37. Hitting rock bottom to building a global brand from scratch | Matthew Jones

0:00Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reed, the podcast that covers everything about business, management, and leadership. Every episode, I sit down with different guests who bootstrap companies, masterminded investment models, or built a business empire. They're leaders in their field, and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas to your own career or business venture. how do you bounce back after hitting rock bottom one man did that and more both turning his life around and creating a viral enterprise attracting customers from all over the world joining me today on all about business is matthew jones the founder and ceo of bread ahead an international bakery made famous, among other things, by its scrumptious creme brulee donut.

0:56In this episode, we discuss Matthew's recipe for success, how to bounce back when everything falls apart, and how he built an international franchise from scratch.

1:12Well, today on All About Business, I'm really delighted to welcome Matthew Jones, head baker and founder of red ahead and in front of me for those who can't see who aren't watching on youtube we have some amazing donuts that i just picked up from bread ahead in borough market and these are unlike i have to say matthew unlike any donuts i've actually ever seen i mean they're fantastic also unique i think and you have been i believe described as the donut king so can you tell us a little bit about what we're looking at here and why people are queuing up outside your bakery in such huge numbers as I just witnessed?

1:51Yeah, lovely to, well, thanks for having me here. It's great. And it's always lovely to be, you know, in the room with the doughnuts when I'm talking about the business, because they really help me sort of to connect with what we do. So I guess really, well, my background, I was a chef. I was a restaurant chef. I worked in the Michelin world from really when I left school. So I've always been in the food industry. I love cooking i love baking and started off as a restaurant chef and then sort of meandered my way through the kitchens of london in the 90s and the noughties and then ended up in pastry and then bakery and i opened bread ahead in 2013 and the donuts have become a thing you know they really why did you know that when you started i mean did you want to make them so what happened how did that happen so we were merrily baking away first day we made donuts we made 60 put them outside at borough market and they just sold they they just sold you know there was just it was like giving sweets to children you know they then the next day we made 80 the next day we made 100 i can remember the first time we made over a thousand and at the time it was that was back in 2014 and it was like the ceiling was coming in you know like a thousand and then we made two thousand and you're selling them in one day from borough market yeah yeah what are you up to how many do you make a day now it's just it's ridiculous yeah that's nice and exciting i like this story our all-time record is currently 4 612 right donuts in one day so was that a particular time of year is there a donut day it was actually donut week yeah it was the donut week yeah national donut week when is this five or six weeks ago oh right i missed it i have to wait we smashed it okay national donut week everyone that's one to look out for so just to share my experience with you i went to borough market we're talking to each other in the afternoon i went there at lunchtime it's heaving with people it's really busy at this time in the summer you walk into borough market and you can see your bread ahead outlets bakery pretty much from everywhere in the market it's very prominent yeah a great location i observed but a couple of things surprised me one is that all the sales seem to be happening in the street not inside today at least and people were queuing up on one side for bread and one side for donuts specifically yeah and the process was really efficient but when i looked at the donuts i've never seen a range i saw from afar that said creme brulee i thought that was going to be a pudding but actually it's a kind of donut yeah yeah so so you're the creator of these so just talk us through what is there in your sort of donut portfolio that people like and which do they like the most okay so it started off with four flavors we had chocolate vanilla caramel and jam so that was the stuff that's how we started and jams just a regular old homemade we make fresh raspberries make from scratch i mean we make everything from scratch so caramel from scratch you know we make all the creme patissiere ourselves so we started with four flavors when we opened in 2013 and we kind of sat on that for years to be honest probably three or four years we just sat on those four flavors and then we kind of started to experiment a little bit we introduced pistachio then we did lemon curd then we did a black currant cheesecake and we've just grown it over the years the the most recent addition has been the creme brulee donut and that has taken us to a completely different level altogether it's actually half of our sales is that one product now please say i bought two of them i'll take one home with me and it's just almost like you know we keep thinking we've kind of reached the peak and we we think we're going to plateau out and we don't we just keep peaking it just keeps peaking that's interesting to hear so you you've sort of evolved by experimentation it sounds but i mean the other Another thing I noticed, I mean, it's a very efficient process you've got there.

5:49Very good location. It's really well branded. You can see, but they're not cheap. I mean, I paid 54 pounds for 12 donuts, but they're like a meal in themselves. So 450 for a donut. It's a different proposition altogether than what you might get at a service station or if you want. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So you must have been quite brave in going and positioning your product in the first place. Yeah. Quite so far away from what people might expect. I'm thinking, I don't know. Yeah. It's outside the box. it's a food experience it's not just a donut you know this is something you're going to eat and you're going to remember that you know it's going to take you on a on a journey and it's going to kind of push little buttons inside you that you may or may not be aware that you had you know it just sort of really does take you to another place it's a journey and we have people i mean just today in the queue at borough market there will be people from all over the world there'll be people from mexico from the states from japan from you know you name it there will be literally all over the world come to see us and that's because your reputation is now worldwide it's gone bonkers it's a food experience and was that very much your initial intention absolutely yes you went out with that in mind yeah we want to create flavors that take you on a journey you know if you look at flavor as a bandwidth and you know normal food as we say you know sort of a normal sandwich has got quite a narrow bandwidth it's sort of you know quite boring really you know But we take you out there.

