Reopening the Brackenfield bakery as a worker co-op

Sixty-one years, then a note in the window

Brackenfield's bakery closed on a Saturday in March with a handwritten note in the window. The owner was seventy-three, had been trying to sell for two years, and in the end there was no buyer at any price, because a small-town bakery with a 1994 oven is not what anyone is looking for.

Eleven of the fourteen staff have worked there for more than five years. Two of them are third-generation bakers in the same building. They have spent six months putting together the only offer on the table: buy it themselves, as a worker co-operative, and run it as the thing the town actually uses rather than the thing that maximises a sale price.

The plan, and it is not sentimental

The building and the goodwill are agreed at £128,000, of which the members are raising £41,000 themselves through member loans of between £500 and £6,000 each — real money from people on bakery wages. A community share offer covers part of the rest. This campaign covers the equipment gap and the first four months of trading, which is the period where a reopened business either builds a habit or does not.

• Eleven of the fourteen former staff have committed as founding members.
• Members have already raised £41,000 between them in loans against their own savings.
• The freehold and goodwill are under offer at £128,000, agreed with the retiring owner.
• Two wholesale accounts — a school kitchen and a pub group — have confirmed in writing they would return.

What this campaign covers

The building purchase is funded elsewhere. Everything below is the gap between owning a bakery and running one.

• £34,000 — Replacement deck oven The 1994 oven has a failing crown and no parts availability. This is a rebuilt three-deck unit with a two-year warranty and it is the reason the business could not be sold.
• £18,500 — Refrigeration, prover and mixer overhaul The retarder-prover is beyond repair; the two spiral mixers are worth rebuilding and we have a quote for both.
• £16,000 — Four months of wages during the rebuild and reopening Eleven people cannot wait six months unpaid. This line is what makes the co-op possible for people who do not have savings.
• £11,200 — Shop refit, compliance and signage Flooring, a new front counter, and the environmental health work the building has needed for a decade.
• £8,400 — Flour, stock and opening working capital Twelve weeks of ingredients and the float, because wholesale customers pay on thirty days.
• £4,400 — Legal, co-op registration and platform fees Setting up as a registered worker co-operative properly, once, rather than fixing it later.

Three of us have keys we never handed back. We have been going in to keep the mice down since March. It would be nice to go in to bake.

Who is behind this

The co-op members are the bakers, counter staff and drivers who worked there. Northgate Maker Studio is hosting the campaign and providing the business planning support, because our members include two accountants and someone who has set up four co-operatives, and because a bakery is a workshop with better smells. The trading name, recipes and the sourdough starter — which is older than most of the staff — transfer with the sale.

Risks and challenges

The blunt risk is that reopened businesses often fail, and small bakeries have thin margins on a good day. Our answer is that this is not a startup: there are eleven people who know the customers by name, two wholesale accounts already committed, and six months of accounts from before the closure showing the shop was profitable before the oven began to fail. The sale itself could still collapse if the survey turns up something structural — the roof is thirty years old and we have a full survey booked. If that happens, every penny raised here is returned rather than repurposed. The last risk is that four months of wages is our estimate of the rebuild period, and ovens have a habit of arriving late.