The Sheffield firm that has been baking our daily bread for over 80 years

Archaeologists have found many neolithic Peak District grindstones called querns that were used to make flour.

Just as with many of the city’s 20th century bakeries, Roses the Bakers is a family business, which has now seen three generations of Roses earn a crust by serving up delicious bread, cakes and confectionary to the people of Sheffield.

It was started by James Wallace Rose, who was known as Jim, in 1940.

While keeping the business in the family may be the secret to Roses’ success and longevity, it was a falling out between Jim and his mother that led to the business being created.

The pair worked together in a baking business on Ecclesall Road called Pollards, and when Jim decided to go it alone he also opened a premises on the same street, at 113 Ecclesall Road.

81 years later, and Jim’s granddaughter Seuranie Johnstone, née Rose, is the firm’s managing director and her husband Mark Johnstone is also a director.

Today, Roses has five shops in Crosspool; Fulwood; Ecclesall Road; Millhouses and Atlas, near Attercliffe, which is where their bakery is based.

The bakery produces a whopping 5,000 bread cakes and 20,000 loaves of bread every week.

They have around 55 to 60 staff members, comprised of 10 bakers; four drivers and the rest are shop staff or work part-time.

Seuranie explains how her grandfather’s Ecclesall Road bakery was over five floors.

"It was over five floors, and the shop was in the middle. Confectionary was on the top, the bakery was below, the store room was right at the very bottom,” said Seuranie.

She describes her grandfather as being a “real craftsman” with a passion to make craft bread.

Despite starting the business during World War II, Jim managed to build a reputation for good quality products; and by the 1950s, the business was doing well enough for him to open two more shops in Crosspool and Millhouses.

“He was really proud of the quality of the products, and that was instilled into Dad,” said Seuranie, referring to her father, Christopher Rose, part of the second generation of the family to run the bakery.

The emphasis on quality has continued through the generations to today.

In addition to their continued use of high-quality ingredients, Seuranie and Mark say everything you can find in their shops, from the bread to the cakes is all baked fresh that morning, and nothing is carried over to the following day.

Much of Roses’ bread is still warm when it reaches their shops, and their team of bakers work from 2am six days a week to get their popular baked products onto shelves across the city.

Christopher and his brother Billy took over the business from their Dad, Jim, and ran it together until Billy left to forge a new path in 1985 – around the time that Seuranie was born.

Christopher continued on his own, he moved the bakery to their current site on Atlas Way, Atlas and set about expanding the range of products on offer after receiving some training from the Richemont Bakery School in Switzerland.

"He did a course over a few months and learned new skills when it comes to baking, confectionary and craft breads,” said Mark.

Seuranie added: “I’ve done something similar, Mark and I have both done courses in Switzerland. The way they teach and their attention to detail is incredible, it’s a lot like making a watch.

She explained how the Richemont Bakery School also has an international club, and that she and Mark are members of the Great Britain section.

As part of their club membership, they meet up with other members from across the world once a year.

"We’re introduced to new ideas, to new equiment, and we get to visit bakeries in Germany, in Slovakia. It’s a real sharing environment,” said Seuranie.

The meet-ups have led to Roses buying the recommended equipment from the international market, including an oven from Germany and a roll plant machine from Austria, which allows them to choose the exact weight they want their bread cakes to be.

While Seuranie has enjoyed success heading up the family business, her involvement with the company was not always inevitable.

She was encouraged to “try other things” by her family; but in the back of her mind she felt she wanted to be “part of the baking.”

"I always helped my Dad with baking when I was little. Making mince pies, making ginger bread houses at Christmas,” she explains.

But Seuranie still heeded her family’s advice and began a mechanical engineering course at Loughbrough University 2003, where she met Mark, who was enrolled on the same course.

After graduating in 2006, she returned to Sheffield and began running the firm’s shop in Millhouses.

"I really enjoyed it, I liked being down there,” she said.

From there, she helped out with aspects of running the business such as health and safety. Mark joined the business in 2010.

It was not until Seuranie’s dad had a heart attack six years ago that she took a more prominent role in Roses.

"He had open heart surgery, had a valve put in and a pacemaker fitted, spent a month in hospital, spent a month recovering.

"He had to leave us to it and trust we could do it. We got through that Christmas, which is our busiest time of the year, and he said if you can manage Christmas then you should just get on with it. And we’ve been doing it ever since,” said Seuranie.

Seuranie and Mark set about updating the existing shops, and opened a fifth shop on Brooklands Avenue, Fulwood four years ago.

Commenting on whether their 12-year-old son, Harry, might eventually become the fourth generation of the Rose family to work at the bakery, Mark said: “We want to encourage Harry to go out and find his own path. If that means he ends up back here, then he does.”

It has been “stressful”, but the pair have helped the business to weather the last 16 months, which have been tumultuous for virtually all businesses as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Their shops were permitted to remain open throughout the pandemic, and while their deliveries to wholesale customers dropped by 50 to 60 per cent, their shop sales have increased.

They put this down to people wanting to treat themselves to things like cakes, and people opting to use their local bakeries instead of supermarkets.

"We’ve gained quite a lot of new customers, we just hope we’ve done enough to keep them,” said Mark.

Some of their wholesale customers have fallen by the wayside since the pandemic due to businesses closing, or hospitality businesses reducing the size of their menus, but they still have a healthy number of customers across Yorkshire and Derbyshire who they provide specialty bread, including sourdough loaves, and confectionary to.

One such customer is burger joint, Fat Hippo, who are very specific about the height the brioche buns they provide should be.

As they look to the future, Seuranie says introducing new products to keep their lines fresh and modern while keeping customer favourites on the shelves such as their wheaten bread, the ingredients of which include golden syrup and malt.

"The wheaten bread is something we’ve been making since my granddad was around,” said Seuranie.

Mark added: “People have tried to copy it but have never got it right!”

As part of their drive to bring new products into their shops, Roses have introduced a “bread of the month” and flavour combinations include red wine and toasted walnuts and tumeric and black pepper seed.