About us
The story of every loaf begins in the fields, with the farmers, millers and producers whose work shapes everything we bake. We work closely with people we know and trust, choosing what we use for its flavour and the way it is grown or made. Every day, on high streets and in neighbourhoods across the UK, we share that food with the communities we’re proud to be part of.
Our Story
We started in the early 1990s, baking for restaurants. In 2005, we opened our first bakery on Hampstead High Street, bringing naturally fermented sourdough to a much wider audience when it was still unfamiliar to many people. The standards expected by some of London's best chefs became the standards we baked to every day. Over 20 years later, there are more than 175 GAIL's bakeries across the UK and we still bake to the same principles that guided us at the start.
Read more
Why We Spend More on Our Food
The biggest investment we make is in the ingredients we bake with. We spend more on them than on any other part of our business because that's where the biggest difference is made. By making everything in-house and buying directly from many of the people we work with, we're able to invest more in what goes into our food.
Read more
Sourcing
Behind every loaf, pastry and cake are the people who grow, mill, rear, ferment, mature and make what we bake with. We call them our Craft Community: a group of growers, farmers, millers, cheesemakers and producers whose work shapes the food we make every day. They're not simply the people we buy from – they're collaborators, experts in their craft and an essential part of GAIL's. As we grow, they grow with us.
read more
Craft, Bakers & Process
The creed of a craft baker is simple: start with great ingredients, treat them with skill and respect, bake for the people around you, then wake up the next morning and do it all again. That's how we work. Our loaves are made overnight and delivered to every bakery before the morning rush begins. Pastries, sandwiches and cakes are made fresh throughout the day, every day. Craft is also about adapting to the world as it changes, which is why we never think of a recipe as finished. Through initiatives like The Way We Bake, we continually revisit our breads, refining recipes, techniques and ingredients. In recent years, that has meant introducing a greater diversity of ancient and heritage grains across our breads, improving both flavour and nutrition while supporting more resilient farming. Whether it's finding ways to incorporate spelt and emmer into our lightest loaves or creating our Farmer's Brown to make better use of each harvest, the intention is always the same: to bake food that's more delicious, more nourishing and more reflective of the ingredients we work with.
Read more
Neighbourhood Bakeries
Bakeries have always been places where people come together. At ours, the day begins with the run clubs that gather before work in the early mornings. Throughout the day, neighbours meet over coffee and readers come together through our book clubs. In the evening, selected bakeries stay open for live music through our Reading Room Sessions. And when the day is done, much of the food that's left is donated through Neighbourly to local charities, with more made available at a reduced price through Too Good To Go.
Read more
Feeding More People Better
Eating well is one of life's greatest joys. That means ingredients grown for flavour and with care for the land. It means bread made slowly, tomatoes picked in season and simply dressed with oil and salt. Sometimes it's a leafy salad with naturally fermented vegetables. Sometimes it's a slice of cake. For us, food has never just been fuel. It's pleasure, culture, community and a way of being in the world. It's sharing a table with friends, cooking from a handwritten, dog-eared recipe book, or simply welcoming in the weekend with a languid breakfast at home. Feeding more people better is about embracing all of those things, while making the everyday food we eat more delicious, more nourishing and made with greater care.
Read moreFAQs
Who owns GAIL’s bakery and what do they stand for?
GAIL's is run by the people who lead it every day. Together with our investors, they're responsible for protecting what makes the business special while helping it grow in the right way.
No single person or business has a majority stake in GAIL's. Ownership is shared across our executive team and investors, including Bain Capital, McWin Capital Partners and Luke Johnson. We chose to welcome outside investment because it gave us the stability and capabilities to grow without compromising the way we work. Our investors are independent businesses with their own values and ambitions. They support ours by giving us the freedom to continue building GAIL's in the way we believe is right.
Today, all of our profits are reinvested back into the business to support its long-term growth.
What does being a British business mean to you?
