CASE STUDY
Steve Grocutt
THE RISE OF THE ANTI-BRAND BAKERY “Long live non-conformity,” says Cornish Bakery Founder Steve Grocutt as he debuts new RISE concept Fast growing Cornish Bakery is breaking the normal rules of expansion, turning its back on cookiecutter brand building. The company has gone through three successful brand identities and is now starting afresh again.
“We are resolutely NOT a chain we are a group of high-end bakeries. We’re continually redefining what a bakery is, does and can be. And for me, and for my evergrowing team, that can be anything. Long live nonconformity.”
Founder Steve Grocutt says, “We’ve built a successful bakery brand with 81 locations and now we’re tearing it all apart. All on purpose. Five years ago, we took the DBA Gold award-winning Cornish Bakery brand we had honed at the time, and we completely ditched it! A lot of people thought we were mad, but I instinctively knew we had to move on. There was an urgency not to fall into a homogenous brand building category.” At the time, it was Grocutt’s mantra that led this direction. His simple, pioneering, guiding mantra: ‘bakery is the new coffee shop’ set the route. Five years on, Cornish Bakery’s growth has more than proven that statement to be spot on. The company has doubled its number of bakeries, grown the team to over 1,000, quadrupled profit and has developed enviable customer NPS scores of 75%.
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Steve continues, “We led with our vision to nourish people and reset the bakery design compass, all whilst delivering on our stated mission to redefine what a bakery is, does, and can be.” The team identified a handful of larger sites, spaces “crying out for that added extra” thus ‘RISE by Cornish Bakery’ was born, a bigger, bolder licensed brand extension. Sites in Betws-y-Coed, Wales, and Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth, are now open and, in Grocutt’s words are, “already hammering it out of the park in every way possible.” “With RISE by Cornish Bakery we’ve reshaped what a bakery is does and can be. We’re thinning the boundary between bakeries/coffee shops and casual dining spaces, extending trading hours and integrating more deeply into the social fabric, the ‘vibe’, and the wishes and needs of the surrounding community - all led and driven by our brilliant colleagues on the ground.” The first RISE opened two months ago in Betws-y-Coed, Wales. The second is at Portsmouth’s historic Gunwharf