7:14You know, it goes to the highs and the lows of sweetness and sour, and we really take you kind of outside your comfort zone a little bit and then put you back in again. Well, what does that mean in food terms, going outside your comfort zone? If it's acidic, it's got to be really acidic. If it's lemon, it's got to be really lemony. If it's a caramel, that's a really dark adult caramel right on the edge of the palate. So you really taste it. Yeah. Okay, so there's a real strategy here. Yes, yeah. Interesting. Well, the thing is with flavours, you don't just want that sort of initial hit. You obviously want the initial hit, but then you want a kind of a secondary flavour that stays with you 45 minutes later, an hour later, the next day that you're still thinking about.

7:56Yeah, you're still thinking about it. Right. So you're getting into people's heads in a number of ways there. Just the mouth. It's the mind. It's a deep journey. It's the mind, a deep journey. you've used that word journey and business and growing a business is is also a journey so yeah it's been extraordinary i mean you know i started my life as a chef yeah i was pretty chaotic as a youngster really and all i really knew was how to get into work how to get my apron on and how to just behave myself in a kitchen you know all right so let's go back to the beginning so where did you start yeah how did this journey begin so i you know i was very fortunate when i left school or even while i was still at school when i was 15 i knew what i wanted to do i wanted to be a chef i wanted to work in the restaurant i'd read down and out in paris and london and i thought that's me i've read that that's me i fit in george orwell yeah great you know i fit in somehow i told myself that i'm going to fit into that world so it already kind of made my mind up i got my first job it was a youth training scheme in thackeray's house in tumbridge wells which at the time was a brilliant restaurant i was really lucky that i found you know my first experience as a real young man i mean a kid i was 15 so you started work at 15 yeah and the youth training scheme was a government scheme at the time to help young people get into work yeah 27 pounds a week that's what you got paid i had more money than i'd ever had in my life relative i suppose spent every penny of it and but it was an amazing environment to learn in we you know it was the The first time I'd seen fresh foie gras, good quality herbs.

9:31Turbot came in on the bone, you know, the fish came in on the bone. Guinea fowl came in with the feathers on. It was a proper restaurant. And the chef there and the team were amazing. It was, you know, this was in 1986. It was when the Good Food Guide was around. The food scene in London, in the UK, was kind of really small. Nothing like today. I was around then, I remember it. So it was a cheese sandwich, wasn't it? A pub. You know, it was so basic and so undeveloped. And I was very fortunate to step into a career that was in an industry that was just about to go on an incredible journey. We're delighted that you're listening to this episode.

10:17Hit the follow button so that we can continue to bring you the best business insight and actionable advice to help your business and or career. What was it that set in a light, so to speak, or got that journey for the industry as a whole? What changed back then? I think the Brits kind of woke up. Enough had been important to think, why do I have to eat like this? We started traveling. You know, I can remember the first time going to France with my parents and having like a baguette, a fresh baguette. And it's like, we'd had nothing like that, you know. Even the fruit and veg that you get in, you know, south of France was just completely different.

10:53you know and it was just extraordinary really to well then really from there working in thackeray's i embarked on a career as a chef for 15 years and that's what you did it sounds to me like you worked in pretty top establishments you said michelin yeah michelin world you know two star michelin you know the best the best at the time gidley park hotel with sean hill then i went to bubendum with simon hopkinson bubendum in south kensington yeah i remember that yeah i was there for two years loved it and a great team of chefs there i i know them all still now you know we're sort of in touch and it was just a really tightly knit community in in london of you know chefs i mean at the time you had alistair little you had roly lee you had sally clark you know that she's still going strong yep i love that was kind of it you know sally clark's restaurant in kensington church street it's brilliant stood the test of time 40 years she's celebrating this year so yeah So that goes back to the 85.

