UK's leading artisan baker launches a nationwide virtual bakery store

Northwest based multi-award-winning bakery Lovingly Artisan, based in the Lake District and Manchester working with web designers Scratch Creative, a Northwest based specialist packaging design company and distribution specialists Hart, have created a virtual bakery store that can deliver artisan made sourdough breads across the nation.

This latest innovative development came as a result of working through the intricacies of Covid-19 and setting up a virtual baking club to help people up and down the country with their sourdough bread questions and discovering that many wanted to be able to buy Lovingly Artisan’s breads themselves but couldn’t because they weren’t based in the Northwest.

Seeing an opportunity to create something unique and meet this potential demand Catherine Monks set about examining the best way to meet the challenge. Working with design agency Scratch Creative they established a virtual bakery store as part of their website offering, which allows people to select from up to 13 breads (handily a baker’s dozen), including loaves from Lovingly Artisan's heritage and healthy eating ranges and then simply add them to their basket, pay for them and have them delivered next day direct to their door.

Obviously, the biggest problem with delivering a fresh product is ensuring that it remains fresh and that it arrives undamaged. To that end Catherine set about working to create a range of unique packaging to specifically address these two problems. As part of the solution Aidan and Catherine decided to examine our food history and decided to set about utilising a little of the heritage of sourdough to their advantage. Knowing that sourdough was a staple long before the advent of refrigeration helped in this process, as did the knowledge that thanks to the acids present in sourdough these breads keep fresher for far longer and don’t require the addition of preservatives as a result.

Armed with this knowledge they then set about devising a packaging system which would help in this process and protect the bread in transit without using insulation or plastics to achieve that. Working closely with the team Catherine developed a number of prototypes before hitting on the perfect solution, an environmentally friendly delivery system that doubles up as a unique bread bin, which removes the need for cooling.

This cleverly designed solution not only helps keep the bread fresh but also helps maintain its integrity during transit and provides a handy storage solution in the home, which can be fully recycled after use, thereby ensuring that Lovingly Artisan’s breads reach your door in perfect condition each and every time.

Catherine Connor commented: ‘’It quickly became apparent to us as a result of setting up our virtual bakery club that people up and down the country wanted to be able to access our breads but couldn’t. We saw this as an opportunity to further develop our business and to help us reach new markets whilst at the same time meeting the demand from potential customers for our quality artisan sourdough breads. Obviously being able to meet that demand presented us with a number of challenges but thanks to some very innovative companies we have been able to meet those challenges head on and can now begin to deliver fresh Lovingly Artisan breads direct to people’s homes up and down the country.’’