Overview
How we designed and built a brand-aligned website for Bertinet Bakery – part of the Bread Holdings group behind Gail’s – freeing them from vendor lock-in and giving the team full control over their digital presence.
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Project Details
The challenge:
Bertinet Bakery had outgrown its website. The existing platform was rigid, expensive to maintain, and impossible for the team to update without external support. Even straightforward changes – swapping a product image, updating stockist information, adjusting seasonal messaging – required developer intervention and lengthy turnaround times.
The problem had become more urgent following the bakery’s acquisition by Bread Holdings, the group behind Gail’s, The Bread Factory, and other premium bakery brands. A comprehensive brand refresh had been completed under the new ownership, but the website still carried the old identity. The gap between how Bertinet presented in-store and online was undermining confidence in the brand at a point when consistency across the group mattered most.
The approach:
Freshly Brewed began with a detailed discovery phase, working closely with the Bertinet team to map out their product range, customer journeys, and the practical requirements of a bakery that operates across wholesale, retail, and direct-to-consumer channels. We studied how sister brands within the Bread Holdings portfolio – particularly Gail’s – balanced premium positioning with accessibility, and used those insights to inform the design direction.
The design took its cue from the bread itself: simple, honest, and crafted with care. We developed a clean, uncluttered interface built around beautifully shot photography and a muted, considered colour palette that let the product speak for itself. Navigation was restructured to give customers quick, intuitive access to product information, nutritional details, allergen data, and stockist locations.
On the technical side, we built the site on WordPress with a flexible content management system designed specifically for the Bertinet team’s capabilities. Every template was created with non-technical editors in mind, giving the bakery full independence to update products, publish seasonal content, and manage stockist listings without needing external support. This was a deliberate move away from the vendor dependency that had held the brand back.
We also implemented performance optimisation from the outset – image compression pipelines, caching strategies, and clean code architecture – ensuring the site loaded quickly on mobile, where the majority of Bertinet’s audience discover and research bakery products.
Bertinet Bakery was established in Bath in 2008 by Richard Bertinet, a French baker whose approach to breadmaking earned him a reputation as one of the most respected artisan bakers in the UK. What began as a pop-up above his cookery school, The Bertinet Kitchen, quickly grew into a dedicated bakery operation with retail outlets across Bath and wholesale distribution to restaurants, hotels, and independent retailers throughout the South West.
Richard Bertinet’s philosophy is rooted in simplicity: wheat, water, and salt. No additives, no shortcuts. That commitment to quality attracted attention beyond the bakery world, and in 2018 Bread Holdings – the parent company behind Gail’s, one of the UK’s most recognised premium bakery and café brands, and The Bread Factory – acquired Bertinet Bakery. The acquisition brought Bertinet into a portfolio of brands that collectively represent some of the highest standards in British artisan baking.
Following the acquisition, Bread Holdings invested in a comprehensive brand refresh for Bertinet. The visual identity, packaging, and in-store experience were all elevated to sit alongside the group’s other brands. The website, however, remained on an outdated platform that no longer reflected the quality of the product or the ambition of the business under its new ownership.
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