11:51But I think what was really, you know, the real thing for me was when I worked in Bibendum and with, you know, Terence Conrad, who was, he was an extraordinary, you know, and a visionary, you know, because it was not only - He opened lots of restaurants at that time, didn't he? That was a big deal. He changed the scene. Right. He really changed the London scene. So it was partly people wanting more variety and partly Terence Conrad, you'd say. Yeah, he was - And some pioneering chefs. Yeah. but sir terence was a was a huge player you know he sort of brought that modern bistro cooking you know high-end bistro cooking really to london with quaglino's le pont la tour yeah i worked in those places absolutely loved it you know it was just non-stop it was just 24 7 you know london at that time in the in the 80s and the 90s was just electric right so that was a really good foundational experience yeah and so at some stage you must have started thinking maybe i'm going to start my own place or what you said you think about starting a restaurant i mean you because you sort of branched out in a slightly different direction from what you've been in yeah i always had two jobs um even when i was working in the in the restaurant you know i always had jobs on my days off doing part-time work anything i was a restaurant yeah oh so you just love what you do working for friends doing sort of dinner parties anything i could i always just you know wanted to make money and just wanted to work as much as possible um whether that's a good thing or not i don't know but uh that was my journey i suggest you love your work yeah i do i love it yeah yeah yeah love love i think that's really important i mean i love monday's message it's all about that you know finding something you love and then i i i ended up really in pastry being a pastry chef in the restaurants because really nobody else could do it you know it was just a sort of a corner of the of the of the restaurant kitchen nobody else could do it yeah nobody was really interested in really and i just like people like eating puddings and pastries i like bread i love pastry i love i love british desserts you know good bread and butter pudding good crumble so do i good syllabob you know like cooking them or do you just like eating them as well all of it all of it yeah the whole process i like the whole i love the cleanliness of working with patisserie then i when i was working at mezzo bakery which was a conran venture i ran the bakery there they had a separate standalone bakery that was in that was that border street 1997 1998 and it was standalone bakery and while i was working there i we made all of the all the bread for the restaurants and i started supplying local restaurants i thought oh this would be a good venture so i got talking to the guys at neil's yard dairy shop we started supplying people like zilly fish at the time and pont street deli i can remember all sorts really and that really got me thinking i thought god this is an amazing business you know i could just have a little bakery somewhere and then i could start supplying people and that would be my business and that's that's what i'm going to do well so business to business yeah yeah really pretty much b2b yeah um while i was at mezzo i got just got into a conversation with the guys at neil's yard dairy and they told me about this thing called borough market that was being developed in 1998 all right was that when it was yeah that's when it was it was a fruit and veg market in the nights and a bunch of people who got together and did once a quarter it was randolph from neil's yard dairy it was henrietta green they got together and they organized a sort of a food fair right down at borough once a quarter once a quarter yeah and they said why don't you come along bring some bread and see how it goes bring a table i was like yeah all right yeah let's see let's see what this looks like so i duly did and actually outside neil's yard dairy shop in 1998 so it's pitched up with a table that's smaller than this table here probably six foot across just put a load of bread on it how does how does this right okay four pounds sourdough yep olive bread yep great you know sold everything i took there and literally i mean and it was they just had the right audience they had people who got it you know there was you know they they wanted sourdough they wanted decent cheese and that was the the beginning of borough market and i was like wow that was incredible you know so you'd found your home in a sense yeah yeah and that really was the pivotal moment i thought i'm gonna do this for myself i'm gonna look for a premises yeah and set up shop so i was thinking the location is pretty important for this i mean you've got a really sort of receptive audience there yeah so that was my first business venture before brotherhead this was you know my when i when i was a youngster so i had this idea and i thought i'm going to design what was that called it was called flower power city right okay and it was you know you like rhyming names yeah yeah it just sounded good and i don't know where the name came from really it just sort of flower power yes i was a bit of a hippie and you know i thought oh let's let's do a bakery it was spelled f-l-o-u-r yeah yeah yeah and yeah and it and it ripped i mean we opened i opened on my own literally just on my own with some flour and you know nothing like 500 quid and a wing and a prayer really and were you getting up at sort of three in the morning 24 7 so you're working really hard oh yeah yeah i don't think that should be overstated or overlooks rather if i do a new venture i will sleep on the floor i will literally live in that place until the business works it is so you've done that more than once yeah right yeah i've done that twice when you say how many days in a row are you sleeping on the floor i've been through this journey twice so flower power was the first flower and then bread ahead was the second was there's a second and on both occasions you slept on the floor and on both occasions i started from very very rock bottom we'll come to that all right so flower power was a success it was really good i like a month down the line i employed a couple of bakers i grew started supplying restaurants around and then borough market was once once a quarter this stage back in 1999 this would have been so once a quarter only you know it was brilliant we'd turn up there take a load of money it was really really good and then some other markets started opening London like farmers markets so I started doing those I employed more staff I saved up some money then I moved premises to a big industrial warehouse unit down in near Millwall right and things went really well all good grew the business kept growing i was in my mid-30s and yeah it was you know which seems it's funny really to talk about it because my life now is so different naturally yeah and i but i was a pretty chaotic character so what happened then what you know well through that journey i mean the bit that i haven't gone through is you know as much as i have my lovely cup of tea in front of me now my companion at the time was not tea it was booze you know right and i was a a very frequent drinker right you know with no off button so you were sort of drinking all the time oh yeah yeah i suppose that can happen when you work in restaurants and that world i guess it can happen anywhere you know to alcoholics yeah so you discovered at that point that you didn't have an off button i did not have an off button but somehow i made it work you know i just through brute force really i was just so driven and so sort of single-minded about making it work i would make it work but god i made my life hard you know i really made my own life hard so what the drinking so i mean so some so some people think you know the addictions you move from one but so work can be an addiction as well uh yeah yeah i think it can yeah exercise can yeah many things can yeah but at that point you have this but they're probably not quite so destructive no you know um so i kind of managed you know i kind of managed my life was successful you know i had probably 80 staff you know turning over a lot of money big business great um and then the wheels started to come off right you know i was kind of i i was in my late 30s sort of thought great this is just amazing i've got my business i've got everything now i got approached by an investor right i thought well this could be really great you know he was very flattering and i sort of and i got sucked in and i thought yeah yeah yeah this this is the right thing to do i'm gonna take an individual or a company yeah yeah individual yeah lj let's call him lj who's a serial entrepreneur and a very extraordinarily successful man and you know i have nothing but respect for to be honest and and he duly invested in the business and the beginning was great it was fine and then he sort of got wind that i was not there was something wrong with matthew you know it's like this guy's turning up to meetings late drunk whatever you know it's like oh i see so he he was aware he was having none of it he was having absolutely none of it so he sacked me from my own business okay i think this is i think i know this lj i might even call him a friend but yeah so he sacked you from your own business and he sacked me from my own business and my life fell apart and it was so he must have a majority share then at this point yeah yeah yeah okay so you sold out some shares to him yeah and i was just so compromised and i was just in no fit state to run a business i was just i was ruined yeah i was broken i was absolutely broken i i honestly it was just like being in this corner and suddenly i realized that i'd kind of lost you know what i mean and being you know for a very determined person who's focused on business had a great career and suddenly at the age of like 39 right being in this position when you finally realize that you have just lost everything and that was like you know i mean i houses yeah yeah brusel it was absolutely brutal i mean i had nothing but debts and i you know it was just horrendous and so i packed my bags well a bag because that's all i had and i went to see a mate of mine who lived up who's got a farm in um northfield farm it's in um oakham up in leicester right and jan's really good mate and he he just took a look at me and he said you're like yellow you're you're just ill you're just you can't go on you've you you need to stop you're gonna die yeah and and funnily enough at that time his friend um yellow goes with sort of liver failure doesn't yeah jaundice i'd had i've been hospitalized i had alcoholic pancreatitis i i mean i was on death's door right and 39 yeah i was like really like fat around my neck i've got this old photo somewhere of myself and it's just like you know right and everything fell apart marriage family everything everything everything and so i went to stay with jan for a weekend and but jan's farm was staying clarissa dixon right who's um who's a recovering alcoholic and she sort of had a chat with me and she said why don't you come along to one of these these meetings i go to so we might find that quite useful and i did and really that's that's really when my life started um and it was extraordinary so i ended up staying in jan's spare bedroom for nine months i didn't go back to london and made myself busy on the farm so you helped on the farm yep and then we had literally had a little tea house there so we started doing some baking and you started drinking yeah yeah i just stopped you just managed to switch literally one day to the next the moment i stepped foot on that farm that was it right and i realized you You know, so it was, um, that's been the case since.

