Wrexham bakery creates 50 new jobs and builds new super bakery a year after devastating fire

A local family firm has created 50 new jobs and is forging ahead with the building of a new super bakery since being hit by a devastating fire exactly a year ago.

The blaze on August 19 last year completely destroyed the Village Bakery’s flagship bakery on Wrexham Industrial Estate. Far from being floored the company is now “stronger than ever” with ambitious plans for future growth.

The new 140,000 sq ft bakery in Ash Road is more than three times the size of the one it’s replacing and the shell of the building is now complete.

The company will be kitting it out with the very latest equipment and say it will be the most modern bakery in Europe when it’s up and running next year.

It will include a new Baking Academy to train the next generation of bakers and a cutting-edge new product development kitchen, twice the size of the original one, to ensure the Village Bakery stays ahead of the competition.

The buoyant mood now is in stark contrast to when the fire broke out at 8.41am on a day which managing director Robin Jones described as the “blackest” in the company’s history.

Thankfully, nobody was hurt and Robin, his brother Christien, the projects director, and their father, Alan, the company chairman, immediately vowed the company would bounce back to become even bigger and better in future.

The affected workers were redeployed to the Village Bakery’s other three bakeries where production was stepped up to maintain supplies to their customers

Another 30 of the staff displaced by the fire are now making a new range of American-style bagels, using a specialist production line imported from Canada.

Christien and Robin Jones at the new Village Bakery site on Wrexham Industrial estate

On the day of the disaster, with everybody safe but with the fire still raging, the Jones family’s thoughts turned to the future with Robin defiantly saying at the time: “This is a very difficult day in the history of the Village Bakery, but we will bounce back and be stronger than ever thanks to the fantastic team working here.”

Twelve months on and the company has made good on his determined pledge.

Robin said: “Thank God no one was hurt, that was the most important thing of all. Everybody followed our well-drilled evacuation procedures and got out safely. My daughter was working in the bakery, so it was a worrying time for all of us.

“The fire service responded quickly and were fantastic but after two hours we knew we had lost the bakery because the flames were so fierce.

“By lunchtime, our focus had switched to recovery mode and how we could rearrange production by using every square inch of our other bakeries to maintain supplies to our customers.

“By 3pm we had moved production of our bread rolls to the bakery in Minera and we delivered in full to our customers as usual the next day which was remarkable.

“Our bakery managers, Tom Breeze, Rob Glover and Ashley Dawson and their teams rose heroically to the challenge. They must have been running on empty but they delivered in spades.

“A few days after the fire I finally had the opportunity to see the torrent of touching good will messages on social media from the people who buy and consume our products. It was truly humbling to see how highly they regard us.”

Robin added: “It’s absolutely remarkable how we’ve got back on track, how we’ve rebuilt our production capabilities, how the staff have reacted and also how we’ve come through Covid as well.

“Since the fire we have created 50 new jobs and the new bakery is the embodiment of our faith in the future.

“It was clear our customers were impressed with the way we responded and thankfully they stayed with us.

“We were particularly grateful for the support of our independent customers and we’d like to think during Covid we put them first and foremost rather than our bigger retailers.

“That’s only been possible because everybody at the Village Bakery has pulled together – the production, engineering and commercial teams have all worked like trojans.”

Brother Christien, the Projects Director, has been masterminding the construction of the new bakery and sourcing the best, most modern equipment available.

Robin and Christien Jones at the new Village Bakery site on Wrexham Industrial estate

He said: “The bakery that was destroyed was modern by industry standards but it was 10 years old so things have moved on a great deal in that time.

“In a situation like this, you have to look at the positives so we have learned lessons in terms of making the lay-out even better and the equipment we’re bringing in will be state-of-the-art. The new bakery is going to be amazing. It will be the most modern bakery in Europe.

“The main building, the production area, is being handed over to us at the end of September and the office block, Baking Academy and the development kitchen are being handed over to us mid-January next year.

“We’ll then start fitting out and installing the equipment and we’re planning to be in full production next summer.

“The new bakery will lay the foundations for our future growth and development as a company.

“At the same time, we will stay true to our core principles as craft bakers, using the best ingredients and the best equipment, so we can make fantastic products in volume.

“The Village People will be at the heart of everything we do – they are the secret ingredient in our success.”