WE talk to the family who have brought European-style bread and pastries to the East Sussex coast as they mark the first anniversary of their town centre shop
It’s slice, weigh, knead, shape, repeat at To The Rise Bakery, Eastbourne.
It’s soothing and hypnotic to watch 23-year-old Morgan Pollard preparing dozens of sourdough loaves as part of a 48-hour process to produce this bread.
She is part of the four-woman bakery team at To The Rise, which opened around a year ago in Terminus Road, Eastbourne, just metres from the seafront.
Morgan, above right, and her two sisters Lauren, 25, and Josie, 27, left and centre, are joined by assistant Georgie Wooler amid sacks of flour and mounds of dough alongside the huge ovens and fridges behind the shop counter.
The sisters, who are half German, were inspired by their heritage to create freshly-made European-style bread and pastries for their home town of Eastbourne.
They believe passionately that lovingly crafted food, made with no additives, can change people’s lives – and everyone should have access to it.
The trio start work at 3am on the days the shop opens, from Thursday to Sunday, and have a ‘lie-in’ to start at 6am on Wednesdays for prep work. Every item is made from scratch every day.
Morgan is working quickly to shape the sourdough, above, which will ‘rest’ overnight in the fridge. Josie is working at the laptop and Lauren is arranging tray upon tray of golden croissants.
Prices start at £4.40 for a white kilo loaf and go up to about £5.50 for a 100% rye spelt sourdough loaf – they are 15 types of chewy sourdough produced on a varying schedule. The family also makes about 15 types of pastries, both sweet and savoury.
The upside of the insanely early starts – which mean getting up at 2.30am – is the view of sunrises over the pier, often featured on Instagram, below. The downside is … getting up at 2.30am.
Morgan jokes: “It’s like getting up to go to the airport for a holiday – but you aren’t going to the airport! But once you are up, it’s nice because everyone else is asleep.”
What’s it like working with close family? “You can be as honest as you like,” laughs Josie. Lauren adds: “We would not change it for the world. We really appreciate it, but we work hard to make it happen – lots of communication and meetings is key.”
Family affair
They are the youngest three in a family of six siblings. They have two other sisters, Lizzie, who is a graphic designer and has helped in the business, and Frances, plus older brother Winston.
Their mother, Elke, is German and the family grew up appreciating very fresh bread and pastries on trips to Germany to visit their grandmother.
“We could not find anything like it here. We are now constantly inspired by travelling and European bakeries”, says Lauren, the driving force behind the business.
She trained as a chef in London. However, she disliked the atmosphere in male-dominated kitchens. “I very quickly knew I wanted to go into a bakery. I could not deal with the egos in the kitchen and a bakery is a lot more suited to my pace,” she says.
“It was a tactic among the men in the kitchen to be as harsh and aggressive as they could. Some of it was probably stress but, frankly, that means you are not handling it right.”
She and her father Rupert converted the garage at the family home in Eastbourne into a mini bakery pre-pandemic.
Lauren says: “I considered selling bread wholesale but the thought of staying up all night to work then sending it off was depressing. I realised how much I loved the idea of a shop window and a retail business.”
The shop was opened with help from around £10,000 from a Kickstarter fundraiser plus grants aimed at young people starting in business, which Josie spent many hours applying for.
Lauren says: “I think Eastbourne really went with it and needed it. It’s what real bread and real food should taste like.”
Morgan adds: “We have found people who are really appreciative which makes it more fulfilling.”
However, they have had negative comments about the prices of the loaves.
Lauren: “We try to explain how they are made – it’s getting that argument across: that we are independent and we want to educate people about what real bread is like.”
Morgan was in the second year of a textile design degree in Chelsea when she had to return to Eastbourne during the pandemic. She spent her spare time learning about bread and based some of her degree research on sourdough as a material.
She has an interesting viewpoint about the value of breadmaking: “It helps creativity and wellbeing in the community. The natural bacteria in sourdough connects everyone who has bought loaves from To The Rise in terms of a micro gut level.
“How we look at food, how we treat it, is a big reflection of how we treat ourselves and behave in a community.
“If you don’t respect your food and yourself, you are most likely not going to respect your environment or your neighbours. And how you feed your sourdough starter and schedule reflects how you manage yourself.”
A sourdough starter can be made using strong bread flour and tepid water in a process where the mixture is added to over several days.
Josie, a former picture researcher for a national newspaper, moved to Germany just before Covid lockdowns, intending to master the language. But after a few months, Lauren suggested she returned to help in the home bakery.
“So just the one summer turned into three years!” laughs Josie.
The Pollards were joined in the kitchen at To The Rise bakery Eastbourne six months ago by Georgie who had been working at another local bakery.
“I was walking past here every day and fell in love with it so I messaged them, asking: ‘Do you need a baker?’ They did – and this is much more my vibe, especially an all-women team,” she says.
Bestsellers are the sourdough loaves and a morning cinnamon bun, above. The women deliver any surplus at the end of the day to a shelter for women who have faced domestic violence or an assisted living scheme – and sometimes to very grateful A&E doctors and nurses at Eastbourne Hospital.
“We believe everyone should have access to good food. It is a little bit of extra effort on our part, but no food should be wasted,” says Lauren.
“You have to love the art of making it. It is an art and you want to appreciate doing it. Food carries so many memories for people.”
:: To The Rise Bakery, 236 Terminus Road, Eastbourne BN21 3DE. Open 7am to 3pm, Thursday to Sunday.
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I very much agree with Morgan, when I taste their bread, I taste the care in the making, the ingredients are treated with respect to produce a truly tasty loaf to feed a whole community !! Does great music played in the background help the dough rising?
Working in a bakery is a hard grind. I admire these girls’ work ethic and focus. Watching them create their own success is so inspiring. So well done 👏🏻