This 138-Year-Old Bakery Just Broke My Heart (And 250 Workers' Lives)

By HOAR Team 4 July, 2025 6 mins read 73 Views

God, I hate writing these stories.

Roberts Bakers – you know, the ones making those tiger rolls you grab for £1.35 at Tesco when you're too lazy to bake – just announced they're axing 250 jobs. We're talking about a company that's been around since 1887. Queen Victoria was still on the throne when this place started kneading dough.

The worst part? This isn't some corporate greed story. It's just... life being absolutely brutal to a family business that's been through hell and back these past two years.

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When Everything Goes Wrong at Once

Picture this: You're running a bakery that employs 700 people, supplying bread to Asda, Morrisons, and Tesco. Then 2023 hits you like a freight train. A devastating fire rips through your facility, wiping out two-thirds of your bread production capacity for over a year. Over. A. Year.

I can't even imagine the phone calls. The panic. The "what do we tell the supermarkets?" meetings.

While they were rebuilding, customers obviously went elsewhere. Because people need bread, right? Can't exactly wait around for your favorite bakery to rise from the ashes (sorry, couldn't resist). But here's the kicker – even after getting back on their feet, those customers never came back. Sales dropped from £96 million in 2023 to £76 million. That's a £20 million nosedive.

The Perfect Storm Nobody Saw Coming

The fire was just the beginning. Energy bills went through the roof. Ingredient costs skyrocketed. The cost-of-living crisis meant everyone was penny-pinching, probably switching to cheaper store brands.

It's like watching someone get hit by wave after wave until they just... can't get back up.

The Roberts family – who've owned this thing since day one – called this decision "the hardest" in their 138-year history. And honestly? I believe them. This isn't some faceless corporation making spreadsheet decisions. These are people who've probably got family photos hanging in that factory going back generations.

Real People, Real Consequences

Here's what really gets me: they're starting a 45-day consultation period at their Rudheath site in Cheshire. That's corporate speak for "we're going to sit down with 250 people and tell them their jobs are disappearing."

Local MP Andrew Cooper nailed it when he told BBC News: "It's more than just a business, it's a local institution that generations have worked for, and taken pride in."

Generations. Think about that for a second.

At least the workers at their other factories in Ilkeston and Winsford are safe. Small mercy, I guess.

The Domino Effect is Real

Roberts isn't alone in this mess. Clarks just slashed 1,200 jobs after losing nearly £100 million in sales last year. They're hemorrhaging money – £39.2 million before tax.

Nissan's cutting 250 jobs at their Sunderland factory after reporting a £4 billion loss. Four. Billion. That's not a typo.

Even Pizza Hut is getting in on the action, replacing 120 front-end staff with digital ordering screens across all 136 dine-in restaurants. Because apparently, human interaction is now a luxury we can't afford.

The company calls it "modernizing." I call it depressing.

What This Really Means

Look, I get it. Businesses need to survive. The Roberts family probably spent sleepless nights trying to figure out any other way. They're still making a £20 million profit, but when your revenue drops that dramatically, you've got to do something.

But 250 families are about to have very different conversations around their dinner tables. 250 people who probably never imagined their great-great-grandfather's employer would one day hand them redundancy papers.

It's just... sad. There's no other word for it.

Sometimes I wonder if we're watching the end of an era – when local businesses that actually meant something to their communities could weather any storm. Maybe those days are just gone now.

Poor Roberts family. Poor workers. Poor all of us, really.

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