Member of the Month
Congratulations to Charles Artisan Bread!
Member of the month for July 2024, awarded as they have demonstrated their exceptional commitment to the craft baking industry, the CBA and to the wider community.
Director, Daniel Burke outside the bakery shop
The business began in 2016, baking in the back of our small shop in Lower Clapton, Hackney.
The two founders eventually found that demand for the products was so great that they needed a bigger space and so they moved production to a separate off-site bakery.
I came on board in 2019, working alongside both founders and eventually buying one of them out of their share and upping my stake at the beginning of 2020.
The pandemic came along swiftly after that, and a couple of years passed very quickly, working alongside the founder and tapping into his experience I learnt a lot. At the end of that period, I purchased complete control of the business.
Once the pandemic passed, we finally got round to opening our second site in London's Olympic Park, opposite the Velodrome in 2022. Here, we began offering breakfast and brunch options to go alongside our usual breads and pastries. This proved a hit and I quickly began looking for further sites.
Liverpool Street (2023) and most recently Barbican sites (2024) have opened since, as we push more into offering Charles as a ‘food to go’ option, for customers in those areas, as we try to offer a fresh alternative.
The pastries haven't changed too much, and the usual popular favourites are our cinnamon buns, croissants and our vegan pastries, which are still as popular today as they have always been.
