Viennoiserie specialist The Modern Boulangerie has announced the closure of its shop in Ramsgate, citing rising costs and low sales due to poor weather.
In an emotional post on its Facebook page, the company’s founder and managing director George Bellamy-Adams confirmed the decision to permanently shut its doors from 31 August.
“I honestly never thought this day would come,” he wrote. “I just didn’t see this being a thing, and it makes me sad.”
Bellamy-Adams admitted that the business had started spiralling out of control in September last year, with a dramatic drop in footfall over the winter and staff morale hitting an all-time low. “Grim determination won out though, with the staff behind me, willing to make the sacrifices, all of us together, we pushed through the hard months,” he said.
Things were looking up heading into the expected high season of summer, but “hard weather” preventing local customers from going out to the shop, coupled with a significant rise in wages and ingredients had created the “perfect storm” at The Modern Boulangerie.
“I can’t do another winter like last year. I just can’t. I don’t want to put my team through that. Not again. My mental health can’t take another cold season like 2023,” commented the owner.
“Thank you for all of your support and your custom over the years. It’s been a journey that I’m so very sad to see the end of,” he added.
Bellamy-Adams told British Baker that he’d been baking for around 12 years, mostly in London, before setting up his own venture in 2017 inside the Grumpy Goblin gaming store on Queen Street in Ramsgate. As demand for the brand’s products increased, the company moved a few streets down and into its own premises on a corner of West Cliff Road in 2020.
Continued growth led Bellamy-Adams to pursue his ”dream space” – a bakery, café, and deli shop in the former Celandine Hall on Harbour Street that was 10 times the size of the existing site. The relocation was achieved via a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2022, which saw a total of £26,319 raised by 399 investors.
At its peak, the site employed 20 people creating a daily range of pastries including croissants, pain au chocolat, pain aux raisin, beignets, cruffins, and sausage rolls, as well as artisanal breads such as sourdough loaves and baguettes. Bellamy-Adams revealed he had given his staff a month’s notice of its closure, with “pretty much” all of them finding new jobs in and around the area. Kitchen equipment was to be sold off to pay off debts, he noted.
The baker and patisserie chef said he would now be taking a break for a month or so to “grieve” and was unsure of the path his career would take next. “I kind of expected to be running The Modern Boulangerie for the rest of my life and now I feel really rudderless,” he commented.
While running your own craft bakery business can often prove impossible, skilled bakers remain in high demand in the UK with companies such as Cavan Bakery claiming recruitment of key talents to be one of the biggest challenges at present.
Other firms are currently recruiting bakers to support their expansion such as Docker Bakery, which just moved into a larger production site in Folkestone, a few miles round the east Kent coast from Ramsgate.
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