Pre bake
My name is Robbie and I own Northern Rye with my wife Alex. This all started when I was made redundant from a long career in the print trade in 2016. As I had always been interested in the food industry I took this opportunity to take the leap and retrain. I enrolled on a baking course at the School of Artisan Food in 2016, which sparked my now ongoing obsession with bread and all things leavened. I graduated in 2017 and later that year I started Northern Rye.
Out of the kitchen
In the beginning, I baked in my flat kitchen and with the help of Anna Hedworth at the Cook House, held my first popup stall in December 2017. In 2018, we started popping up all over including OCC, Harvest Canteen, and Champion Bottles & Taps. At the time, I was juggling working at Sainsbury’s while running the bakery from home and it wasn’t until Summer 2018, I decided to give up Sainsbury’s and become a full time baker.
Getting baked in Byker
In Summer 2018 a unit became available in a council run business centre. I decided to take on the lease and setup the bakery to trade from Byker full time. We quickly grew out of this space and in 2019 moved into a larger unit in the same business centre.
Ouseburn - a store is born
In late 2019 we found the perfect space to have our first shop, just down from our bakery. The new space was a riverside plot in Newcastle’s creative quarter (The Ouseburn) and we turned to our brilliant customer base to help us grow. We ran a successful crowdfunder campaign that helped part finance the move and in June 2020 we officially opened our doors.
Tyne to grow
The bakery went from strength to strength and as we employed more bakers we were in need of more space. In 2024 we moved our bakery production space to a bigger site in the Tyne Tunnel Trading Estate in North Shields. This new space gave us more capacity and a nicer environment for our bakers to work in. We produce all our baked goods here for the shop and wholesale customers across Newcastle and the surrounding areas, as well as selling direct to the public from our trade counter at the bakery itself.
Thank you!
Its been hard work to get to where we are today, but we couldn’t have done it without our fantastic customers and team who we think are some of the best in the business. We look forward to baking more delicious goods for many more years and serving our local community.
