A chef who has cooked for the Queen, and other members of the Royal Family, has opened an artisan baker’s shop producing traditional hand-made bread and cakes at ‘supermarket’ prices in Middlesbrough town centre.
Guisborough-based Brickyard Bakery, owned by top chef Ed Trewhitt, has opened its second outlet in the Dundas Indoor Market, part of Middlesbrough’s Dundas Shopping Centre, in a move which has created five new jobs, three in the new store, and a further two in the bakery in Guisborough.
Mr Trewhitt opened a traditional bakery and shop at Brickyard Bakery in Westgate in Guisborough town centre last year (2015), making a range of traditional hand-crafted breads and cakes. Such was its success that he soon opened a tea room next door and started running bread making courses and selling bread making and baking kits, along with a range of locally produced jams and honeys.
A classically trained chef and artisan baker, Mr Trewhitt is passionate about producing high quality hand-made bread and cakes at affordable prices.
Hs said: “We’ve been overwhelmed with the success of Brickyard Bakery in Guisborough through the support of our customers recommending us personally and through some fantastic comments on our Facebook page. This business is something of a personal crusade for traditional bread and social enterprise. I want to prove that people can eat quality hand-crafted artisan products at supermarket prices.”
Mr Trewhitt is no stranger to Dundas Indoor Market as he has taken a stand at the monthly food and craft markets for the past year. He said: “We have always had a warm welcome from both the shoppers and the other traders at Dundas Market and Shopping Centre and we have traded there extremely well, so it was the logical choice when I wanted to expand. Market Manager David Harris has been very helpful in making it happen.”
Born in Redcar, Mr Trewhitt left school at the age of 16 with one ‘O’ level in metalwork to train in London as a chef. He worked in a number of five star London hotels, restaurants and casinos, including the Ritz Club where he worked under top chef John King and was part of the Gold Medal winning team for Best Regional Team in the World at the 1988 Culinary Olympics. He then worked in a number of country houses and at Sandhurst Military Academy where he cooked for the Queen and other member of the Royal Family.
He moved back to the North East to take up a teaching position at a catering college in Hull and then opened and ran a group of fine dining restaurants along the A1 corridor. What he calls a “bit of a mid-life crisis when running the businesses stopped being fun” led Mr Trewhitt to sell the restaurants and study for a degree in Sociology and Criminology at Teesside University.
He started baking again as a hobby while he was studying. He said: “Making bread helped me re-discover my passion for producing good food and my degree made me more interested in social enterprises and the affordability of food, so I started making my bread and taking it to farmers markets throughout Teesside.
“It was exciting talking to my customers. I want to share with people the fantastic alchemy of real bread making. Bread is one of the oldest most basic foods there is. It wasn’t necessary to add chemicals to bread for centuries and it still isn’t.
“I got some really good feedback about the quality, heritage and affordability of my products. This gave me the confidence to start the Brickyard Bakery. I still try to go to farmers markets when I can and in time I’d like to open a third shop on Teesside as I believe there is a real demand for my products.”
Dundas Market Manager David Harris said: “We are delighted to welcome Brickyard Bakery to the market. Ed’s business fits perfectly with the ethos of Dundas Indoor Market to offer high quality, good value food produce together with a wide variety of non-food goods from locally based traders, providing excellent customer service. I would love to hear from other local food producers interested in the market on a permanent basis, or as part of our monthly food and craft markets.”
Brickyard Bakery is open in the Dundas Indoor Market with a selection of special hand-crafted Christmas cakes, puddings and breads on sale, in addition to its usual range of hand-made breads, cakes and baked savoury items. The Guisborough shop and tea rooms are open from 9am to 4.30pm Monday to Saturday.