Luke's Bakery: Meet the Yorkshire man who went from banker to award-winning baker

“I’ve been passionate about food from a really young age baking with my grandma like most people. It’s a shared memory of happy times with loved ones. But my reservation growing up was that I felt I should get a proper job,” says Luke. “I started on a track to be a solicitor and then ended up working for Lloyds Bank for about ten years.”

When Covid came along Luke had more time to pursue his first love and like a lot of the nation started making sour dough loaves, mainly for family and friends not commercially.

"It also gave me time to re-evaluate my priorities and what I wanted from life. I thought if I don’t get on and do this now I never will.”

And so Luke’s Bakery was launched. He’d already been on a course in Artisan Bread Making at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in London to give him a professional background in how things should be done on a commercial scale and Luke’s Bakery was founded in December 2022 in Brough, East Yorkshire.

"I realised that there is a limit to what you can do in a household kitchen – you can’t make enough to make any more. It was either dip your toe in the water or jump in with both feet and I decided to jump in with both feet.”

He found a suitable industrial unit and spent six months kitting it out into a bakery. “We bought some fancy ovens and by the end of 2022 we baked our first loaf and it’s grown from there. Obviously I’d never run a business before and you do get a lot of doubt in your mind and lot of sleepless nights until it all comes together. But once the numbers start to become a reality and we did 100 loaves and are on track to do 200 in a months time its grown from there – it's hard to describe the feeling.”

And things have definitely grown in just two years. From baking a couple of dozen loaves a week himself for two wholesale customers he now has 93 wholesale customers across Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and is producing 3,000 loaves a week and employs 11 staff.

"We make more bread so we can hire more people so we can make more bread and hire more people,” says Luke. “I feel quite proud of that. I feel warm that there are 11 people who I really want to look after and make sure they enjoy coming to work each day.”

The majority of his loaves go to wholesalers and then into farm shops, bakers, garden centres and delis, a few local restaurants including The Star Inn at Sancton and he also had a home delivery service with 1,000 customers on his books.

"I like the home delivery side as it gives me the chance to meet the customers and chat to them. The unit has no windows and now shop front so it is really the only chance I get to hear what people have to say about our bread. It is also what really got us off the ground really, We just put it on Facebook asking if anyone fancied a Saturday morning bread delivery and it went from there as word spread.”

Luke’s Bakery’s mission is to bring proper bread to the North, one sourdough at a time. Committed to using simple, local ingredients, Luke perfected his signature sourdough which has gained a reputation among bread lovers in the region.

His sourdough recipe remains a closely guarded secret – although as he says it is a very basic product just flour, water and salt. It is all down to his sourdough starter culture which he created from an apple in his garden and the quality of the products he uses which gives his bread its unique flavour.

“I started it many years ago using an apple I found in the garden, took the skin off it dissolved it in water added some flour to it and it propagates over a few days and then it’s just grown and grown for years and that’s the sourdough starter culture we use in all our loaves.

"We also use a locally milled flour in Driffield called Bradshaws Flour and the time we ferment our bread, the ratios and the temperature we use is slightly different to other bakers and gives our bread the Luke’s Bakery style.”

Luke has a core range of nine core breads and then he rotates in some different flavours over the year to reflect the seasons. Breads include a white sourdough, a white and rye sourdough and a malted granary sourdough

As well as bagging three Great Taste Awards back in July, Luke recently received the award for Best Bakery Product at the 2024 Deliciously Yorkshire Awards in November. The judges selected his Malted Granary Sourdough as winner calling it ‘simply delicious’.

"We love the feedback from our customer but it is also really lovely to get these awards from within the food and drink industry,” says Luke. “All the awards are up on the wall in the bakery just as a reminder that we are doing something right. I’m conscious the bakery has no windows and is a bit of a sealed box from the outside world so I like to bring those messages inside otherwise we are just quite isolated. I feel so proud of where we are going and what we are doing.”

It was also an exciting year personally for Luke and his wife and teammate Vicki Jenneson, who welcomed son, Henry, over the summer. As the business embarks on its third year, Luke has announced new packaging for his range of ‘Yorkshire born, Yorkshire bread’ sourdoughs, a project that has been a labour of love for the last six months. The new labels will be revealed and rolled out this month.

“I couldn’t have reached this milestone without the incredible support of my brilliant team and our hugely valued local suppliers and customers,” says Luke.

"From our first loaf to today, it’s been a joy to share our love of baking with a growing community of sourdough enthusiasts.

“Thank you for being along for the ride, your support makes our 2am bakery alarm clocks more than worth it. I can’t wait to share our new look packaging with you in the new year.”

But what is it that makes Luke so passionate about sourdough bread? “Well bread is a staple. Everybody knows bread. The reason I got into sourdough is the challenge really. It’s a bit nerdy, you can really get into the science of it – this wild culture and things go wrong but why did it go wrong and what can I do differently next time that will make it better.

“It’s something you can get your teeth into. There’s mastery to it and I’m still learning – there’s lots I don’t know but it’s quite exciting in a geeky kind of way you have this essentially wild product that you’ve harnessed and turned it into some bread.”

Luke is in the process of how to expand the business. “The premises we have at the moment have nearly reached capacity, so to expand we would need to move but I would want to stay local to where we are now.” He would also like to expand his product range beyond sour dough loaves.

“I’d like off other traditional bakery items but the quality is key to me I want to offer something that's special. I want the Luke’s Bakery brand to signify quality so that people know they can really trust that they are getting something they couldn’t get from a supermarket.”

Products might include French baguettes which he feels aren’t represented very well in the mass market, ciabatta, panini breads, tea cakes and croissants.

Looking back over the last two years Luke says it has been a whirlwind. "It’s a dream come true really. I’ve not looked back. It’s such a rewarding challenge to get your teeth into.”

www.lukesbakery.co.uk/