A Glasgow bakery owner has told how following his dream of opening a café saw him forced to close after just six months as the cost of living crisis tightens its grip on the city.
As part of a new spotlight investigation series, the Glasgow Times is speaking with businesses and business leaders to learn how they are being affected by the crisis and what they need to cope.
Today, Calum Bryce, the owner of Wild Flours Bakery, has pulled back the curtain on the mounting pressures faced by the hospitality industry with a stark warning that the worst could be yet to come.
Having successfully run the gluten-free spot on the border of the city’s Southside and Giffnock for close to six years, Calum felt ready to open a sister location, Wild Flours East, amongst the bustle of Duke Street.
He said: “I’ve always wanted to have a café as well as a bakery, but I like to play things safe and didn’t want to take any risks.
“I finally took a chance after five years in business.
“When we opened on April I had planned ahead and booked a few holidays for later in the year thinking that East would be flourishing by then.
“It fairly backfired.”
Despite a warm welcome to the neighbourhood which left the café with rave reviews, the situation quickly began to unravel for the East team.
A deadly combination of staff shortages, increasing costs and declining footfall soon saw Calum renting out his Mount Florida flat to Airbnb guests to make ends meet and facing a gut-wrenching decision.
He said: “If we had carried on another month at East then I wouldn’t have had the money to pay everyone.
“I was very fortunate to have a last-minute Airbnb booking at my flat extended by a week.
“At first, I had hoped that would mean I finally had some money to save for myself but every single penny of it went towards paying my staff.
“It was such a stressful time that, to be honest, when I made the decision to close it was the biggest relief and a total weight off of my shoulders.”
The brutal challenges faced by the hospitality industry in the current climate mean that tales like Calum’s are increasingly common.
Comparing his years of business at Wild Flours with a short-lived attempt to branch out the 34-year-old is able to shed some light on just how desperate the situation has become.
He said: “A combination of things led to us closing but, when it boils down to it, the biggest factor was rising costs.
“I’ve kept a spreadsheet of the changes in prices since I started the bakery.
“In the past few weeks, key ingredients for us like light brown sugar have gone up by 43% or caster sugar by 25%.
“Even places that are always busy will have to start putting their prices up because their profit margins will change.
“It’s a hard time for every industry, but especially hospitality.”
While Calum is thankful to have retained Wild Flours in Giffnock, his experience with East has left him apprehensive for the months that lie ahead, a growing fear shared by business owners across Glasgow.
He said: “I’m back to square one working at the bakery and putting all of my energy into that.
“We’re very lucky to have regular customers who have been very supportive but if we start to get quiet or don’t put our prices up then we’re not going to survive here either.
“I don’t think we’ll know for sure how bad things are until the end of this year, but I predict that there will be a lot more closures.
“I just hope that people will continue to support their local favourite businesses.”
For more information on Wild Flours click here.
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