Homebaked Bakery

Built in 1903, Mitchell’s Bakery was a landmark and meeting place for locals and football fans for over half a century. The long-drawn-out demise of the high street left the bakery as one of the last businesses catering to local residents. When the building was earmarked for demolition in 2010, the Mitchells closed their business. In 2010 Liverpool Biennial commissioned Dutch artist Jeanne van Heeswijk to work in Anfield.  Core to her philosophy is that art can create ‘fields of interaction’ that build the relationships and trigger the debates that enable people to shape their surroundings.  The growing project group rented the building from the Mitchell’s and the bakery  became the site for public discussion and planning sessions.  Slowly but surely, more local people became involved and together started what has now become Homebaked Community Land Trust - a way for local people to collectively own and develop local assets and the skills needed to do so. 

People also popped by to ask if they could buy bread – and this sparked the desire to also start up a community-led bakery business. Just as the closure of the bakery reflected Anfield’s decline, so did the prospect of re-opening it suggest the possibility of a future. Homebaked Cooperative Bakery was incorporated in 2012 and started trading in 2013. The Bakery opened it’s doors in the middle of a demolition site. But the ‘proof is in the pie’ as some like to say and ultimately Liverpool City Council decided for the building to be retained.

Today the bakery is a successful local business, providing jobs for local people at the living wage, producing award-winning pies as well as bread and cafe food and offering a vibrant meeting space for for locals and visitors alike.