Dawber (otherwise known as “Jason’s stunt double”) who spoke at the British Society of Baking’s Spring Conference last month.

Barry Dawber, sales and marketing director for Jason’s Sourdough collects the first-ever Bakery Brand of the Year award from Thierry Jahant, managing director of category sponsor Zeppelin

Barry Dawber, sales and marketing director for Jason’s Sourdough collects the first-ever Bakery Brand of the Year award from Thierry Jahant, managing director of category sponsor Zeppelin

“Last week [w/c 7 April] Jason’s retail sales value was £1.7m a week which would make it about £88m on an annual basis,” explains Dawber. “Who knows how and when we’ll move up that ranking, but the momentum is certainly building, and we can see those sales growing.”

Leicestershire-based Geary’s, whose history goes back to 1906, “wasn’t in great health” when fourth generation master baker Jason Geary came on board in 2004/05. It was turning over around £3.5m annually as a regional player with growth coming from some lucrative own label contracts. In its latest accounts for 2023, turnover had further accelerated by 44.2% from the previous year to £68.8m driven, in part, by the success of Jason’s Sourdough.

“The intention of the brand was always to set out to disrupt and challenge the category,” he says, pointing to confectionery brand Tony’s Chocolonely, mixer specialist Fever-Tree, juice and smoothie specialist Innocent, and The Collective yoghurts as brands that with a similar mindset that had found success in other categories.

Like those other brands, Jason’s commands a premium with loaves costing around £2 each. On a slice-by-slice basis, it’s nearly three times that of other branded loaves – a 20-slice £1.40 loaf equates to 7p a slice whereas Jason’s, which is sold in 10-slice loaves, would be 20p a slice.

Mistakes along the way

“I’m not up here saying we’re smarter or cleverer than anyone else, because we’re certainly not,” says Dawber, “but what we have done is change and adapt quite quickly.”

Jasons White Pack Side ciabattin

Source: Geary’s Bakeries

The original packaging and branding for Jason’s Ciabattin

The first of these changes came mere weeks after Jason’s hit the shelves of M&S in March 2020. Originally called Jason’s Baked with Love, the trio of loaves – White Ciabattin, Grains & Seeds Ciabattin, and Craft Beer Ciabattin – were sold in resealable glassine packaging ‘reminiscent of proper bakery bread’. The downside of the glassine was it wasn’t entirely see-through, was “a bit baggy”, and required a sticker to close resulting in a product which didn’t quite resonate with consumers.

“It was a new brand, people couldn’t see what was inside, we didn’t call it sourdough, and then we had a funky name called Ciabattin that no one understood,” shares Dawber. “We were confusing.”

Thankfully, Geary’s realised this and manoeuvred within four weeks to replace the stickers on the loaves to ones that spelled out that they were sourdough. Six months later (due to the longer lead time on materials) the packaging and branding changed to what it is today. “We saw a 25% rise in rate of sale overnight,” Dawber adds.

Other changes have come from its line-up. A year after the brand emerged, it rolled out a range of breads of the world – a three-strong line-up of loaves comprising a New York-inspired White & Rye Sourdough, a Baltic-influenced White Sourdough Potato Loaf, and an Italian-inspired rosemary Tear & Share. “They were brilliant products,” Dawber enthuses, “but they were just too soon.”

Jasons Sourdough breads of the world

Source: Geary’s Bakeries

Jason’s Sourdough Breads of the World range was discontinued

Mental and physical availability

Other NPD has stuck though. The current line-up includes three of the original Ciabattin (a mash-up of a ciabatta with sourdough process), other sourdough loaves, and rolls. Notably, the rolls have slightly different branding as Jason was clear that “if it’s got yeast in, we’re not calling it sourdough”.

It has also expanded into premium toasties and hot rolls for the food-to-go category with fillings such as Nduja & Mature Cornish Cheddar, Kimchi & Mature Cornish Cheddar, and Thick Cut Bacon with Posh Tomato Ketchup.

Jason's Sourdough ham hock toastie

Source: Jason’s Sourdough

The full line-up of loaves and rolls comprises:

  • White Ciabattin
  • Grains & Seeds Ciabattin
  • Wholemeal Ciabattin
  • The Great White
  • Majestic Malted
  • Superb Sprouted Grains
  • Seeded Protein
  • Jason’s Every Day White Rolls with Sourdough
  • Jason’s Every Day Tiger Rolls

“Of our nine products, three or four of them do about 70-80% of sales,” he adds. “It could be slimmer, but part of the brand is offering that breadth and variety. The white and seeded loaves, as you would expect in the category, account for the lion’s share of the volume.”

Jason's Sourdough - product range

Source: Geary’s Bakeries

Jason’s Sourdough Ciabattin range

As well as physical availability, Dawber explains that Geary’s has worked hard on its mental availability because “if you have one without the other, it won’t succeed”. He describes mental availability as “people knowing who you are, considering your brand to be something they want to purchase, seeing you, recognising you and feeling that they want to be part of something”.

Jason’s hasn’t got big budgets, “we can’t afford Samuel L Jackson” Dawber jokes. “We had to get down and dirty with it really and start with what I’d call grassroots communication.”

This included lots of exhibitions with stalls manned by Geary’s employees (rather than hired promotional staff) and social media. “People have opinions about social media, but we’ve really made it work for us and we’ve not done it in a way which is spending loads of money with influencers,” Dawber says. Jason’s works with content creators who are already engaging with the product to create meals and recipes. It also allows the brand to talk about nutrition by utilising people “who have more credibility than us” such as food scientists and nutritionists.

Keeping it clean

Part of the brand’s success is undoubtedly down to how it has been received by consumers at a time when ingredient decks are under increased scrutiny.

The White Ciabattin, for example, has wheat flour, water, salt, and fermented wheat flour in, while the Superb Sprouted Grains features wheat flour, water, wholemeal spelt flour, sprouted spelt, rye flour, salt, and fermented wheat flour.

Careful not to wade into the murky waters of the ultra-processed food (UPF) debate, Dawber highlights that consumers (including influencers with considerable reach on social media) are talking about “simpler, cleaner ingredients”. This can have a direct impact on sales. One video from last February highlighting Jason’s Sourdough as a “good” product racked up more than eight million views and caused a spike in the brand’s sales.

“We’ve not got emulsifiers, we’ve not got E numbers, we’ve not got preservatives in there,” he notes. “The concept of simple ingredients – of proper sourdough made without yeast and done the traditional way over 24 hours – is the foundation upon which the brand has been built upon.”

Artists impression of Geary's site

Source: Geary’s Bakeries

Artist’s impression of the new Geary’s site

It’s an ethos which has set it up for future growth with a new manufacturing site in Leicester set to supercharge this after it ran out of space at its existing site, also in Glenfield. Due to open this month, the site will “more than double” Jason’s sourdough capacity.

“We’re at about 11% household penetration at the moment so there are still lots of brands in the category that are selling to a lot more people,” Dawber adds. “We’ve done well so far, but there’s a lot more to go.”