The Side Oven Bakery based at Foston on the Wolds near Driffield are coming out of the lockdown period this weekend with a slightly different look.
Having been able to continue trading after making some adjustments to the business to meet the fast-changing needs of their customers, the team also decided to use the time to develop their online offering to help promote the farm and bakery further.
Situated on the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds, the farm has been run by the Sellers family for five generations, and now produces a wide range of cereals which are milled using traditional methods and used to make their award-winning range of products.
Owner Jessica said: “During lockdown we needed to make a number of alterations to the way we operated in order to keep operating. We also recognised the importance of online sales at this time and have worked hard on developing a new, more user-friendly website for customers alongside the bakery itself, telling the family story and ethos of the farm and bakery. We found that customers have been keen to support local businesses and producers over recent weeks and it’s been fantastic to be able to continue to support the local community as well.”
Side Oven’s online shop is now well stocked with a wide range of handmade and award-winning products including breads, flour and granola and also includes some breadmaking equipment after home bread making saw a huge surge in popularity.
Jessica continues: “Our full range of organic stoneground flours are now also available to order available. Our supply chain is very short as we mill the grain that we grow ourselves which has enabled us to keep supplying customers over the last few months when many shops and supermarkets were running short.”
The team continued to open each Friday during the lockdown period for a bread delivery and collection service for the local community which was hugely popular and will now be offering a full range of products including speciality breads, croissant, flapjack and much more. Going forwards, each week the Bakery will also offer specials to give regular customers something new to try which can be pre-ordered through their click and collect service through the website to comply with social distancing.
“As lockdown eases, we’re hopeful that we may be able to run our popular Apple Open Day at the farm in October”, says Jessica, “and get our baking courses up and running again as soon as we’re allowed. Dates and information will be announced on our website shortly.”
For more information visit www.sideoven.com