Award-winning baker on a roll with bike delivery service

Andy Strang knows the science behind a good sourdough loaf. Photograph: Hackney Citizen

Demand for a local baker’s award-winning sourdough, delivered by bike, is on the rise, having proved a hit with Hackney residents and beyond.

Andy Strang started selling his bread to friends early last year, delivering the goods by bicycle. The concept evolved into a business model and Bread by Bike was born.

“Delivering stuff by bicycle has become more and more popular in London just because it’s the fastest way to do it,” Strang said.

Last May he began supplying bread to Blighty Coffee on Blackstock Road, and in October moved his business into the premises.

The micro-bakery above the café sits on the border of Hackney, Haringey and Islington, so his deliveries spread across a number of boroughs.

But the 28 year-old said the biggest demand for his sourdough came from Hackney.

Requests for Bread by Bike are rolling in. Photograph: Hackney Citizen

Strang’s success, like the baking process, did not happen overnight. He cultivated his self-taught talent for years, which grew from his passion for good food.

“My passion for making bread really developed as I taught myself to do it and really enjoyed consuming it myself, but also enjoyed other people enjoying it.”

He made the decision to develop his cooking hobby into a career after completing his PhD in physics.

Strang said it takes 48 hours to make a sourdough loaf, which requires a process and ingredients quite unlike those for commercially produced bread.

For its yeast, sourdough requires a ‘starter,’ which combines organic flour, water and several days of waiting. The mixture is then used and fed with more flour and water, to be used for the next day’s baking.

“In some ways it’s scientific,” Strang said. “What I’ve been doing over the last couple of years is trying to learn the process.”

In October, Strang’s talents were recognised in the Tiptree World Bread Awards, where he won gold for his baguettes and silver for his sourdough bread.

“It was judged in Victoria and I took mine down personally because I didn’t trust anyone else not to smash it up,” he said.

Around 1,000 loaves are baked in the small kitchen each month. For now most of the bread is sold within Blighty Coffee, but Strang is cooking up plans to expand.

“The aim is to get my own premises, so that will be another massive expansion of what I’m doing, baking at least ten times the amount,” he said.

He also hopes to grow Bread by Bike. “What I’d really like to do is to offer a service to people where they can have a subscription for bread delivered to their house at certain times.”

He hopes to finance the expansion through a crowd-funding campaign, aimed at current and potential customers.