We were born on a British high street to bring better food to local people. That purpose hasn't changed – today, we're simply able to do it in more neighbourhoods. We also want to have a positive impact on the UK food system by sourcing as much produce as we can from British farmers and growers. For example, all our free-range chicken comes from Capestone Farm in the Pembrokeshire National Park and makes up 10% of all free-range birds sold in the UK. And this year, we will source 3,000 tonnes of organic wheat here, representing the largest fully traceable organic volume in the UK.
What does “feeding more people better” mean?
Feeding More People Better shapes every decision we make around food. It's about far more than nutrition. It's about flavour, craftsmanship, the people who grow and make our food, and making everyday food more delicious, more nourishing and made with greater care. For us, making better food means:
- Putting flavour first, always.
- Buying exceptional ingredients and treating them with care.
- Supporting the people who grow, rear and make our food.
- Making as much as possible ourselves.
- Baking fresh throughout the day in every bakery.
- Choosing natural fats and unrefined sugars.
- Baking with a greater diversity of grains and flours.
- Refusing binders, fillers, preservatives and unnecessary
substitutions. - Being generous with our fillings and portions.
- Often choosing the harder way because we think it leads to better
food.
How are you making better food more accessible?
As well as opening in more neighbourhoods across the country, we are increasingly bringing our bakeries to other places where people need better food, from train stations to airports. We’re also expanding our grocery range and developing new products that are more accessible in price, made possible only now through efficiencies of scale.
Are prices fair in relation to quality and values?
We choose the best ingredients we can find, and great ingredients cost money. In fact, we spend more on ingredients than any other aspect of our business. By making everything in-house and sourcing ingredients directly from our producers, we keep our supply chains short and avoid paying unnecessary intermediary margins. This allows more of every pound we spend to go directly into the quality of our ingredients. So, while great food costs money, we offer exceptional value for the prices we charge.
Can food made with care be affordable at scale?
Yes, and we're proving it. It’s rare for a business of our size on the high street to make everything in-house. But in doing so, we’re able to use expensive ingredients across our products at a more affordable price and at scale.
Tim Jones of Lincolnshire Poacher, a member of our craft community, sums it up well: “We once believed that truly artisanal food production could only exist on a small scale,” he says. “GAIL’s has demonstrated that it is possible to produce food at volume while remaining uncompromising on authenticity, provenance and quality.”
What does “neighbourhood bakery” mean in practice?
Our bakeries are part of neighbourhood life. We regularly welcome groups into our bakeries, from community meet-ups to reading groups.
We've now hosted more than 300 runs (welcoming more than 11,000 runners) through our running community, Knead for Speed. We also donate much of our surplus food to local charities via Neighbourly or sell it at a discount through Too Good to Go. In total, we've sold over 400,000 Too Good to Go bags, saving over a million tonnes of CO₂ and giving our local communities a chance to enjoy more GAIL’s products for less.
What role do you play in tackling ultra-processed food?
We make all our food ourselves and never add any preservatives or flavourings. In fact, there’s nothing in any of our products that you wouldn’t find in your kitchen at home. However, some household ingredients we use have UPF components, such as Golden Syrup.
We are working to remove all ultra-processed ingredients from our recipes. There is no universally accepted definition of ultra-processed foods that can be applied to all our ingredients, but we have created our own definition by adapting the NOVA system to our business.
Can food produced at scale be made with care?
The two are not mutually exclusive. You just need a lot of people to care.
Growing hasn't changed the way we bake or the standards we hold ourselves to. It has simply allowed us to work with more farmers, millers and producers who share our values and bring better bread to more neighbourhoods.
Can I trust you with allergens and dietary needs?
As a bakery, we’re likely not the best choice if you are coeliac. Other than that, we can cater to all dietary needs. Our sites are inspected regularly and have the highest accreditation. At any bakery, you can ask a member of the team to print out a full list of ingredients and allergens for every product. And please do ask what’s plant-based, dairy-free or flourless on the baker’s table – you might be surprised.