In what is quite possibly the most middle-class collaboration of all time, Waitrose has announced it will launch a Gail’s takeaway bakery in one of its supermarkets.
The UK retailer has had a partnership with the popular bakery chain for a while, selling loaves of its artisan sourdough bread in stores across the country, but now customers will be able to buy even more products, including baked goods and speciality coffee.
This will be the first Gail’s bakery of its kind in the UK and it’s set to open in the supermarket’s Canary Wharf store in London on June 6, 2024.
All of the products will be freshly prepared on site and sold at a 280 sq ft bakery counter which will be built to reflect Gail’s ‘unique style’.
As well as grabbing a takeaway coffee and pastry treat such as a sausage roll or cinnamon bun, customers will also be able to shop the Gail’s range through click and collect online, and there will also be a selection of sharing platters available for home and office delivery.
Nathan Ansell, the customer director for Waitrose, said: ‘Building on our successful partnership with the launch of a new and innovative Gail’s bakery is hugely exciting.
‘Synonymous with quality, expertise, and taste, Gail’s very much reflects our own core values, and we know how much our food loving customers enjoy their products.’
Gail’s managing director Marta Pogroszewska added: ‘We are delighted to be opening one of our neighbourhood bakeries within the Canary Wharf Waitrose. We look forward to further strengthening our partnership with Waitrose and welcoming the community to our latest craft bakery.’
The first Gail’s Bakery opened in London’s Hampstead High Street in 2005, and the business now has more than 120 sites across the UK, in London, Oxford, Cheshire, and Guildford.
However, the neighbourhood bakery chain’s roots go back to the 1990s with Gail Mejia, who the company is named after. Gail brought some the best bakers in London together to bake for top chefs and restaurants across the capital, as part of a wholesale business known as The Bread Factory.
Today they’ve garnered a cult following, with a big draw for customers being that the products are freshly baked in-store each day. The sausage rolls (as well as the vegetarian spinach and feta version) are particularly popular with fans online hailing them as ‘epic’, ‘divine’, and ‘the best’.
‘Gail’s bakery does the best sausage roll I’ve ever eaten,’ proclaimed Dave Stewart on X (formerly Twitter). While @herewithemma on Instagram hailed the spinach and feta rolls ‘heaven on earth’.
Others praised the seeded sourdough bread, the sour cherry and dark chocolate scones, as well as the chain’s croissants.
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