Sam and Anna Luntley - bakery47
Image by Swordfish Photography

Sam and Anna Luntley of bakery47 are one of several micro businesses that are involved with supporting the inaugural Small is Beautiful in Glasgow, taking place next week.

For them being 'small' is very much a conscious decision and central to their business's ethos. Sam explains: 'We focus on a traditional, labour-intensive approach to baking, with the idea that our bread [part of a much broader offering of baked goods] is served by the hand that baked it.'

bakery47's delicious pastries and cakes will be on offer to all the people participating in the conference, being held at the Theatre Royal on June 4 - 5.

The Glasgow-based husband and wife team set up the business in January 2013 and it has grown organically since then, with both working full time on bakery47 since May of last year. Their backgrounds are both in the creative sector and they were keen to collaborate creatively, after gaining experience as cooks and bakers for other employers.

'We share a passion for baking' says Anna. 'We see it as means to communicate shared values which surround food and our communal enjoyment of it. To bake and make in a personal, careful and creative way is very much key to our motivation, alongside the flexibility and job satisfaction that working for ourselves brings.'

Echoing some of the thinking behind the Small is Beautiful conference, the pair also feels strongly about the need to balance the commercial bake selling part of their business with their creative aims and aspirations and how they communicate the difference between bakery47 and other, more commercially-driven bakeries, to their customers and professional partners.

'Bringing an event like Small is Beautiful to the UK is really interesting to us, as micros definitely need different kind of support from larger organisations. And for us, part of that is an understanding that profit and growth are not always the sole goals,' said Sam.

'We feel that craft is at the heart of what we do,' he adds, 'and it is an important part of bakery47's appeal. We aspire to return to a traditional and old-fashioned way of baking – we use only the most basic of ingredients which we source locally where possible; we bake daily, in small batches, laminating dough and pressing pastry by hand. In our kitchen we also invent, develop and create, playing with new aesthetics, ingredients and bakery creations.'

Being a part of their community is also a vital aspect of their business. Anna explains: 'It is important to us, and the creative side of our business, that bakery47 happens out there – in the community. Once the bakes are ready, we can turn off the oven, pack them up and go out ourselves on deliveries. Most of our customers have become 'door-step' friends, reinforcing the web of community we are weaving and the trust our customers have in our produce.'

Sam and Anna understand however that they have to be commercially viable to enable them to make a living and they work hard to balance the two sides of their business. Because of the way the business has grown, working from home is no longer viable, and so they are currently in the process of securing a premises which will operate as an open house bakery, both for purchase on site and for delivery across Glasgow to both wholesale and retail customers.

Sam concluded: 'Our ambition for the new site is become a hub of the local community and become an important player in Glasgow's network of independent food businesses.'

Visit bakery47 at http://www.bakery47.com