Bakery business to rise in Caversham

A new independent bakery will open in Caversham this Summer complete with an academy to teach others the skills of the trade.

A newly created unit at St Martin’s Centre between House of Cards and Superdrug is to be unveiled as BKRY in the next few months by a mum-of-three and former primary school teacher Jo Deacon.

In 2018, after 10 years in teaching, Jo launched BKRY from her mum’s home in Emmer Green, supplying online orders, and, four years later, combined her skills to create an academy to teach bakery.

Now her business will move from a spare room to the high street. It will sell cakes, cookies, treats and coffees for taking away on the ground floor while offering cake decorating and bakery classes on the first, a concept Jo hopes she can eventually replicate at more branches in surrounding towns. Henley is in her sights.

Jo, 37, sees her 2018 decision to leave teaching as a turning point.

She said: “That’s when I took the leap. That’s when I realised this is what I wanted to do and to have my own shop premises was always my dream. I looked at different units but I found this one here.”

She had considered Henley and other towns for the first shop but the former Caversham Primary and Highdown student admits one was option was always favoured.

“I just wanted it to be Caversham – and it’s close to town.”

To turn her passion onto a profession, she took a course in cake decorating and trained as a pastry chef at Reading College. She fulfilled online orders from a spare room at her mum’s home. When Covid hit, business increased and now the entire online business will move to the new shop.

She has a small team assembled, including Candi, who will be in charge and new member Zoe. There maybe be further additions.

The upstairs space will not just to be used as the academy, but potentially hired out for community purposes, even to others who want to teach bakery. Jo says she is also planning to teach others to turn their love of baking into a business just as she has.

It’s key function, however, is for Jo to provide the types of education in baking skills she found difficult to get herself.

She said: “I love teaching younger kids and teenagers, I love imparting that knowledge. So many people love baking but don’t know how to do it properly.

“That demographic of teenage girls who loved it at school and will want to come in and bake, that’s what gets me excited. I’m a bit obsessed with it, to be honest, but it’s a healthy obsession, it’s my fourth child.”

And she hopes it will help the other three learn from her work ethic.

She went on: “They are at the right age for me to be doing this. This is what could influence them to follow their dreams – to work hard for what they want, not to just have what they want. It could become a family business.”

Jo says she doesn’t see her presence Caversham as a threat to other bakery providers or coffee shop operators, although she believes the ‘Caversham cake shop’ will become its unofficial name.

She added: “I think it will be a great addition to the village. I don’t think it will be competition for Warings or The Collective, I think there will be enough people coming to all of us.”