Tom Thexton, winner of the BIA Rising Star Award runs a gluten-free bakery called Wild Thexton, and told British Baker of his huge plans to open a new completely gluten-free bakery with The Bread Factory.
Based in London, the young entrepreneur currently runs the business himself, baking all the loaves himself - but 2015 brings bigger things.
“I’m going into a joint partnership with The Bread Factory and we are building a custom gluten-free bakery in February so I can push out more products
“This will hopefully allow me to expand the business, as over last couple months, I’ve been turning away quite a lot of work because I don’t have the resources to do it. The new bakery means I will be able to achieve the output we want, and take on more work. I need more hand space and equipment, and this isn’t something I could do myself, so I needed a company to help get that all together; that’s where The Bread Factory came in.
“The factory is being drawn up at the moment and I’m hoping it will be around 500sq ft, which is more than the 200sq ft I have to work in at the moment, so it will be a welcome expansion.
“As for new products, they will be put on the back burner and my focus will be meeting the demand of our customers with the bread we make at the moment.
“There has been a huge rise in gluten-free over the past 18 months, and I expect that to continue throughout 2015, but the rise has coincided well with the press coverage around it and that cannot last forever. It’s about making the most of the trend now; it’s exciting times so I can’t really complain!
“This time next year I would like to double my client base to about 100, and I think that is me being quite reserved. Speaking to suppliers, they have said that, two years ago, they’d have one loaf of gluten-free bread in the freezer, whereas now they are ordering eight to 10 loaves a week.”
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