Early 1900’s in a small Yorkshire mining village. . . . Throughout Emily Foster’s life, she was not able to go to work. As the youngest in a large family, she looked after her ageing parents. This allowed her to develop her baking skills and as a treat, her father enrolled Emily on a cake decorating course in Leeds.

Age 23, Emily married Arthur Foster and in 1929, she made her own wedding cake and did all the catering for her own wedding reception.

It wasn’t until 23 years later that Emily decided to set up a cafe in the village with her daughter Betty. With only £40 of savings, the family set themselves a huge task. A friend offered an old disused blacksmiths shop for premises. Arthur and son Donald were excellent handymen so they fitted out the premises as a cafe cum bakery with just one domestic gas oven.  

Emily had no big entrepreneurial dream, just a desire to bake the best food and serve it with as much friendliness as it was possible to give, an ethos still to be found in the company today.

We delivered before deliveroo . . . Emily's daughter, Audrey, printed leaflets, advertising that the bakery's bread and cakes were now going to be distributed to homes in the area. To transport the goodies Donald bought an old van from a scrap yard and fixed it up. 

As her baking became more popular, Emily added a further oven and expanded capacity to near bursting point until September 1959 when the present limited company was founded and a new bakery built on Blacker Road, Mapplewell.  Shortly after that, the company invested in a mobile shop, which stood on Barnsley’s famous Market Hill, three days a week.

With the acquisition of two other bakeries (Bellamys and Coppings) the company expanded its number of shops and, through recommendations, the number of commercial accounts also grew. In 1971 the bakery moved to its current location on Towngate, Mapplewell. This bakery was expanded in 1980, 1990, 1997, 2016, 2017 and 2019. The Company operates a separate warehouse and uses distribution partners.

In 1994 the Channel Tunnel opened and Fosters Bakery landed a contract to supply bread for the British side of Eurostar train services. Very quickly the French sandwich supplier enquired about the wonderful bread and Fosters were soon exporting. Rumours spread very quickly that Fosters Bakery was exporting “baguettes to France” and, whilst that was true (a French customer did buy a few thousand baguette-shaped loaves), the vast majority of exports have always been “typical British baking” Exports increased to more countries.

As demand for products from caterers continued to increase, the bakery sold its local shops and focussed purely on commercial customers. Today Fosters service some of the World’s best-known restaurants, pubs, airlines, caterers, and much more. 

BELOW ARE OLD PHOTOS

• The Old Bakery on Blacker Road is now a real ale micro pub called . . . . .
  THE OLD BAKERY (what else?)

• GEEKY STAT 1

  OVEN CAPACITY we started with = 1 baking tray

  CURRENT OVEN CAPACITY = 582 baking trays = 203 m2
  That’s bigger than a tennis court and a whole lot warmer !

• Current Directors are cousins: Ian Taylor and John Foster MBE, both are qualified bakers - its all about the baking.

Some Old Pictures