24:34Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't touched the drop in 15 years. I've been sober for, which is, yeah, it's quite extraordinary to say it really. And that was Clarissa Dixon, right? Oh, but she's died. She'd said she did. She died a few years ago. Yeah. I think I remember that. But she really did help me on my way. Good old Clarissa. Yeah. Yeah. So then it was during that time I was sitting up at Jan's table in his, in his kitchen. and the first thing i thought you know i got my head clear and i thought right i better sort this out because i think i've got another chart i've got it in me you know i can do this again yes i can i'm going to do this again yeah i'm not going back another opportunity yeah i'm not going to go and be a pastry chef again in a kitchen in a michelin world i'm not going to do that so somehow don't know how i'm going to do this i'm going to open a new business

25:24um where'd you start where'd you start with that well that's a good that'd be my next question where'd you start so you're so i started at the beginning have you got any money as well no no i adapt to the end revenue so so where do you start you've decided you want to do this you're starting from a tough place yeah piece of paper we start with a piece of paper so then i drew this word bread i've still got the book at home i've got a little notebook i love sketching and drawing and i do that a lot still and i wrote down the word bread and then i drew a little arrow after it and i just bred a head that's that's the name that's going to be the name of the business so you drew a piece of bread with an arrow and that became bread ahead yeah that just came out of nowhere yeah it came out of nowhere i love that i've heard that before we've talked to other people about where's your brand come from.

