Artisan Bakery Consultancy: One to One Support Sessions
Duration:
Timings:
Course start dates:
12 Jun 2027
Hourly Schedule
Time
- 09:00
- Course starts
- 14:00
- Course End
- Course ID MiIB
Every bakery journey is different.
Whether you’re taking your first steps towards launching a microbakery, refining recipes you’ve developed over time, or looking to overcome specific production challenges, sometimes dedicated one-to-one support can make all the difference.
The School of Artisan Food is proud to offer individual consultancy sessions with our experienced bakery tutors. These focused online sessions provide the opportunity to discuss your own goals, challenges and ideas in depth, helping you move forward with greater confidence and clarity.
Delivered via Microsoft Teams (Zoom is also available), each session is tailored to your needs, allowing you to explore practical baking techniques, business considerations or specific areas of interest relevant to your own bakery venture. Whether you’re building a business, improving consistency, troubleshooting technical issues or revisiting concepts from one of our courses, your tutor will provide personalised guidance and actionable advice.
Throughout the session, you’ll have the opportunity to ask questions, explore solutions and gain expert insight that can be applied directly to your own baking practice or business.
What You’ll Gain
During your one-to-one consultancy session, you can:
- Receive personalised support tailored to your individual goals
- Discuss specific baking or production challenges
- Gain expert guidance on bakery business development
- Explore solutions to technical issues and process improvements
- Build confidence in decision-making and next steps
- Revisit and deepen your understanding of previous course content
- Test ideas and receive constructive professional feedback
Areas You May Explore
Sessions can be tailored to a wide range of topics, including:
- Recipe development and refinement
- Improving product consistency and quality
- Bakery workflows and production planning
- Scaling up production
- Equipment selection and bakery layouts
- Pricing, margins and cost management
- Business planning and growth strategies
- Troubleshooting technical baking challenges
- Product development and innovation
Your Tutors
You can choose to work with the tutor whose expertise best aligns with your goals:
Martha Brown
Paul Raddan
Ian Waterland
Each tutor brings extensive industry experience and a passion for helping bakers develop their skills, confidence and businesses.
How It Works
- One-hour online consultancy session
- Delivered via Microsoft Teams or Zoom
- Flexible discussion tailored to your requirements
- Suitable for practical and business-focused topics
- Camera-enabled sessions allow tutors to review equipment, products or bakery setups where appropriate
Available appointment slots take place between 9am and 2pm and are allocated on a first come, first served basis. Following your booking, you’ll receive an email inviting you to select an available time slot with your chosen tutor.
Who Is This Consultancy For?
These sessions are ideal for aspiring bakery business owners, home bakers, microbakery operators and established professionals looking for expert advice and personalised support. Whether you’ve previously attended one of our courses or are seeking guidance on a specific challenge, you’ll leave with practical recommendations, greater confidence and a clearer path forward.
Please Note:
Whilst we make every effort to adhere to best practices regarding allergen control and cross-contamination at The School of Artisan Food, we sincerely regret that we are unable to cater for severe food allergies or coeliac disease. This is due to the continuous and varied use of our teaching spaces, common areas and food preparation areas.
If in any doubt, please contact us to discuss your individual circumstances prior to making a booking, as this will then enable us to produce a personalised Risk Assessment based on your own specific circumstances and better judge if we can safely accommodate you on site.
Your Tutors
Tutors
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Ian WaterlandAfter a career in health and social care, spanning both clinical and management roles, primarily supporting people with mental ill health, it was time for a rest, Ian took the plunge in 2013 and re-trained as a real bread baker.
The seeds of this radical life change were sown growing up, with a mum who made all of the families bread. Ian dabbled over the years making his own, with mixed results. A chance visit to a real bread bakery in Lyme Regis and a one day bread course got him thinking.
Fast forward a few years and Ian bought his wife a patisserie course at The School of Artisan Food. She loved the place, casually mentioned there was a year long course in bread and said “why don’t you do it?”
A few short months later and Ian was starting the Advanced Diploma at The School.
At the end of an amazing and inspiring course, plans were ready and within three months Knead Good Bread Artisan Bakery was born. Knead Good Bread ran successfully for eight years, building a real bread community in its rural Leicestershire location. The bakery grew and evolved over that time operating weekly pop ups from “The Bread Bus” in different villages, the addition of a wholesale offering and latterly a subscription and delivery model.
Ian always aimed to spread the word with ‘breaducation’ initially in his bakery and then more widely in the community, online and at The School of Artisan Food, where he teaches a number of short courses and was a founding tutor on the Foundation Degree in Artisan Food Production. He has developed a real passion for the therapeutic aspects of bread making and enjoys sharing the lessons he learned from establishing and running his own bakery.
The bread journey Ian embarked on, came full circle as he became The School of Artisan Food’s Managing Director from 2022 to 2024, whilst also continuing to teach on a part time basis.
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Martha BrownMartha’s journey in food began in 2011 when she joined the Advanced Diploma course here at the School of Artisan Food.
Whilst she had always had a passion for cooking, Martha fell in love, and became slightly obsessed, with sourdough baking and all things patisserie during the time she spent on the course. Inspired by her placements at E5 Bakehouse in London, Mark’s Bread in Bristol and Pump Street Baking in Orford, she set up Forge Bakehouse in Sheffield shortly after leaving the course. Over the next decade, she developed and expanded Forge from a micro-bakery with a team of 3 to a multi-service bakery and cafe, with monthly evening events, baking classes and a pop-up shop with 30 staff.
Martha sold the business in 2022 and has now come full circle back to the School in a teaching capacity, while she also studies Interior Architecture, another creative endeavour that featured heavily in the expansion process of her business. Creating food and spaces that bring people together and create community is something she will continue to do through both teaching and her studies.
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Paul RaddanPaul’s love of baking started early, with happy memories of Sunday morning baking sessions at his Nan’s house.
Following Paul’s degree in Psychology at Reading University, the pull of the kitchen proved too great, and he spent the next 15 years in restaurants and kitchens across the East Midlands. A love of baking meant that he was baking bread and cakes on his days off as well as at work. When Paul’s wife established a sourdough culture in 2009, this obsession worsened!
Following a move to Rugby in 2012, Paul made the leap into full-time baking, and Rugby Real Bread was born. He started in his home kitchen, before building an extension to make space for the rapidly increasing oven and fridge space needed. Paul served the local community with an array of cakes and both yeasted and sourdough breads. Savoury scones were also very popular, favourites being feta & spinach, stilton & walnut and cheddar & marmite.
Sharing Paul’s love of baking and real food has always been important to him; Paul teaches practical classes at schools, food festivals, charities, adult education centres and community groups. He also run a Bread Club for local baking enthusiasts, so people can get together and showcase different breads and recipes.
Paul’s courses are fun, imaginative learning experiences. They will inspire you to take back what you have learned to your kitchen at home and to continue to spread the love of baking and good food.
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