Finch Bakery and Doe Bakehouse struggling with the cost of living crisis

Finch Bakery, in Great Harwood, and Doe Bakehouse, which has a shop in Clitheroe, have spoken candidly about how the cost of living crisis has impacted them.

Doe Bakehouse, which is known for its doughnuts, is urging its 53,000 Instagram followers to support local businesses in the coming months.

Owner, Evie Jackson, said their energy bills are “now unaffordable”.

Evie Jackson (Image: Evie Jackson)

She said: “I can’t even believe I’m writing this post but business is really tough at the minute.

“Our ingredients are still, secretly, increasing and our energy bills are now unaffordable.

"I’m watching fantastic businesses close and speaking to friends in business who are also having sleepless nights.

“I urge you to support your favourite local businesses.

“If you or your friends are doughnut fans we can post our doughnuts and can even personalise them for you.

“If you love bread visit your local baker instead of Asda. Cheeses - go to your local cheesemonger and skip Morrisons.

“There are so many fab local florists instead of M&S. I’m proactively considering my shopping habits amd aiming to shop local where possible and when feasible.

“Those big supermarkets will still exist in January but your favourite indie local shop might not and that’s the hard reality of life at the minute.”

• READ MORE: Clitheroe: Doe Bakehouse launch new brunch menu

Finch Bakery, owned by sisters Rachel Finch and Lauren Sinclair, have also spoken about the reality of running a business during the cost of living crisis.

They told their 177,000 Instagram followers: "This is the reality of business at the moment.

"Bills are drastically high and ingredients costs are rising which means sales have to double to even cover costs.

“Understandably during a cost of living crisis little luxuries are the first thing to be crossed off the shopping list.

“You will see lots of business’ change tact, diversify, or close in the coming months. Hopefully we will all ride this storm together.”

The Finch Twins with a cardboard cut out of their book (Image: Finch Bakery)

The bakery say they will reduce the amount they bake and sell in order to survive the cost of living crisis.

Rachel and Lauren said: “It’s really hard to get stock levels correct at the best of times when it comes to manufacturing your own product.

“A lot of the time we do and wish we’d made more to sell.

“Other times we have loads left over that need to be sent out as we bake everything fresh and want our customers to receive goods fresh too.

“Over the last few weeks as the country tightens its purse we just haven’t been as busy as we usually are online and we’ve been having to hit the discount button a lot more than usual.

“Sometimes this results in us having a lot of stock leftover.”

This week they will be scaling back the amount of stock they have online so more will not go to waste.

They said: “We can’t afford to keep running sales and discounts as our bills and ingredients cost continue to rise.

“Thankfully we are keeping busy with our weddings, dessert tables and wholesale as well as a few new things in the pipeline so hopefully we won’t be going anywhere soon.

“We just wanted to be honest in case some of your favourite things aren’t stocked online for a while.

“We have such amazing customers and actually adore to see how loyal some of you have been over the last six-and-a-half years.

“We know times are difficult for everyone and we’re really not trying to offend anyone by trying to force feed them cake.

“We would just love to continue what we’re doing for as long as possible so we have to take sensible measures to ensure this is possible.

“With our online sales giving us the majority share of out sales we hope we are making the right decision although time will certainly tell.”

Earlier this month, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said Consumer Prices Index inflation reached 9.9 per cent in the year to August, down from 10.1 per cent the previous month – a 40-year high.

Experts had expected the figure to be unchanged between the two months.

Food prices are continuing to rise, by 13.1 per cent in the 12 months to August, the highest rate for exactly 14 years.

And while it eased slightly last month, UK inflation is still the highest among all G7 countries.

George Lagarias, chief economist at accountancy Mazars, warned that it will be some time before inflation truly starts dropping off.

“Higher energy prices for all the previous months have fully fed into most supply chains and it will take months of lower oil for end-consumer prices to meaningfully come down again. Inflation may well remain a central theme until at least the end of the year,” he said.

“However, input costs have begun to drop and we should see this feeding into general prices eventually.”