Five Steps to Starting an Authentic Northern Bakery

The North of England is home to Greggs, the nation’s favourite bakery, and the birthplace of the country’s beloved sausage roll.

Do you fancy your chances of rivalling Greggs’ baking talents, and fancy having a stab at becoming a household name with the best bread and sausage rolls?

Here are five top tips for starting your own authentic Northern bakery and achieving success.

1. Establish Your Brand with SEO

Local SEO is essential for high street convenience businesses like bakeries. When customers use search engines to find locations to buy quick snacks on the go, you want to be sure that your company is at the top of the list.

To do this, you will need to invest in your SEO to optimise your business’ website for search engine rankings. Companies like Maratopia are experts in optimising your website using high quality content writing, local citations and more to ensure your company gets noticed.

2. Perfect Your Recipes

Your recipes are your secret weapon to establishing dominance in the market. If you can source high quality ingredients, you will be able to create mouthwatering recipes that will be irresistible to your customers.

To create the best recipes, you may need to create a twist that makes your recipes unique to your competitors.

Whether this involves unusual flavours, the best ingredients or unusual patterns. Making your products aesthetically pleasing will also increase the likelihood of your customers posting your products and reviews online.

Ultimately this will increase your online presence as a business and increase the shareability of your social media posts, creating greater exposure and a higher follower count.

Food is one of the most popular themes for content on picture focused platforms like Instagram, so perfecting that all-important aesthetic is so essential for boosting your online brand identity.

3. Nail Your Branding

Branding as a bakery is hugely important, as this will become your company’s image and identity.
If you need a logo to represent your brand, using software like Canva can help you design a logo that is representative of your brand’s interests and values.

Whether you opt for a pre-designed template, or start from scratch with your logo design, you can create a professional looking brand in no time.

4. Listen to Feedback

As a food-based business, feedback is crucial for your menu development and continued success of your company. By taking your customers’ feedback into consideration, you can use it as an opportunity to further improve your company for the better.

By using feedback forms, you can isolate any areas for improvement from your customers. You could utilise a suggestion box from stationers like Ryman in your bakery for ideas on how you can enhance your business.

5. Expand Your In-Store Offerings

Many successful bakeries offer an in-store offer of hot drinks or sandwiches to go with their baked goods. This will expand your range, but also encourage customers to purchase more with their usual order, or stay longer in your branch.

This is beneficial as you will sell more stock, grow your profits faster and potentially gain more customers who are looking for a sit-down lunch.

Do you have any tips for setting up your own authentic Northern bakery? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!