Did you know that more than 1 in 4 people (28%, to be precise) would say bread is their favourite food? That’s definitely no surprise to us, but to celebrate this fact, this week we’re launching a tasty new product to add to our artisan bread range: the High Fibre Multi Seed loaf. This new healthy bread launch coincides with Real Bread Week which runs from 22nd February to 1st March, and as part of this, we’ll be offering free tastings to anyone visiting our stores. We’ve been expanding our selection of options available for vegan and vegetarian diets, with the recipe for our vegetarian pasty being redeveloped recently to make it vegan-friendly, and the new High Fibre Multi Seed loaf is the latest offering in this range. This recipe has been perfected over the past 9 months by our very own Chris Chapman using a sourdough starter all the way from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. This starter was fed…

Read More

Have you heard the news? We’ve been awarded yet another Gold Star at the Great Taste Awards! This time, the award-winning product is our Deli Black Pudding Sausage Roll. Now we’ve always known that our deli sausage rolls are a stand out product thanks to their excellent quality locally reared pork sausage meat, a secret blend of herbs and spices, and a touch of rich black pudding, all made in Helmsley by Thomas’ master butchers and bakers. But the proof is really “in the pudding”. The judges at this year’s Great Taste Awards have proclaimed that our deli sausage rolls are “hearty” and “truly appealing looking” with a “crisp and buttery, flaky pastry with a moist well-seasoned sweet porky inside”. Our Deli Black Pudding Sausage Roll was originally only available in our Thomas of Helmsley deli, which is based in our hometown, Great British High Street’s award winning market town in 2015. Once we realised how much our customers loved…

Read More

We’re very proud of all of stores in and around Yorkshire, but right now, we’re especially proud of our Helmsley deli, Thomas of Helmsley, as it’s been nominated in the Farm Shop & Deli Awards 2019! The Farm Shop & Deli Awards have been running for over five years now, with a goal of supporting and celebrating excellence within the independent, specialist retail market. Organised by William Reed and judged by an expert panel, these awards are looking for small businesses that have a high level of customer service, product knowledge, innovation and community involvement. We’re so proud to hear that our customers have recognised these factors in our Thomas of Helmsley deli so well that they’ve nominated us for this award, but now we need your help! If you agree with us that Thomas of Helmsley is the best in their category, you can vote for us here. Our success all depends on our customers sharing their opinions on…

Read More

Hey, did you know it’s National Bread Week? From the 24th February to 4th March 2018, the country will be celebrating all things dough – this is the 10th annual celebration. The campaign focuses on “Real Bread” – the kind made by people like us, the small, local and independent bakers. This Bread Week, we’re offering sampling of our breads in stores around lunch time on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, so find your nearest store and make sure you’re there to try out some of our favourites! But you probably need to know a little bit more about our breads beforehand, and we’re only to happy to boast a bit about how our loaves are made. You’ll probably know that loaves are the “bread and butter” of our business! Nearly all of our ‘everyday’ breads, including the popular Country Crunch and Farmhouse, are made using the ‘sponge and dough’ 48 hour method which is, to the best of our knowledge,…

Read More

The next in our series of tasting events in the run up to Christmas at Thomas of Helmsley is our fantastic and fabulous Fizz Friday, held on Friday 24th November from 6.30pm. If you’ve been following along or are a local resident of Helmsley who loves their good food, you’ll know that we’ve already run a couple of these sampling days – read more about our local cheese sampling back in October here and our Super Sausage Saturday here. Between 6.30pm and 8pm, customers are welcome to visit our newly relaunched Thomas of Helmsley store to sample some Festive Fizz, including prosecco, gin and mixers. Alongside these will be a few firm Thomas the Baker favourites including our award-winning sweet mince pies (if you’re not from Yorkshire, no fear! You can buy these online here) and a selection of complementary cheese and crackers. The selection of new drinks that will be available to taste at our Festive Fizz evening include…

