After many months of talking about doing it, I finally headed up to Plumgarths Lakeland Food Park on Thursday last week, to take a look at the bakery and shop for Lovingly Artisan bakery. Nestled on a road just outside Kendal, there are several foodie business on this small and welcoming business park.

Lovingly Artisan bakery evolved from a bakery first started in the 1980s in Kendal when, after being introduced to slow-fermentation process, the founder Aidan and his partner Catherine, started Lovingly Artisan from their own home. The site at Plumgarths Lakeland Food Park was opened in 2010 as an expansion site and has been thriving ever since.

The entire ethos of Lovingly Artisan is based on ditching ultra-processed bread, using British grain (including rarer grains that you don’t see very often such as Emmer and Einkhorn), and keeping things organic wherever possible.

What struck me when I spoke to Catherine was the “soil to grain” commitment – looking for organic and regenerative farming practices which looks after the soil to ensure good quality crop, before the crop is milled by a local miller using a stone grinding process (which apparently retains better flavour than industrial milling processes), the leftover bran is then made into pellets which fires the ovens! I thought this was really great because I’m so passionate about sustainable practices and circular production methods. It is exactly what we need to be doing more of, and to find and support more small businesses making efforts to do this is uppermost in my mind.

The shop itself was delightful, and the smell of fresh baking was to die for… I honestly could have spent hours in there, even though it’s a relatively small shop. There were so many goodies, little bits to taste, and lots of accoutrements such as dipping oils, rock salt, and kitchen implements. I bought several items, including kalamata olive bread, focaccia, Danish rye bread, and a pain-aux-raisin. I’ve already eaten the pain-aux-raisin, and can’t wait to tuck into the rest.

I’ll be heading back up to Lakeland Food Park next week as they’re doing a Christmas Fair and Tasting event from the 4th – 6th December 2025! It’s definitely worth going if you’re a foodie in the region of the South/Central Lakes/North Lancs because I think it’s going to be delicious, and I’m excited to try all of the yummy goods!