Two of Liverpool’s dynamic female entrepreneurs are the focus of the latest Baltic Triangle Podcast – Angela McKay of Homebaked Bakery and Michelle O’Dwyer who runs Bay Tree Catering and Training Academy. Tony McDonough reports
Running a sustainable business and creating social value at the same time is no easy feat.
But Liverpool entrepreneurs Angela McKay and Michelle O’Dwyer are doing just that, with the support of others. They are the two interviewees in the latest edition of the Baltic Triangle Podcast.
Angela is one of the group of people from the Anfield community that revived a former bakery on Oakfield Road, close to Liverpool FC’s stadium, and transformed it into a thriving local business.
Homebaked Bakery, which has become famous among football supporters and locals alike for its delicious pies, opened in 2012 in premises that had been a bakery for more than 100 years.
It had been owned and operated by several families. In its final years before its closure it was Mitchells Bakery. Angela, who is operations manager at Homebaked, told the podcast how the business came into being.
“The concept of the bakery started with the Biennial in Liverpool. A Dutch artist wanted to bring buildings back into community use. With the help of the Biennial local people decided they were going to reopen the bakery.
“My neighbour Kathleen Lunt worked in the (former) bakery there when she was 14. She is 98 now. There is a lot of history in that building.”
When Homebaked started it opened for just a few hours a day. Now it has grown and is open six days a week and is particularly busy on matchdays. It makes fresh bread, scones, cakes – and of course its pies – fresh every day.
“We have now been open for 10 years,” added Angela. “It has been a challenge, particularly over the past four years with COVID and the cost of living crisis.
“The pies are all homemade, they are hand-pressed. Most of our cost is our Labour. We could buy machinery to make it quicker and do away with a member of staff. But that is not what it is about.
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“It is about creating jobs and opportunities for people that wouldn’t get the chance anywhere else. When people buy a pie all that goes into it. So it is more than a pie.
“This has been a bakery for 100 years and we want to keep it going for the next 50 years.”
Back in 2014 Michelle O’Dwyer was running an events company but she was struggling with depression. She started voluntary work at a local food bank which gave her a new purpose. She got into catering and in 2017 started offering cookery classes.
Today she runs a catering business called Bay Tree Catering and the not-for-profit Bay Tree Training Academy. She is looking to expand both in 2024
She said: “People ask me why I do what I do. If someone hadn’t helped me when I was at my lowest ebb, I wouldn’t be here now. I want to pay it forward and help other people.”
To listen to the full interview with Angela and Michelle, click here.