“The Bakehaus concept is pretty simple”, says general manager Marc Deuring, who launched the store just over a year ago. “We pride ourselves on offering high quality baked goods at affordable pricing.”
German born Deuring, a son of one of the founders, came to London five years ago with a vision to bring his own German bakery to the UK.
Bakehaus is part of a family run business that began in Germany in 1988. The two founding families still own the business, with a total of 25 bakeries in Germany. “But this is a brand new enterprise for London”, explains Deuring.
He sees the capital as a growing opportunity for the store: “London is such a multifunctional city. There are some great French patisseries in London, so why not bring German bakeries over here too?”
The location in Hammersmith is perfect for their first site, he says. “It has a high footfall, it’s a busy area, there are plenty of offices around for us to deliver to, so why not? Ok it’s not as central, but it is a good starting point to grow our business.”
Bakehaus, which seats a total of 40 customers, is now competing with some of the big names in the lunchtime market. “Any competition is healthy competition,” he says reassuringly. “We are still offering customers a very different product. You can go across the road and have a burger from McDonalds, or you can come into us and have a German sandwich.
“It’s important to continue to look outside of the business and keep tabs on what other companies around us are doing.”
The concept offers 12 different German variety breads. “The bread is half baked from a company in Germany, then we fully bake it here in London. We don’t have the facility at the moment to fully bake it ourselves but going forward we plan to have a self production facility for baking.
“Our bakery products contain no chemical additives or pre-mixed flour, just natural raw materials.”
Speciality breads include pumpkin seed bread, 100% rye bread, yogurt bread and rustic farmer’s loaf.
Other German delights include the frikadellen burger; pork burger, salad, tomato, cucumber and Dijon mustard cream, schnitzel sandwich; pork escalope, tomato, spinach and remoulade sauce and the curry wurst, a German sausage which is served in a warm curry sauce with a bread roll. This is priced at £3.95, but is worth every penny, believes Deuring.
Also new to the range is its organic soups which include tomato & basil, Thai carrot & pumpkin and leek & potato as well as the bratwurst, currywurst and beef goulasch (all hot snacks).
Deuring’s favourites are the 100% rye or pumpkin seed loaf, curry wurst and the nutcrest pastry.
The concept also has a coffee offering which Deuring describes as ‘self serve’. “This doesn’t mean the quality of our coffee isn’t as good”, he explains. “It just means our customers are getting served at a much quicker pace. At the end of the day this bakery is a self serve concept.”
He says their coffee is proving a huge hit with customers. “Initially we found that customers would come into the store to purchase food after they had already bought a coffee from one of the larger coffee chains. I offered to swap their branded coffee for one of ours free of charge so they could sample the quality of our coffee and many have now become loyal consumers of our coffee as they realise that our bean to cup machines serve a great quality drink, and they don’t have to queue as long.”
The establishment sells just one size of coffee – 12oz for £1.70. It also offers a range of simple juices including orange, apple juice as well as a Fritz Kola, which Deuring says is very popular in Germany and similar to Coca Cola, but with a slightly stronger taste.
Deuring says in terms of service, the London site operates very differently to those in Germany. “We serve the customer over the counter in Germany, whereas the London operation is set up as a self service store. Everything is ‘do it yourself’ here. It allows us to minimise staffing costs as well as speed up service in general. The customers also have the opportunity to pick their product of choice.”
Since opening, Bakehaus has also built up a very successful catering delivery service to local offices and hotels. He explains: “The idea behind this was not to wait for customers to come to us, but be more proactive and for us to go with them. People are getting busier and busier, the majority don’t have time to make it out for lunch.”
Looking ahead, he says that if he were to improve the business he would offer a counter service experience. “I think people want more of a service. We have so many different breads and pastries, it’s not enough to just write small labels on certain foods. But it’s working quite well for us so far,” he says.
The team also plans on introducing a coffee and pastry offering this year using its loyalty card scheme. He says: “When customers buy their seventh loaf of bread, for example, they will get the next one free. The same thing applies to tea, coffee or hot chocolate. We have been doing this now for two months.
“We have also offered meal deals in the past,” he adds. “But we haven’t continued with this as we found that people will still buy our products, whether they are discounted or not.”
He says he would also like to expand with future establishments but wants to ensure the concept they have at the moment is right. “We want to see how the year develops,” he says. “We would like to open at least five stores in London. But before we do this we want to make sure that what we have here in Hammersmith is perfect. We are still in the process of changing things.
“But I do believe that if the concept works here, which it does very well, then it can work in other areas. In fact, I think it could work really well in shopping centres.
“So let’s wait and see!”