Neighbourhood Craft Bakery Gail’s is Set to Open Its First Northwest Bakery in 2023, With More Locations to Be Announced
GAIL’s announced it will open its first neighbourhood bakery in Wilmslow in early 2023, with further locations in the North West to be announced in the new year. The new bakeries will serve GAIL’s artisan sourdough breads, pastries, sandwiches, and cakes alongside its specialty House Blend coffee.
The opening of GAIL’s bakeries in the region reinforces its long-standing ties to the area following The Bread Factory, GAIL’s sister brand and wholesale bakery, opening their Manchester bakery in Openshaw in 2017. It has since supplied high quality, artisan breads to some of the region’s top local restaurants. The new bakeries will create new careers for people in craft baking, specialty coffee and bakery management.
GAIL’s is committed to improving the end-to-end food system. It carefully selects like-minded artisan producers to make the quality ingredients which go into baking. GAIL’s is also passionate about reducing waste and sourcing sustainably. The critically acclaimed Waste Not range of bread, pantry and pastry products are produced by incorporating by-product ingredients from food-making processes, like off-cuts from dough and yesterday’s bread. A sustainable approach is also paramount in their property design. GAIL’s work with partners so new bakeries are built sustainably, often upcycling and restoring from existing bakeries to revamp new sites.
GAIL’s commitment to quality has been widely acknowledged and several of their products have won prestigious awards. In 2022, GAIL’s was awarded fourteen Great Taste Awards by the Guild of Fine Foods, the most respected accreditation scheme for artisan and specialty food.
GAIL’s believes in supporting local charities in their neighbourhoods. In 2021, it partnered with over 95 charities close to each bakery, donating surplus food to feed these communities.
NOTES TO EDITOR
The bakery was started by Yael (Gail) Mejia in the early 1990s serving top chefs and food venues. In 2003, Tom Molnar and a few friends joined Yael’s premium wholesale craft bakery and grew the business organically. The team moved all the baking under one roof in Hendon, north London, to provide a better-shared workplace for the bakers and top standards of food safety. In 2005, the team opened its first high-street bakery in Hampstead to bring its chef-quality craft baking and craft principles to a wider audience.
Over the following six years, they grew the business with top chefs and opened seven GAIL’s retail bakeries in London as the general public and restaurants began to reinvent the London food scene. With the investment by RCP in 2011, followed by the investment by Bain Capital in 2021, the team have the capabilities and knowledge to support further growth of the business, especially in retail and property. Over the past ten years, the business has grown and expanded outside London in locations from Cambridge to Oxford to recently Henley and Brentwood.