Ole & Steen’s parent company, Danish Bake reported turnover of £27.7m in the 52 weeks to 31 December 2022, in a year impacted by macro-economic upheavals.

This was a significant increase of 58% in comparison to prior year, as the company was able to re-open stores post Covid-19.

The all-day bakery brand said it was still continuing to invest in new store openings to increase profitable turnover and exploit the economics of scale.

“The COVID-19 pandemic impacting the start of the year with the Omicron variant, although the effect of this was relatively short lived and we started to see further normalization in customer behaviour and continued return to the office,” said CFO Kennet Wienecke.

“Unfortunately, just as we started to see the clear benefit of this normalization Russia invaded Ukraine in late February and sparked the largest conflict seen in Europe in a generation.”

This exacerbated the cost and supply of key raw materials, particularly for a multinational artisan baker - flour, grain, sunflower products, and eggs.

Further to this, energy prices soared as Russian energy was excluded from the market.

The company said that despite trying to offset these impacts through strategic revenue management including some price increases and a focus on operational delivery, there had been an impact on profits in 2022.

It continued the digital development across the business, with continued efforts to serve customers digitally via App, which has resulted in more loyalty customers in 2022.

Although results for the year “did not meet the expectations,” the brand continued to invest in the long-term growth and capacity of the business.

In London, it added six new Ole & Steen stores, taking total stores to 22 in 2022.

It also invested in a large bakery facility in Leyton securing supplies for the London area, for future stores.

Looking forward, the company said it had now seen energy prices reduce and expected that all markets would experience reduced costs into 2024.

In October 2023, the group CEO Jason Cotta left the company and Jesper Dixen was appointed interim CEO.

Joachim Knudsen joined in January 2024 as the new group CEO.