Fylde coast bakers rise to the top in competition to support community in coronavirus crisis

Neals Family Bakery on Victoria Road West, Cleveleys, picked up £5,000 as one of ten winners in Bumble’s competition to support firms amid the coronavirus crisis.

Jane Neal said they were delighted to win especially since Bumble had picked winners which had been important to their communities during the pandemic.

She said: “The bakery has been here since 1938 and always a family business.

“We have photographs in the window of people queuing up in the war years because of the rationing and now with coronavirus we have seen people queuing again.

“The shop provides a place for people to socialise. A lot of our customers are elderly or vulnerable people who do not like to use supermarkets.

“But we have had to do some things differently and we have now set up a website and have started deliveries and contactless collection.

We have had an overwhelming response to it form customers who tell us we are a bit of a lifeline.

“We will use the grant to develop the website further.”

One of the reasons the family firm impressed the judges was because of its support for the Salvation Army with un-sold produce and for collections for Mary’s Meals the local charity which supports people in undeveloped countries.

The bakery was founded by her husband Andrew’s grandfather Noel and passed down from him to his son Raymond and then to Andrew. Jane said one of their oldest customers remembers coming into the shop on the day it opened as a young child with her mother.

There are 18 in the team and some staff have been there for 35 years.

The Bumble Community Grant’, was set up to provide financial support to those in need during the pandemic and Bumble called upon its community of over 90 million users globally to nominate small businesses to receive up to £5,000 in support.

Naomi Walkland, from Bumble said: “The response to this program has been tremendous.

“Within two weeks, we received over 2,500 entries in the UK from small businesses. It’s in our DNA to support the communities where we operate. We’ve long supported women in business, so we wanted to do what we can to support local businesses across the world during such a critical time.”

Bumble is a free, women-first social networking app, with nearly 90 million users and is available in 150 countries.