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bakery built on Blacker Road. Rolling out the Fosters brand, the family launched a mobile shop on Barnsley’s Market Hill, acquired two more bakeries, opened various shops and developed their commercial accounts. It was a developing theme of gradual expansion that would continue for many years to come. By the 1960s, Fosters fever had firmly hit Barnsley. Dinner tables were laden with freshly baked goods at teatime. Packing up boxes filled with two thick slices of cut loaf housing a tasty filling. Schoolchildren were even given
day than young John could ever muster. The bakery walls had been his playground and he knew the daily happenings like the back of his hand.
While other kids his age were enjoying jam or dripping sandwiches after school, John was helping his family to put bread on the table, beginning an unofficial apprenticeship aged five. Cutting his teeth in the family trade, a young John was tasked with everything from moulding dough to sweeping up.
As he got older, John was given more responsibilities such
‘‘Fosters first began to export their products in the early 90s... today they sell frozen goods, mainly bread, to an array of countries including Germany, France, Spain and Portugal; Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands; Cyprus; Singapore; and Dubai’’
tours of the bakery to have a sneak peek behind the scenes.
One of John’s earliest memories is of joining his fellow classmates at Mapplewell Primary School on a said trip to the bakery. But I imagine his friends would have been filled with a far greater sense of anticipation and excitement that
as making deliveries to their mobile shop on Barnsley Market or painstakingly judging when the egg custards were properly baked. When he started Darton High School, John was charged with the important task of lighting the ovens at about 4am before the bakers arrived for their shift.
The idea of lighting ovens at that age would worry people nowadays it was very different then and no one thought much about health and safety. Now you need a five-day course just to flick a switch,” John says.
But at least he didn’t have far to make his bleary-eyed journey each dawn as the bakery had relocated to its current Towngate premises by then which was basically at the bottom of the family home’s garden.
Over the course of the last 40 years, John has tried his hand at almost every job in the bakery and today is very much at the forefront of the successful global business, having progressed from that young unwitting apprentice to the current managing director since his father Donald retired 30 years ago. Cousin Ian is the ingredients buyer with his eye eon world commodity markets.
But while John may now spend less time baking bread and more time breaking it, he’s still not afraid to get his hands dirty “Quite recently, I joined in one of the daily cleaning shifts and found getting back to basics very therapeutic.”
Some might think there’s little left to learn but rising to new challenges has always been John’s
bread and butter. To keep up with modern practices and the changing economic climate, John regularly picks up new skills ranging from the smooth operation of new machinery to the complex trading rules of Europe and the Middle East. While the shops have since closed, today, Fosters Bakery focuses purely on commercial customers in Barnsley and beyond, having grown from the small, fledgling bakery into a multi-million- pound company that exports its products across the world. Their customers include some of the UK’s best-known pub groups, coffee shop chains, restaurants and airlines and, given the extensive reach of the customer database, it’s highly likely that we all regularly indulge in a Fosters product - be it a panini, teacake, burger bun or muffin - without even knowing it was made here in Barnsley. Fosters first began to export their products in the early 90s and today they sell frozen goods, mainly bread, to an array of countries including Germany, France, Spain and Portugal; Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands; Cyprus; Singapore; and Dubai. Surprisingly, it costs less to deliver goods from Barnsley to Singapore than it does to
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