Fast growing Cornish Bakery is breaking the normal rules of expansion, turning its back on cookie-cutter brand building. The company has gone through three successful brand identities and is now starting afresh again.
Founder Steve Grocutt says, “We’ve built a successful bakery brand with 81 locations and now we’re tearing it all apart. All on purpose. Five years ago, we took the DBA* Gold award-winning Cornish Bakery brand we had honed at the time, and we completely ditched it! A lot of people thought we were mad, but I instinctively knew we had to move on. There was an urgency not to fall into a homogenous brand building category.”
At the time, it was Grocutt’s mantra that led this direction. His simple, pioneering, guiding mantra: ‘bakery is the new coffee shop’ set the route. Five years on, Cornish Bakery’s growth has more than proven that statement to be spot on. The company has doubled its number of bakeries, grown the team to over 1,000, quadrupled profit and has developed enviable customer NPS** scores of 75%.
Steve continues, “We led with our vision to nourish people and reset the bakery design compass, all whilst delivering on our stated mission to redefine what a bakery is, does, and can be.”
The team identified a handful of larger sites, spaces “crying out for that added extra” thus ‘RISE by Cornish Bakery’ was born, a bigger, bolder licensed brand extension. Sites in Betws-y-Coed, Wales, and Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth, are now open and, in Grocutt’s words are, “already hammering it out of the park in every way possible.”
“With RISE by Cornish Bakery we’ve reshaped what a bakery is does and can be. We’re thinning the boundary between bakeries/coffee shops and casual dining spaces, extending trading hours and integrating more deeply into the social fabric, the ‘vibe’, and the wishes and needs of the surrounding community – all led and driven by our brilliant colleagues on the ground.”
The first RISE opened two months ago in Betws-y-Coed, Wales. The second is at Portsmouth’s historic Gunwharf Quays Designer Outlet where Cornish Bakery has relocated into a new two-storey, 3,500 sq. ft property as part of the centre’s redevelopment, making it the company’s largest site to date. RISE by Cornish Bakery Gunwharf Quays features an orangery, an outdoor terrace, a first-floor balcony, and dedicated space for community baking and barista classes. Alongside its signature pastries, cakes and coffee, RISE by Cornish Bakery introduces brunch and all-day small plates alongside Cornish beers from Harbour Brewery and still and sparkling wines from Camel Valley Vineyard.
Grocutt states, “We’re taking the opposite of the cookie-cutter approach. We’re purposefully designing bespoke, flexible environments that showcase and optimise our bigger spaces, and experiential opportunities. These are already becoming places for the local community to host talks, exhibitions, classes and events But RISE by Cornish Bakery isn’t our end destination, it’s another exciting innovation on our much bigger journey of ongoing reinvention.”
With the first couple of RISE by Cornish Bakery bakeries up and running, Grocutt is already far ahead, driving the next turn of the Cornish Bakery dial. He’s spearheading an ‘anti-brand strategy’, a creative direction that is the opposite of a chain-building mindset. He’s steering the Cornish Bakery as a collection of high-end, individually curated, bespoke-for-the-community bakeries that are united by a shared philosophy instead of a shared template.
We’re building the bakeries for our locations and communities,” he says. “We’re empowering our on-the-ground colleagues to make their own decisions about their bakeries and what they can be used for with their communities. We’re hard leaning into them and their ideas.”
Grocutt also believes bakeries can play a vital role in the rejuvenation of the high street. He says, “Our contemporary bakeries can become the anchor of our communities. Less and less people are going to the office, to the pub, to the community centre even. Our bakeries can be all of those things. Our greatest threat is our predictability. We’re fully committed to going our own way, to going full throttle anti homogeneity, and to optimising our fiercely independent spirit at every turn.”
“The greatest risk of our success would be us falling into a ‘cookie cutter’ Cornish Bakery easy-success comfort zone. This would be the point where our brand, no matter how brilliant, would become predictable, polished and, eventually, background noise that becomes our norm. We’re not going there.”
A new Cornish Bakery expressive design philosophy for 2026, built around freedom, the rebellious spirit and an overriding ‘outlaw’ attitude, will guide the next fast-moving Cornish Bakery phase: “We are resolutely NOT a chain we are a group of high-end bakeries. We’re continually redefining what a bakery is, does and can be. And for me, and for my ever-growing team, that can be anything. Long live non-conformity.”
*Design Business Awards
**Net Promoter Scores
