Homebaked Bakery sits in the shadow of Liverpool FC and has a legion of fans – not just those who buy its pies on match days.

The bakery, (and café, and pie shop) is in the media spotlight, attracts celebrities, and has even been turned into a stage musical (think, Bake Off meets Brassed Off), thanks to its heartwarming story of ordinary folk fighting for their neighbourhood.

In 2011, the building which has been a bakery for 100 years, was – symptomatic of the decline that blighted the area – earmarked for demolition.

It sits opposite the lucrative football ground in Anfield that attracts visitors from around the world, but is surrounded by boarded-up terraces, derelict shops, betting shops, and takeaways.

During the Liverpool Biennial arts festival, a Duch artist chose the empty building as her base. In response to the demand of locals, the art collective reopened it as a community bakery.

Sally Anne-Watkiss, chair of Homebaked Bakery, explains: “Very quickly, it became apparent that running it as an arts project wasn’t what the community needed. It wasn’t viable as a business being run by artists (who were paid), while the community volunteered.”

With 25 years’ experience in finance, Sally advises the social enterprise sector in the city to empower those, particularly women, in their communities.

“People from outside the area do a project and leave no lasting roots. Our approach was not do something for the community, but support them to do it themselves.”
The bakery is a beacon.

“It’s accessible, affordable, and provides jobs and opportunities for the local community.”
On match day, their pie sales keep the café and bread affordable for locals.

A staff of 20 are complemented by six youngsters who freelance on match days and weekends.

“We employ people who are furthest from the job market for various reasons. We’re a real living wage employer and structure our contracts to meet people’s needs. Many staff joined from volunteering. If they’re a single parent, we structure the hours they work around school and give them some stability with their Universal Credit payments.”
They began a training academy with National Lottery money for people with additional needs.

“A couple of our trainees have gone on to get qualifications at catering college, which they couldn’t have done without us.”

Sally continues: “People work with us who have mental health issues, caring duties, we have someone with moderate learning difficulties; five apprentices have gone on to do different things and used us as a staging post.”

The bakery became a lifeline in the pandemic. They provided hot nutritious meals to the local school, delivering food packages and welfare checks to families.

Then the cost-of-living and energy crisis hit. It saw a 300% increase in their electricity bill, rising to £5k per month, alongside food inflation; they applied for grants to keep their food affordable to locals.

Key Fund stepped in to help with cash flow.

“Key Fund’s £30k flexible loan basically funded those two years of us running at a loss to enable us to keep trading and get back into profit. And we’ve done that. We’re back in profit now. That was the difference between shutting up shop and keeping on going during the cost-of-living crisis.”

“Other social investors would only help us grow, and that’s fine, but actually it’s no good if you haven’t got the cash flow whilst you rework your model.”

Sally continues: “Most funders don’t understand us, or the area we live in. Key Fund absolutely did, they understood us, understood what we were about, understood why that product was best for us, and have continued to understand us.”

The enterprise now has a half a million turnover, with their pie production unit baking up to 3,000 pies per week.

It provides holiday clubs’ meals, supply the Liverpool arena via a partnership with Sodexo (including pies for the Labour Party Conference and Eurovision), and has a stall at Everton and Liverpool FC.

“There’s lots of things in the pipeline and we’re largely financially stable, but it’s never, ever easy. It takes really solid business acumen to keep it running. We’re probably 80% traded. The grants just help support what we do in the community.”

The team has been exploring taking over the block of nearby empty buildings to expand their community work.
Their vision for the bakery is to be there for another 100 years.

“We’re making sure there’s continuity, and people in the community are coming in, so it carries on in the way that it is.”

The enterprise has had international recognition, featured in the Financial Times, and was described by novelist Frank Cottrell-Boyce as not just an “unmissable pie shop” but “a portal to a vision of a better world.”

“We’re proof you can run a business that’s really positive in one of the most deprived areas of the country.”

Angela McKay – Operations Manager

Angela worked for Liverpool City Council for 15 years before working at the Whitechapel Centre, where she spent 16 years as an enablement worker for the homeless.