26:13So they have this sort of moment where they just decide what it is. And, yeah. So that was that. So you had your brand. So you knew you were going to do something with bread and it was going to be forward-looking. And then I thought, you know, one thing I really want to focus on is education because I just like to teach people stuff, you know. I just really like to have people in the room showing people how to make bread. And I think I find it quite healing to have people just around a table and talk to them about making bread. um so so i think right i'm gonna i'm gonna do this so this was like six months into being at jan's place um and a friend of mine olivier who used to work for me he wanted to also set up his own bakery so i he was a great guy olivier's smart he's you know young french guy and he um yeah he found a premises in bermondsey that was a disused bakery so i thought great olivia what i'll do i'll give you a hand to open up and i'll bake some bread in your place sleep on the floor so i'll come back to london basically and then i'll take my bread to borough market and i'll sell it on a market stall um under bread ahead this is bread ahead now new name it was a two year two two two years between flower power and and you know, borough market and you, me on you then.

27:36Well, happy back. Yeah. Happy to have you back. You're doing a new venture. Great. Good. See, you actually, you look a bit better, Matthew, actually. You're not spending the entire time in the pub. Yeah. It was actually really nerve wracking. I remember the first time it's really strange thing. If there's any listeners out there, you know, cause there probably will be, it's really weird. Right. when you're in early recovery, like being back in the same environment because you feel really vulnerable. I bet, yeah. And it's funny, you know, and then – Because you used to go into that pub or – Yeah, yeah.

28:12And you'd have people you knew who'd drink with. Can you trust yourself to be near that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I just found the courage to do it, really, and I did. Before I knew it, I'd got myself a little flat back in London and Olivier was – you know, I was baking my stuff there, taking it to the supermarket. So is Olivier your business partner? or has he? No, no, he's got his own business. So he has his business. And you were using his bakery to make your bread. Yeah. It was kind of a temporary solution until I got myself back on my feet. So he was a supplier in a sense. Yeah. Yeah.

28:41Yeah. And I still get on with him now. And, you know, you know, Olivier, we used to go drinking together. I mean, God, you know, and, you know, we've, we've both grown up, you know, big time. You have coffee together now. Yeah. Yeah. A cup of tea, you know. Yeah. Um, so then I eventually found the space in Borough Market where we are now, actually, it came available and I converted that. That's a great space. Yeah. So you must've been pretty pleased when you saw that. What was it before? It was just storage of fruit and veg. Was it? Yeah. Potatoes and carrots and onions. Because it's very immediately visible.

29:16Yeah. Well, when we moved there, it really wasn't. I mean, the market, like, you know, 13 years ago now, 12, yeah, 12, 13 years ago, the market was actually much quieter. so especially during the week the sort of tuesday wednesday thursday were pretty you know tumbleweed down there the saturdays are always big yeah um it's not like that now is it oh god it's just so busy it's a huge destination now massive yeah international you know yeah so you really have landed in the right place yeah and it's been the heart of the business really ever since we opened so we opened originally we were selling bread on the market stall and then about six months after we opened in borough we started doing the bakery courses and school because yeah you have a bakery and a school yeah yeah and it's a big thing i mean this school has grown you said you'd like to teach yeah so we ran short courses three hours like workshops really designed for the home baker that wanted to improve their skills right um before you know it we started doing little school groups which was really nice to have like, you know, sort of 14, 15 year olds in.

30:20And I found myself talking to them about my career path, you know, about, you know, I was so fortunate really when I was at school, I just knew what I wanted to do. Yeah. And, um, that was really rewarding. That really sort of helped me, you know, to, um, on my journey with baking and bread. And then we just grew and Burrow just got busier and busier. we employed more people um i mean i used to be in the bakery 24 7 i was the first probably five years you slept there a lot i when i had a flat i literally next to the bakery right and my life used to consist of a little triangle went between my flat the bakery and monmouth coffee that was it that's what i did for like a couple of years yeah um so this is a really big commitment a huge effort yeah i mean it doesn't this is 100 from cash flow no loans no partners no debt no loans no partners no nothing no and it's still the same today so you're you are holy own it yep you've got the shares with your wife fantastic yeah so that's from cash flow cash inflow investment revenue investment we call it and read that's what that's how we've grown our business it's a real business you know and i think it's that's real um and we had a couple of sort of real milestone own events, I suppose, on the way, you know, we, we were always recognized for doing sort of profoundly good food because we do, you know, I mean, that's my background.

