Bakery Andante, the brainchild of a former telecoms manager, opened this week in Edinburgh.

Jon Wood has spent the past 20 years working in marketing and product management, latterly for a telecoms company, but when faced with redundancy last year he decided to turn his hobby into a new career as an artisan baker.

The bakery, on Morningside Road, specialises in handshaped breads, continental breads and homebakes, using all-natural ingredients. The site features an open bakehouse so customers can see the goods being produced.

“I started with making my own bread at the weekends and experimenting with loads of recipes and mastering different techniques,” commented Wood.

“While it came as a disappointment at the time, being made redundant also presented an opportunity to do something different with my life. So, I took the opportunity to follow a dream and start my own business.”

He said turning his hobby into a full-time bakery business has been a big learning curve, but that he has been fortunate enough to have received excellent advice and support from bakers in and around Edinburgh.

“The Scottish Bakers association also allowed me to use their test bakery so that I could apply what I had learned in a commercial bakery environment.”

Alan Clarke, chief executive of Scottish Bakers commented: “It is heartening to see new start-up businesses’ opening within the craft bakery sector, the landscape of the sector has changed in recent years with the expansion of out of town shopping centres and the ever larger supermarkets.”

Topics