Brighton has more independent bakeries per head than any other UK city

Brighton has the highest concentration of independent bakeries in the UK, according to research the insurer Hiscox¹ published on 4 September.

The study counted 22 independent bakeries for every 100,000 residents in Brighton. Newcastle upon Tyne and Edinburgh came next, with 16 each. Manchester and Sheffield shared fourth place on 12, and Bristol was sixth with nine, the Argus reported.

Hiscox also scored cities on how much people search Google for bakeries, adjusted for population. Edinburgh came top with a demand score of 100, and Brighton was second with 95. The Argus² gives Brighton’s figure as 2,428 bakery-related searches per 100,000 residents.

The ranking is the insurer’s own analysis of map and search data, not an official count. Hiscox took bakery locations from OpenStreetMap, the open map database, left out known chains such as Greggs, Gail’s and Wenzel, and divided what was left by each city’s population.

Across the UK, Hiscox found, Google searches for “bakery near me” are up 50% on last year, to an average of 368,000 a month.

Bee May Bakery, at 16 Gloucester Road in the North Laine, makes vintage-style cakes from organic and homemade ingredients.

Julien Plumart⁴ runs a café halfway between the station and the beach. Its pastries, French patisserie, macarons, savouries and celebration cakes are made by hand from scratch every day, and customers can watch the pastry chefs at work.

Coburn & Baker^5,6 has baked in Bevendean since 2000, mostly for the wholesale trade: sourdough, patisserie and cakes for hotels, restaurants and cafés across Sussex. It recently opened a shop and café at the bakery, Unit 9.2 The Hyde, Auckland Drive, Brighton BN2 4JE. Customers can watch the bakers at work through viewing windows. It also makes vegan and gluten-free ranges.

Reported by the Argus.