31:49I mean, I was a, came from the Michelin world, so it was all about flavor and do it properly or don't bother sort of thing really, you know, simple range, you know, we don't, we don't do too many things, probably 12 real key products. We do Viennoyles Ries, sourdough bread and donuts and the teaching. um we opened a couple of locations since 2017 2018 we opened on pavilion road in chelsea that was right it's been very very good for us um we opened in wembley we opened a really big bakery up there how's that it's amazing when we're like a new city yeah all around the stadium all those new flats yeah it's a huge area isn't it i think we've been very fortunate so how many outlets have you got now five now in in london uh south kensington one in bromley but we've been in a very fortunate position that generally we've been helped by landlords so the landlords have given us you know incentivized us to move there giving us capital contribution being there because it brings people into their yeah neighborhood i suppose we're a we're a quality baking just good yeah and we still we bake on site it's proper baking we don't have a freezer we don't freeze things at all um and we've kept it very natural and real i understand you're also setting up outside of the uk is that right so i've heard this but tell them all what are you doing what a journey so you know it's it's sort of gives me goosebumps really to talk about it but you know it was always it always became apparent when we were down at borough market that we had a following you know from from far and wide you know people would people all over the world coming yeah from you know from america would sort of rock up and say hey you know i'm not going to try and do an accent because i'm terrible but um you know and they'd say hey you guys you're really you know we've seen you on instagram or tiktok or whatever and and they would just love our stuff you know so during it's actually during covid now covid i mean that's a whole chapter of a book in itself.

33:52COVID was a, was just this all over the place thing for us. We, we just opened Wembley, our biggest site. We'd gone massively over budget. We had to find literally overnight a ton of money that we didn't have. Um, we had to refund six months bookings for the school in advance. We couldn't deliver the courses. So people are paid and you had to send the money back, Send it back. You couldn't do it virtually for that. No, we did some. There was a lot of love around. So, you know, a lot of forgiveness and, you know, but I think just, you know, the first kind of couple of months of COVID, nobody knew what the hell was going on.

34:30We didn't think it was going to last for two years. No, no, I remember it. I was in exactly the same situation. We were thinking, oh, this is going to be. What are we going to do next? Yeah, but some of this will be out of the way. No chance. But it ended up being really good. we ended up being busier than ever because we were kind of the only thing open we didn't close for one day you kept your bakeries yeah i kept everything open yeah because i because i love being open so what you just said we're because i suppose you're a food supply there was no rules saying you had to close yeah bread was huge we were posting flour out we were doing online classes our instagram went crazy uh went from like 60 000 followers to 200 000 in six weeks we did we We developed the online platform for teaching baking, which is something we'd always wanted to do, but just said we're too busy.

35:20So we had to, so we did. So you mentioned Instagram twice. Is social media a big deal for you? Massive. So how does that work? And I think you do it yourself. I do all of it myself. You do all of it? Yeah. So what do you do? I just go on Instagram. I make these silly little videos of myself talking about the product. Typically I'll be down at Bar & Market saying, hey everybody, I'm just down on the bakery stall. down at the bakery store here and I'm eating a donut and it's really delicious. Why don't you come down and have one? I keep it. How often do you do that? Every day. Yeah. And I don't edit anything.

35:56I keep it. So you have a daily post. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes six times a day, you know. Really? Yeah. I can really push it. And, you know, I like content that's really raw. Right. I like, you know, live music or opera and, you know, cause it's real. Yeah. Even if it's, even if I make mistakes. you don't sing on your instagram no i just want to understand never so the opera is what you enjoy going to watch it yeah okay you don't deliver yeah baker's the opera baker oh right so so that's become that's become a big part of your marketing yeah huge huge but you were saying so you were aware that people were coming from all over the world to enjoy your donuts and yeah and bread and And then you thought, what, in terms of expansion?

36:42Yeah. You said you were on a journey. We got approached by a family from the Middle East. So since then we have opened in Dubai. So what, though, like a partner of yours? A franchise partner, yeah. Okay. Oh, so you've gone into franchising? Yeah. Internationally it's really the only way. So they use all your branding? Yeah, we train them, we send our guys, send a team out there. And you get a cut of what they sell? Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah yeah i'm interested in franchising because it works really well does it in your in your space you're gonna find the right partner and we we were lucky we found the right the right people to do this you know because i remember years ago one i don't know whether i should dare mention them in this in this podcast but crispy cream you know they were doing franchising in the uk well i mean they're yeah yeah i mean they're a huge company aren't they yeah there's billions but they did franchising yeah yeah it's the only way to scale at real sort of speed and growth yeah um i mean it's yeah it's it's i'm not a crispy cream eater myself i didn't think you would be looking at your donut yeah kind of it's pure sugar isn't it but um it's not real flavor no no no that's why i didn't really want to mention them but i only mentioned them in the context of franchising because they obviously did that quite successfully a fairy i mean they kind of yeah so you see that as a strategy for you so are you looking for other potential franchises i mean would a benefit of this discussion be if you're interested in becoming a bread ahead franchise send me an email contact so if you want to be a bread ahead franchise who do you contact you just send matthew at breadahead.com an email and say hey but it's you know actually i can see that that could be a good living you know you have a good business being a bread ahead franchise yes franchising yes you do yeah there's there's good margin in the product and it's you know it's funny to say that really but it's you know we're looking for the sort of people who are passionate about our business.

