G & J Pitt Family Bakers wins T&A Best Bakery 2024 award

The long-established family business has been serving generations of customers since 1985 when the Pitt family bought the current bakery shop that had already been serving the community in and around the Swain House Road area since the 1970s.

Stephen Pitt, who co-owns G & J Pitt Family Bakers with his dad Geoff, said he was ‘excited’ to have won the top award.

“We have been up against established businesses, so we’ve done really well," he said.

So what are the bakery's magic ingredients that keep customers coming back?

Some of the sweet treats the bakery serves up (Image: Newsquest)

“We have been going a long time and we have recurring customers frequently – we have had people coming into our shop for generations in their family – fathers, grandfathers, daughters, sons...it’s a generational thing. 

“The shop has been there for a long time, and we’ve owned it since 1985. It’s quite nostalgic.

"We get quite a lot of people who went to the local school and they’ll come in and say ‘oh, we used to come here when I went to school’ so it’s a bit of a nostalgia trip for them I think, as well as the fact that we put everything into it. We always have done. 

“We’re old-fashioned, they’re getting good value for money, and we get our repeat customers. We’re very well established and well thought of, thankfully.

“The way that we work is very traditional and the things that we sell are very traditional.

"Quality doesn’t go out of fashion. There’s so much competition from supermarkets and so many takeaways - but we provide the same service we’ve always provided and hope that people like it and come back. And thankfully, they do."

More of the items available (Image: Newsquest)

Stephen paid tribute to his staff, three of whom have worked there for more than 20 years.

“We have a really good bunch of people who turn up, do the job, like what they do, and we all benefit.

"Everybody’s local and they know the people who come in the shop and there is genuine friendship there.

“There’s a lot who come in, and the staff know them by name and they know their family, they ask how they are.

"There’s a social aspect to it. People have been coming in for a very long time. The staff are good at that.”

Stephen likes the fact that the T&A awards highlight all the quality bakery businesses in the Bradford district. He said it was heartening to see young bakeries making their way – and making some dough - in what some would say is a dying industry, but also great to see the older businesses such as Melvyn Davis on the shortlist. Geoff Pitt and Melvyn Davis worked together in the 1970s, he said.

“We work six days a week so we don’t have opportunity to go out and about. So it was nice to see the ones that were new and up and coming. It’s nice to see some of the newer ones making a wage for themselves,” he said.

And what makes Stephen jump out of bed at 5am six days a week?

“It’s knowing that you have made something from scratch that someone has enjoyed enough to tell you about it.

"If they have gone out of their way – which they have by voting – but if they have gone out of their way to tell you ‘I really enjoyed that’, that’s what it’s all about. It doesn’t get any better than that.”