Despite being one of Tramore's younger businesses, celebrating only 4 years this year in their bakery on Broad Street, Seagull Bakery is one of the town's best known and most loved establishments, known for their freshly baked sourdough breads, baguettes and brown loaves, as well as a host of pretty irresistible croissants, sweet treats and of course, great coffee.
The bakery boasts regular customers who visit from as far afield as Kilkenny and Clonmel - sometimes several times a week - as well as visitors from all over County Waterford, who come to Tramore specifically for the bread and stay for the scenery and the rest of what the town has to offer. But, when Covid hit and the schools, pubs and restaurants closed in March, owners Sarah Richards and Conor Naughton knew they couldn't continue to operate as they had been doing, with a crowded bakery and queues out the door, so they had to quickly pivot and think of ways to sell their products, keeping as many staff as possible employed while doing it all safely, in accordance with HSE And WHO guidelines.
So, they decided to sell their bread online. But, ecommerce and the sale of a perishable, fast moving consumer good just should not have worked - but for Seagull Bakery, it did! And with help from the Local Enterprise Office and the Trading Online Voucher scheme, it was doable logistically AND financially.
Earlier this week, Seagull Bakery co-owner Conor Naughton popped in to Teresanne to tell her all about their Covid Recovery.