38:32That's what's really important. You don't want somebody who's just thinking about how much profit can I make from this? People who love baking and the things that you like. They need to share the values. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have some defined values? I mean, yeah. People know what they are in the business. Yeah. But I think, I think it's just a love of natural food. Is that what you say? Yeah. Good sourdough baking. Hmm. And I think, you know, well, since then we've, we've actually got a partner in the, in Philippines. So we're opening in Manila this year in September. That's another franchise. Yeah.

39:05Which is a big thing for us actually. Yeah. Um, I mean you could end up with a lot of these thousands, thousands. Is that the ambition? Um, yeah. Right. Yeah. I would like that. Yeah. Yeah. All around the world. Yeah. And it's really exciting because I mean, the thing I love is I love traveling and I, you know, I've been, I've traveled extensively. Um, it's really nice to be, you know to go to a place to a city and to not be a tourist to actually have a business there yes it's so relatable and you just have a really different relationship with the city and the people who live there but you know such a transferable skill i mean i would love to be you know especially the bakery school part of it because people already come to us from all over the world so it's very easy for us to set up a bakery school in you kind of know you've got customers in these geographies because they're coming to you already but it's so you know from mexico city to tokyo to you know it's a baking is a global phenomenon do you do franchises in the uk as well or are you sticking to no i don't think you know the uk we just do ourselves do yourselves so the strategy you'd be doing yourselves in the uk and franchises outside yeah right yeah there's a you know so you've got the middle east we're in the middle east are you going uh right so uh we open in saudi in um dubai next they're already open yeah they're open we have 11 bakeries there 11 in saudi yeah yeah so saudi and dubai next will be egypt right yeah huge foodie communities in these in these countries yeah i bet and it's um yeah there's there's so much so have you been out to saudi yeah i go all the time yeah i was there i was back in March.

40:50Yeah. Right. Is the audience the same? Do they like to eat the same things? It's the same people we see in Borough Market. It's the same. It's the same people. And is it the same products, I suppose I'm asking. So that's brilliant. Yeah, it's extraordinary. Yeah. And then likewise, when I'm in, if I'm in the bakery in Chelsea, I'll see guys, oh yeah, I saw you in Jeddah, you know, and the world has become such a, you know, it's so much smaller now, isn't it really? Well, that's very interesting though, because you're establishing a brand online, in a sense through your social media, TikTok, Instagram, and then you're repeating it in different parts of the world.

41:25Everyone knows what it is and what they can get, and it's very immediately recognisable and distinctive, isn't it? But I think the world is ready for new brands. I mean, if you look at, you know, in my childhood, there was, you know, there was McDonald's and there was KFC and there was, you know, I mean, it's not great, is it? You know, there's, you know, I mean, I know this serve a purpose. I've been around a long time, yeah. Yeah, but I think it's nice to go somewhere else. I think there's time. I think it's just, I think the market's ripe for new brands. For, you know, if you think of companies like Arabica Coffee, you know, who from Japan, I mean, amazing brand, really focused on what they do, really successful.

42:05So, so the world is ready for new brands. You're creating one. You've created one, you're creating one. It's growing fantastically. me. What, what's the advice would you give to someone who's thinking, who's got that piece of paper like you had a few years back, just starting to write something on it, how to think about a new brand or a new position in a market. You know, if you wanted to start out as a young entrepreneur or indeed a middle-aged entrepreneur wants to have another go, what would you suggest as a way, just a thought process, really? Any advice for people? Yeah, it's a funny thing.

42:39Cause you know, when I was in the early stages of setting this up, Did I think that we'd become a really big international business? No, I didn't. But I think most importantly, I learned from very good people. You know, when I was 15, 16 years old, I was in those kitchens, I was learning, and I gave 100 % of myself to what I do. You know, if I was told to be at work at six, I would be there at half past five. I would be in there on my days off. I'd commit 100 % to what I do. It sounds like more than 100%, actually. Yeah, and that's not an easy thing to be around for, you know. What do you mean as a colleague of yours?

43:17I think for anybody, you know, because it's, you know, I'm the guy, I work seven days a week, I have no issue with that. Would I want my guys to do that? No. So we sort of live in this quite hypocritical world, really, I think, people who are pioneering in businesses because what they say what they do or their expectations of others can be at times quite unreasonable and i've got what you mean well you know because i wouldn't want anybody to work seven days a week for me i'd actually be annoyed i'd be yeah i'd be angry with myself but somehow i'm prepared to abuse myself almost to do that i'm i will do that like abuse to you no it feels completely natural because you like it oh yeah you're enjoying it are you or not i love it that's what i can say that's what I was sensing.

44:04So why would you stop doing something you loved because it's on the seventh day or something? Precisely. I mean, but it's, you know, I wouldn't want other people to do that because I would feel that it's wrong. But, you know, every single day I get up, I'm looking forward to going into work. I look forward to it. I, you know, and I think partly is that because I, not a day goes past when I don't remember what I had, what I lost. And that was brutal. I mean, it was. In terms of your previous. Yeah. Flower power. Yeah, because it's not only losing the business, is it? You lose your confidence. You lose your, you know, you lose your family on the way.

