AN AYR bakery is on a mission to ensure NHS staff in hospitals and other health care centres have fresh bread.

Bhaile Craft Bakery are asking for help from customers so they can offer free bread to various NHS departments across Ayrshire.

Their small team of bakers, supervised by their master-baker patron, have been working through the crisis, by offering a delivery service of their wholesome baked goods.

Now they want to pay tribute to NHS heroes on the frontline of coronavirus and have asked loyal customers to pay £1 per loaf in order for them to produce extra loaves to be sent to Ayr hospital

and other healthcare departments.

Manager David Cannell said: “Now that we have a better handle on things, we thought it was time for us to launch a new initiative that will allow us, with the help of our customers, to offer free bread to our local NHS staff.

“So we are asking, via our website, that our customers pay £1 per loaf and we will then match that with our time and ingredients and provide however many loaves on a weekly basis to our local hospital and other NHS departments around our area.

“There are loads of incentives in place all over the country to thank our NHS workers, but we would like to take this opportunity to provide something that we already offer to say thanks in the only way we know how to, by being elbow deep in dough.”

Bhaile bakery started a delivery service in a bid to continue to provide orders to customers two days a week.

The bakers set up a new online ordering system to cope with huge demand for orders, and in the first few weeks have sent out special Bhaile Boxes.

They contacted other local suppliers to see if they could work together to offer the home delivery service.

They enlisted the quality of Grants Fruit & Veg and Mossgiel Farm Milk as well as locally sourced free-range eggs.

David said: “We adapted like never before. We upgraded our current ordering system to cope with the huge demand. We now have a steady stream of orders coming in and in the first two weeks we had a waiting list for our Bhaile Boxes, a mixed box of goodies to cater for every household.”

  *****************

Scotland is in lockdown. Shops are closing and newspaper sales are falling fast. We're not exaggerating when we say that the future of the Ayr Advertiser, and the vital local news service we've provided since 1803, is under threat.

Please consider supporting the Ayr Advertiser in whatever way you can – by paying just 90p for a copy of the paper, when you're shopping for essential supplies for yourself and others, or by subscribing to our e-edition here.

Thanks – and stay safe.