Baker using her loaf to create a FAB opportunity
Business Reporter
A NEW bakery has opened in a Newcastle suburb after the coronavirus crisis gave rise to a switch in business strategy for an artisan bread baker.
Shynara Bakisheva had been supplying her continental focaccia, ciabatta, sour dough loaves and other breads, all made at a bakery in Wallsend, to an enviable list of customers including House of Tides, French Quarter and Peace and Loaf, when she struck a deal to open a shop in Fenham.
Then the Covid-19 crisis hit, forcing almost all her wholesale customers to close their doors with no date in sight for them to reopen.
Overnight, Shynara was forced to switch strategy and become a retail operation.
The result has been moving the FAB Bakery operation – FAB standing for Fresh Artisan Bread – to Fenham, taking over an empty shop on Fenham Hall Drive, Fenham, where her sour doughs and cinnamon buns are causing something of a stir.
Over the last few weeks, the FAB menu of goodies has just been supplied to Heaton Perk cafe or sold to lengthy queues of customers at Saturday pop-ups at Fenham, having been preordered online from the previous Monday - with bestselling buns frequently selling out within hours.
Work to transform the front of the empty shop into FAB Bakery’s new base has been taking place in the meantime.
Loaves stacked neatly on to the shelves represent a very long shift at work for Shynara, her sister Leila and architect husband Russ, who has joined the operation while he is on furlough.
Shynara starts work in the bakery at 11.00 the night before, before being joined a few hours later by Russ and Leila, the trio then bake right through the night and stay on throughout the following day when customers come to collect orders.
A true family affair, their two children Alika, 14, and Luka, 12, are also often roped in.
Last Thursday saw the first full day of operation at the shop, where customers were already waiting outside an hour before its official opening time.
Shynara said she has been blown away by the response to the bakery’s arrival in Fenham.
She said: “I have transitioned from wholesale to retail because this pandemic has forced the situation. Most of my wholesale customers had to close.
“We were actually trying to get a retail unit and we did just before all of this happened.
“The idea was to carry on with that wholesale operation and have this operation but then everything changed and we had to change with it. So we moved everything to Fenham.
“Why Fenham? Fenham needs
bakery, it needs a bread. I live in Fenham and like it but there is not much going on.”
She added: “The response we have had has been quite humbling really.
“The opening has been supported by everyone and it feels like we have been a bit of a talking point in the community.”
FAB Bakery is a world away from Shynaraa’s former career.
Born and raised in the coal mining city of Karaganda in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, she worked as a RussianEnglish interpreter for the Chevron oil and gas corporation before meeting her husband.
After a diploma in artisan baking with the School of Artisan Food in Nottinghamshire, she worked for Newcastle’s Fenwick and at the Vallum food hub in the Tyne Valley before setting up her own venture in 2017.
She said: “I used to have manicures, heels, hair – but I don’t miss all that.
“I think the reason I chose this job is for the instant gratification.
“When you bake a loaf for someone and they tell you they love it, that really matters to me.”