44:43You lose, you know, you lose things that you will miss, big things. Yeah. And some of those things you can't get back. Some you can. Yeah. And there are, you know, that's hard. So when you are presented again with an opportunity, or I was, I took 100%, you know, of the opportunity. and I don't want to miss out on that because I know the value of it. Well, that's a powerful message for everyone, myself and everyone listening because... No, I've not shared that actually. I mean, it's probably been in such an articulate way, but maybe this is just the right environment for that. Well, I'm really pleased you did because I mean, that's true of us all in life in that sense.

45:22But what you've had is it's shown to you very starkly through what happened. Oh, yeah. So that's what I'm taking from your sort of, from your remarks. It's very real. And it's much easier. I think, you know, when you've sort of crossed certain milestones in a business, you know, it's, it's very difficult to sort of talk with confidence about things when you're three weeks sober and it's all really fresh because nobody really takes you seriously. But now people do, you know, and they take me seriously, which is really nice. And I've earned that, you know, so I suppose going back to your, you know you said what would you advise to a young entrepreneur you've got to stick it out that you don't get success on day one but you've got to be resilient and that doesn't matter if it's sport or if it's playing a musical instrument or if it's you know learning a craft you've got to be prepared to do the 10 000 hours because it's what it takes and more my last guest on this podcast told me it took him five years to get his first sale wow and he's got a fabulous business and he's growing it all around the world.

46:29But I think that's almost a record, five years, but he really demonstrated what you just said. So, I mean, but this is, I mean, in a way I'm feeling you're here and he was here because you have this quality and unusual quantities perhaps, you know, of being persistent and not quitting and sleeping on the floor. Where does that come from? When is it innate or a decision or what is it? I mean, where's that come from? You know, I think when, when I grew up, I mean, we, you know, I liked the world I grew up in. I was really, you know, born in 1969, great music scene, you know, the time of the Sex Pistols and the Clash and, you know, it just all seemed so good.

47:12Oh, you liked them? Well, I liked the Clash. I remember going to see them live. Yeah, they were very good. Wow, it was wonderful. You know? They were brilliant. And so raw and so honest and just so unapologetic, you know? So that gave you energy, did it? it did yeah yeah it did and then just things i suppose my memories was things like my holidays with my parents were camping you know we slept on the floor we made fires we we had our food from tin plate you know from tin cups we it was very very basic and i love that you know i love it i love you still go camping no why not i'll give her how much she liked it or your wife doesn't like it my wife would not put her foot into a tent wouldn't she i take my family camping a few times but i haven't done it recently you're making me think i'd like to do it again i think you know just buying all the kits more expensive than staying in a hotel though yeah yeah camping's really changed i mean back in the day it was i think it was important to be actually really uncomfortable and wet yeah yeah um but you did all that and you enjoyed it so What are you saying?

48:21That gave you a certain sort of resilience? I think being prepared to live with very little, you know? You didn't need much and you knew you could enjoy yourself and get on with it. Yeah. And I think that's one of the lessons I learned about having to restart my, not only see, I didn't only restart business. I restarted my life. That was a thing, you know? And to do that, you've got to be, you know what it tastes like to have, you know less than very little you know but you did have a good friend that chap yan yan's a yan's a gem yeah and so that's so it's important people are feeling in that they're in a sort of crisis to think about who they can reach out to i suppose because there will be people i imagine who come there's not very many no no but they will be they're out there but they're rare you're saying yeah yeah well you really learn you know i remember somebody said to me when everything went wrong back in, it was 2009, was the year when my world caved in.

49:25And somebody said to me, you'll find out who stands up and who sits down. You know, not very many people stand up. Right. Sadly. Yeah. Yeah. But one did at least. But I really did take the piss. You know, I mean, I was totally. Well, people aren't themselves in that situation. No, I was unmanageable. Totally. I mean, it was chaotic, you know. Yeah. And it was a funny thing because, you know, going back to Burrow, going back to the early days of Bread Ahead, you know, occasionally I'd sort of see an old customer from Flower Bar and they'd sort of look at me in this way that they were expecting me to be.

50:01And that stopped happening. That doesn't happen anymore. You know, that hasn't happened. You know, I've been. I know the new you. No, I've been cleaning sober for many years now. And, you know, I've become, I think, really quite a different person through that journey. So do you mentor people and do support people in their journey? Yeah, I do. Do you do the sobriety journey? Yeah, I go to meetings. I have my friends in recovery a lot, actually. Pretty much most of my friends are actually in recovery. And it's quite a common thing in the chef world. Yeah, I imagine so. Yeah. Because they're either dead.