Meet the couple who launched their own bakery in the Dales

Ms Parnell, a former civil servant in Westminster, had had enough of long commutes between their home in Cambridge and the capital and they were both looking for a career change.

They came up with an alternative: to start a new business near their second home in Reeth in Swaledale, North Yorkshire, after spotting that the village bakery was up for sale.

“My immediate reaction was ‘wouldn’t it be a shame if the village lost its bakery”, Ms Parnell told The Yorkshire Post.

Although she enjoyed baking, she admits she wasn’t an expert baker so over the following six months she did a lot of research and completed bread making courses to see if it was something she could turn into a business.

“We thought why don’t we have a complete career change and I wanted to do something that rooted me in the local community,” she said.

The bakery purchase fell through at the final hour but the couple found alternative premises nearby and decided to persevere with their plans. They openedTwo Dales Bakery last year.

“The silver lining was that we’ve now got a much better space and we’ve been able to create a real contemporary feel to our cafe and a purpose-built kitchen,” Ms Parnell said.

The couple employed a former pastry chef as a mentor for the first six months to show them how to bake sourdough and yeasted breads and pastries. They started small and initially just made products to sell in the bakery and cafe.

There have been many ups and downs over the last year and a half, including the flooding of the premises last year and winning Baked Product of the Year at the 2019 Flavours of Herriot Country Awards.

Their biggest test, however, came in March when they shut the bakery and cafe during the national lockdown and realised they needed another income stream.

They decided to enter the wholesale market and now supply grocery shops, delis, tearooms and hotels across the Dales with plans to expand further into pubs and restaurants.

Ms Parnell said: “We knew our business could go into freefall if we didn’t do anything so we rang round some independent businesses and they bit our hands off because they were desperate for really good bread. We started baking for them and delivering to them several times a week.”

They also established several community bread hubs in Swaledale which ensured local people self-isolating continued to receive fresh bread, milk, eggs, ready meals and bakery products.

“It was quite innovative because that kind of thing doesn’t normally happen,” Ms Parnell said. “It’s something we decided to carry on and it’s been a real success story. To help with the extra workload, they have employed two trainee bakers, one at the start of his career and the other at the end of her successful career in finance who was looking for a lifestyle change.

The business now employs six staff in total, a mix of part time and full time employees.

The bakery produces between 100 and 200 loaves a day and, after a busy summer, the business is now gearing up for Christmas. It has joined forces with Rosebud Preserves, based in Masham, to make 1,200 mince pies for their mincemeat.

Ms Parnell said: “It’s much harder work than I ever imagined - I was a bit naive at the start. My arms and feet constantly ache but people love the product and we get lovely feedback, which makes it all worthwhile.”

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James Mitchinson