Big River Bakery
Big River Bakery in the Shieldfield district of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in North-East England, was founded in 2013 by Gail Lawler and Andy Haddon.
It specialises in slow ferment, handmade breads and baked goods, made with locally sourced ingredients. Famed for its stotties (locally-traditional flat round loaves), it consists of a busy bakery café, a thriving online business and a growing wholesale operation.
As a social enterprise, Big River Bakery is also a community hub, providing meals for disadvantaged people in the area, training courses, and employment. It uses Cybake bakery software to manage its operations.
Gail Lawler explains: “Cybake has automated a lot of our administrative processes where baking is concerned. Before, we used spreadsheets, a lot of manual lists, and a bit of paper. I won’t say back of a cigarette packet, but almost like that.
“What Cybake has brought us is a lot of discipline. We use it for scheduling our daily and weekly baking. We use it for pricing goods, which has been really important over the last couple of years where ingredients prices have changed a lot. Knowing how much you are making on a product is really important, especially when we try and keep our costs low. Cybake has also helped with identifying allergens in every product- and ensuring we have the correct labelling for our customers.”
Gail says that Cybake has reduced both her workload and that of her employees.
“Cybake has really come into its own as we have grown. When we were quite a small bakery – when the shop was small, when the wholesale was small – you probably could do it manually. But I think as we’ve grown, Cybake’s helped us grow, which is really important.
“So, the invoicing, for example, has probably cut two hours a week off my load, which is fantastic.
“Once the data is in Cybake, and you have got people who know how to use it, you press a button, you’ve got a report at your fingertips, and you’ve got your baking schedule at your fingertips. It’s really streamlined our processes for our bakers and our bakery manager and saved them time within the day as well.”
Asked whether Big River Bakery would recommend Cybake bakery software to other bakers, Gail Lawler says:
“I would definitely recommend Cybake to other bakeries. It’s had a huge impact on us. I think if bakeries are growing, and they want to know costs of products at the flick of a button, invoicing and daily scheduling – it’s been excellent for us, and I would definitely recommend it to anybody.”
You can watch the full video on our YouTube channel by clicking here.
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