Welcome to the Coosh Newsletter
Hello from Tom at Coosh 👋
A belated Happy New Year from all of us at the bakery!
Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. This is the first in what we hope will be a regular newsletter from the team here at Coosh. You'll be hearing from other contributors within the team in the coming weeks - they'll share their own perspectives on life at Coosh and the delicious food they have been making. But first I'll kick this bulletin off with a retrospective look at what we have been up to over the last year and also what we are planning for the year ahead.
I'm writing this on the plane back from Tenerife. I know I know this is what happens when they remove in flight entertainment!
Our canary islands escape in January has become a regular thing for us now as it's the perfect time to go away after the Christmas rush and regain some energy to take us forward in to the coming year. In bakery world there are dates in the diary that require a significant push and build up and valentines day is one of them.
Taking a break in January lets us refocus and get out of Christmas mode and in to the romance of February and prepping for Easter. I've always thought it was crazy to see Easter eggs in shops in January. But if even small enterprises like us are planning for it in January then you can only imagine how far ahead these bigger corps are filling the chocolate bunny moulds!
So, what HAS been happening at Coosh over the past year…
The eagle eyed among you might have noticed we quietly dropped "Micro" from our name last year - we're now simply Coosh Bakery. We are a circa twenty strong team with the shop open for five days now and we felt it was only right to stop masquerading as a micro bakery. It's a small change that reflects how far we've come in the three and half years since we started from our home kitchen when it truly was micro (we still haven't changed the sign at the top though - yet!)
It's nice to be able to say that 2025 was a year of significant growth for us. We started opening on Tuesdays and welcomed five more brilliant Cooshies onboard, bringing us to over twenty staff members! Not all full time, but we have created a wonderful, creative team who have taken mine and Rachel's vision of the bakery to another level. Rachel often still comes home on a Saturday morning, after she has finished the big bake, with a look of shock in her eye and regales me with how shocked and proud she is at the queue of customers out the shop door and the spectacular innovation of the team that you can see bursting out of the display cabinet.
The fact that our lovely customers are still showing up week on week to this beast we have created will probably never sink in for either of us, which some might call imposter syndrome. But hopefully its just a slice of humble pie with a sprinkling of pride and bewilderment. We've made some great strides with our menu too. Our additional lunch offerings seem to have pleased both the customers and the staff, adding products like scotch eggs and daily soups to the menu have gone down a storm.
I often pop in to the bakery at lunch times to say hello and a bowl of soup gets thrust in to my hand with a shower of compliments for the chef and an insistence that I try todays masterpiece. The passion from the staff for the products as we continue to experiment, refine, and craft flavours in both sweet and savoury world is second to none. Croque Monsieur Bialy anyone?
We started ad hoc pizza nights on Fridays. These have been a whole new take on food service for us and have been so well received by the community. We originally had the crazy idea of doing them every Friday…which lasted all of one week!!
Also. Hot chocolate. How can I not shout from the rafters about the inclusion of hot chocolate to our drinks menu? This one was a long time coming as we scoured the market to find a hot chocolate brand that we felt we could champion and work with our existing offering. In the end we didn't manage to get hold of one. We tried so many. But we couldn't find one that hit the spot just right. So we made our own! Shameless plug - It's available to buy as a powdered mix to make at home too. Or give as a wintery gift maybe… We are so proud of it.
But yes, it isn't always smooth sailing. Behind every business are the untold truths that lurk in the background. If Instagram is our highlight reel there's plenty we have left on the cutting room floor believe us!
Firstly we are absolutely over capacity in our space at Breck Hill Road. We cannot squish another Cooshie into that space. We are also pushing the absolute limits in terms of power and fridge space possible. Every morning our team navigates around each other in a beautiful but increasingly complex dance to get our wonderful products prepped. We have fantastic plans and ideas, and a vastly talented team capable of taking what we do even further. However right now we're constrained purely by the square footage.
We spent much of last year exploring how we might expand beyond our current four walls, and while we're still working on finding the right solution, it's our hardest challenge yet. Even harder than croissant lamination, team management and working out holiday pay. Simply because it's almost totally out of our control.
You will notice a few empty spaces around Mapperley however having a working bakery which is essentially a mini food factory in the back of your shop requires some specific essential features which we haven't been able to track down as yet.
It's my number one mission this year to continue that search and keep us growing and continuing our journey in Mapperley. We are adamant not to split our team up so that we become an off site factory feeding a shop. We believe everything we make should be done all together. Front of house working in harmony with back of house. It's what works for us and to split up our magic formula would be heartbreaking.
The pizza nights are absolute chaos. But brilliant chaos. We have had a few disasters over the weeks with the ovens overheating and the power blowing and goodness knows what else. On the night the ovens broke one customer described me as "the angry little man on the ovens", which I wasn't completely ok with as I'm actually 5'11". We did however managed to just about pull it off with only a few late orders and redeem ourselves the following week.
These obstacles to come thick and fast sometimes and part of our learning from last year (and every year, in fact) is managing the stress and actually trying to enjoy it in some fashion. The camaraderie and the interaction with customers is what keeps things moving and our spirits pumping. We couldn't do it without this and that's a nice sentiment for an angry little man to take in to 2026.
What keeps us going is our commitment to running this business well, taking calculated risks and staying true to our values. When I think back to starting Coosh from home in 2022, moving to Breck Hill Road in 2023, and now standing here at the start of 2026, I'm reminded that everything we did we did it sustainably. We won't do something unless it feels like the right step forward. I always joke that we're not after world domination. We just want to create a great food business that everyone can be proud to be a part of, and serve delicious, uncompromising food made from scratch to everyone who walks through our doors.
That philosophy guides every decision we make. We believe fundamentally in doing the right thing such as paying people as well as we possibly can (always the Real Living Wage as a minimum) and giving everyone opportunities to flourish and grow.
This community has supported us from day one, and that loyalty means everything. You've embraced our sourdough, our kinky pastry fillings and our vocal renditions of Nicki Minaj from over the counter. You have been patient with us when our pizza nights haven't gone to plan or we have run out of sourdough before lunchtime. The fact that we're bursting at the seams is of course a good problem to have when so many businesses, especially hospitality, are struggling to make it work right now. We love what we're doing and we are glad you do too!
Looking ahead to 2026, we'll keep looking for the right expansion opportunity that aligns with our values and provide the necessary elbow room for us to grow. There will be more product innovations, more of those special moments that make this job worthwhile, more queue-out-the-door Saturdays.
I want to thank every single one of you who has supported us this past year. Whether you're a regular who knows your Saturday order by heart or someone who discovered us for the first time in 2025, you're the reason we do this.
Thank you for being part of this journey with us. Let's make it a great year.
Tom (Breaditor in Chief)
PS: I have a little favour to ask. If you will enjoy reading this newsletter regularly then please let us know what we should feature. You will be hearing from our baking team next time round. We can speak about recipe development, what it's like to work in an artisan bakery, managing a small business including finances. We can be an open book for you loyal newsletter subscribers. So tell us what you want to see…