27/01/2024
Good morning.
The demand for our goods, driven by a demand for Bruce has never been as high as it is right now.
To put this into context, we’re currently experiencing roughly twice the level of trade than we were last year — and this January has been busier than last Christmas (which is totally ridiculous).
This is obviously a great thing, and I’m extremely grateful, but it means that the team constantly have more to do, and therefore minimising wait times, and our ability to keep stock in Headingley constantly topped up can be very challenging.
Being totally transparent with you, we are in the process of moving our production bakery to a much bigger site, but it’s still in legals and these things take the p**s — as it stands, we just don’t have the space to increase production.
With this comes the necessity to hire more team members, which again, isn’t a straight forward process, and is littered with challenges as long as Bruce’s arms, if he had any.
This brings me to the main issue at hand — how quickly Bruce is selling out nationwide.
I’m conscious that some people are under the impression that this is some kind of marketing ploy, where we drop hardly any slices on purpose so that it sells out instantly, resulting in a continually increasing demand — the whole “hard to get” regime.
Listen, if we were struggling for sales, the above is absolutely something I would do — because it’s clever, and it would likely help increase demand — but I can promise you wholeheartedly that we are dropping as many slices of Bruce as physically possible.
We do not, and will not, factory produce our goods. Bruce is built, and sliced by hand — there isn’t a machine big enough to slice it for us, and if there was, I’d buy it.
If you’ve ever thought, or said “JuSt MaKE mOrE CaKEs” and/or “I’M JuSt GOnNA Go SomEWhERe tHaT KnOwS hOW tO StOcK up ProPeRLy” — please just do the latter and leave me in peace.
This really is just me writing something for the sake of writing it — but I felt like I needed to do so, which is why I have.
Thanks for everything.
FCL.
GB