Success Story: Pettigrew Bakeries
Background
With four sites located across Cardiff, Pettigrew Bakeries specialises in sourdough bread, laminated pastries, and patisserie. Founded in 2016, the company won the prestigious title of Craft Bakery Business of the Year at the Baking Industry Awards 2024.
Pettigrew’s range of laminated pastries includes core items like croissant and pain au chocolat as well as more elaborate seasonal specials like the crème brûlée croissant, key lime pie Danish pastry, and brownie pain au chocolat.
Pettigrew has historically used fresh yeast in its laminated pastry recipes. However, due to the ingredient’s short shelf life, Pettigrew frequently had waste fresh yeast that led to significant cost for the business.
As a result, Pettigrew approached the bakery experts at ZERO2FIVE Food Industry Centre to explore the impact of replacing fresh yeast with instant yeast in their croissant recipe.
Support from ZERO2FIVE
ZERO2FIVE carried out a series of recipe trials at their dedicated bakery facility, initially substituting the fresh yeast with an appropriate amount of instant yeast. Following client feedback, further modifications were made to the recipe’s liquid content to ensure the desired product consistency.
Benefits of the support
With the support from ZERO2FIVE, Pettigrew Bakeries has now updated their croissant recipe to utilise instant yeast instead of fresh yeast with no discernible impact on product quality. The company has reduced their ingredient waste and secured cost savings resulting from the waste reduction and the use of a cheaper ingredient.
After further trials, Pettigrew Bakeries plans to roll out the use of instant yeast for the rest of their range of laminated pastries, driving further cost savings and waste reductions for the company.
David Le Masurier, Founder and Co-owner, Pettigrew Bakeries:
“We had tried re-gearing our product recipe to use some commercial dried yeasts but had found that it was not working and certainly not scalable. Our processes are 72 hours plus, so trialling test batches was very time consuming and led to waste. ZERO2FIVE stepped in to look at our recipe and to understand our processes and needs by coming to site and conducting trials on alternative yeasts.
“The bakery team at ZERO2FIVE were superb to work with and really took the pressure off us to run tests and trials that we simply couldn’t manage with our busy seven day a week bake schedule. They are passionate and professional and understand the commercial realities of running a business and exactly where they can add value.”
Get in touch with us
If you’d like to find out more about how we can help your business or have any questions about the support we can offer, then please get in touch.
