Flour Power City Bakery, the UK’s largest organic bakery backed by Luke Johnson, is branching out into cafés, with plans to open up to eight sites across London in the next few years, M&C Report has learnt.
Lisa Brook, director of South East London-based Flour Power, told M&C Report that the company’s “test bed” 16-cover café in Tunbridge Wells, operating for the past 18 months serving high quality coffees and cakes, has been “very, very popular” and now is the time to do something bigger.
She is currently in negotiations over a site in Tunbridge Wells for a 48-seater café which will open seven days a week from 7am until 6.30pm, offering waitress service and a hot food menu.
Brook has also identified two potential sites in London – one a car park in the West End for a “very large” new-build café (“it would be quite a statement one, it would be our flagship”), and another in London Bridge.
Flour Power, based in Surrey Quays, started out in 1999 selling at farmers’ markets in London; the company still sells at all the London farmers’ markets, but today 75% of its business is supplying handmade, additive-free breads, cakes and pastries wholesale to the hospitality industry.
Brook said: “The Tunbridge Wells café has been a good test bed for us because a lot of people commute into London and know our products from the London farmers’ markets.
“We feel the concept of Flour Power Cafés will roll out, it’s just a case of looking for the right sites. We will always keep within the London area because we’re very well known there and the market is there for high quality breads and pastries.”
Brook said she expects the Tunbridge Wells and West End sites will be trading by the end of the year, with the London Bridge café likely to open in the first quarter of next year.
She hopes eventually to have six-to-eight Flour Power Cafés in the London area, and may consider expanding the concept through franchising.