Read More

Thinking about visiting Thomas of Helmsley this weekend for our Super Sausage Saturday but haven’t yet made up your mind? If the sound of our tasty selection of sausages including the Yorkshire Bratwurst, Mango, Lime & Ginger Pork sausage and Yorkshire Special haven’t tempted you enough yet, let us persuade you even further: our Thomas of Helmsley sausages and the makers have been featured by Minster FM: Starring our very own celebrity chef, Stephanie Moon, alongside our in house deli butcher, Grant Baildon, our deli chef, Trevor, and the good people of Helmsley, you’ll find out how our sausages are made, the high quality of the ingredients that goes into them, what makes a proper sausage and how to cook one. Our Helmsley customers were only too happy to give them a taste while Minster FM were filming, but you can give them a go yourself to see if they really are as good as we say (they are, we…

Read More

A couple of weeks ago, we hosted the first of our series of sampling events at Thomas of Helmsley: the Big Cheese. And today we’re announcing the next link in our chain of events: Super Sausage Saturday! To mark UK Sausage Week, which runs from the 30th October to 5th November, as well as to celebrate the relaunch of Thomas of Helmsley and to keep our customers well fed with traditional fare around Bonfire Night, we’ll be offering samples and tastings of our sizzling sausage range on Saturday 4th November at our newly refurbished Thomas of Helmsley deli. This banging range has been developed for Thomas the Baker to be sold in Thomas of Helmsley by local celebrity chef, Stephanie Moon, and our in house deli head butcher, Michael Foster. The new range of sausages includes a super tasty Yorkshire Bratwurst; a Mango, Lime and Ginger Pork Sausage; and the ‘Yorkshire Special’ – made using Henderson’s Relish, breadcrumbs from our craft bakery’s own freshly…

Read More

Don’t worry if you missed out on the Grand Opening of Thomas of Helmsley, because as we mentioned in our last blog post, we’re starting a series of tasting events in the run up to Christmas in store where everyone is welcome to come and try our tasty goods. These tasting events start this weekend with… You guessed it – local cheese sampling! On Saturday 14th October from 10.30am onwards, Thomas of Helmsley will play host to Ian Barlow from award-winning cheesemakers Carron Lodge to guide customers through a selection of fantastic local cheeses. There will be firm favourites such as Yorkshire Blues and Wensleydales, as well as some new and exciting flavours to try out. Some of you might have had the chance to try a few at our Grand Opening at the end of September, but you don’t want to miss this opportunity to try even more! The cheese will be served up alongside some complimentary chutneys from…

Read More

For this week, and this week only, we’ll be offering these fantastic Yorkshire Day cupcakes, decorated with the infamous emblem of Yorkshire: the White Rose of Yorkshire. As a Yorkshire born and “bread” company (pardon the pun!), we’re proud of our heritage, so we’re sending out these yummy cupcakes to all our stores on Tuesday 1st August to celebrate Yorkshire Day – and here are 3 reasons why we think you should head to your nearest Thomas the Baker store to pick one (or more!) up to try them: 1. To support our chosen charity for the year: Alzheimer’s Society Each year we choose a charity that’s close to our hearts to support. It was announced in the press in June that we’d raised over £10,000 during the past year for the British Heart Foundation. For 2017/18, we’ve chosen the Alzheimer’s Society. The goal is to for our fundraising activities to help to fund research into Alzheimer’s and dementia, to support those living with…

Read More

Every year here at Thomas the Baker we choose a different charity to support. In the past, these charities have included Marie Curie, Macmillan, Yorkshire Air Ambulance and more – you can find out more about each of these here. We work with charities in a vast range of ways, from fundraising events such as sponsored walks, food donations to local events and we’re more than happy to consider individual sponsorship requests too. For 2017/18, our chosen charity is Alzheimer’s Society, the UK’s leading dementia charity. During this time, our 34 stores across Yorkshire and the North East will be collecting donations and members of staff across the whole business will be participating in events such as a local Memory Walk – you can find one close to you here if you’re interested in taking part too. Alzheimer’s Society have also launched a initiative to get everyone involved in fundraising in an easy and positively fun way – Cupcake Day! This…

Read More