“I would bring some of our clients on Antisocial Behaviour Orders to the bakery to get them out of the city centre.”
Angela was a volunteer of the Liverpool Biennial arts festival project. When the manager of the bakery left, she was approached to take over in the interim. After a secondment of six months, she stayed.

“I had a vision as a local person of what we needed in this area; I wanted to see it through.”

“We were living in an area that had managed decline, with lots of anti-social behaviour and bordered up houses; there was no-one really speaking up for the community.”
“Everyone was fed up. We had empty promises from the council. We lost our swimming baths that my lads went swimming in every week, then the sports centre went. As a single mum it was a safe space – we lost that. We lost loads. We lost the dentist – that got knocked down, the chemist went. Loads of our facilities in our area just got knocked down.”

“My neighbour Kathleen worked here when she was 14 and she’s 98 now. There’s a lot of history in that building. My uncle had a butcher shop for 36 years, then Asda came, and my aunty had a sweet shop on Sleeper Hill – all in this area.”
Angela says: “I’m at the top of the street. Now, you look down and see Homebaked Bakery. It’s a really good feeling to see different ages coming and going there: young people, the elderly, builders. Then on a match day, it’s a different demographic again. There are people who come in that want a safe space from alcohol or gambling near to the ground.”
Today, Angela is overseeing pies, gravy, peas, and a trifle for 40 pensioners at the local Irish Centre.

“It might be the one hot meal these pensioners sit down at a table for and share with different people and socialise.”
One of their volunteers, Steven, who is supported from Mencap, plays the piano each Wednesday for its café customers.

She says: “When Covid hit, we had lots of young people in the area who lost jobs or were working from home, but were struggling with depression and isolation at home. We offered volunteer opportunities to help with self-confidence and self-worth.”

“One of the volunteers has gone on to be employed with us and is on a Project Management apprenticeship. We secured an event licence to sell alcohol and host customers for Taylor Swift’s and Pink’s tour. These events will be a part of her final assessments to help her pass her exam and have a recognised qualification, which supports her career. So hopefully when she leaves, she’ll still hold Homebaked in her heart. And hopefully, she’ll give back too because we helped her.”

Angela’s heart comes from her mum.

“My mum was a very kind person and she instilled in us how to be nice. It costs nothing to be nice. Sometimes someone comes in on their own and you say, hiya, you alright? They say it’s the first time they’ve been out in ages, so asking them how they are, and their name might mean nothing to anyone, but it might mean something to that person because they’ve not spoken to anyone all day. And if they feel special coming in here when they get a coffee and cake, and it doesn’t cost them an arm and a leg, that’s what we are.”
The bakery drops off food for the local foodbank, provides meals to the local children’s centre, opens to church groups, poetry groups, and recovery groups.

“Food is a really fundamental basic right,” Angela says. “But people have a lot of issues around food as well and can have emotional trauma. That’s why we support Fans Supporting Food Banks, and provide education classes on cooking and baking.”

Managing a business, and the hearts and minds of all who work in and use the bakery is, Angela says, challenging, but she has a can-do approach to make it work for all.
One of her passions is making it a positive, safe, working environment.

“It’s important to make sure people have their lunch and time out, and we have the right equipment. It’s about looking after your staff. It’s a job, but we don’t want it to come with a physical cost when they get older; pressing pies and lifting. I’m dyslexic and never got any qualifications as such, but I’m practical, and I think, how can I make that better for us, and for the business.”
She adds: “If the bakery does well, staff are happy, as we have achieved this as a team and also this impacts on our suppliers – who are all local.”

“We were a change in the area. People have learnt to trust us. They know we’re not in it for anything other than saving a local bakery. It’s a good place to eat, its affordable, and it’s in safe hands.”

Angela hopes that when she retires, she safely passes the baton to the next generation.

“We’ve all got responsibility to where we live, to make it a nice place to live, and to make change. This shows You can make a change.”