After 38 years, Island Bakery shuts off ovens
by Andrew DuffyA family owned and operated commercial bakery that supplied bread to tens of thousands on the Island for 38 years has shut down its ovens.
Island Bakery, which started life on Tennyson Avenue in Victoria in 1982, stopped production at its Cobble Hill bakery Friday afternoon.
Final deliveries are to go out today, and the company will make the rounds of retail stores in the middle of next week to collect unsold product.
The decision to close has been more than a year in the works, and was excruciating for a family that has been tied to the business since it was opened by Larry and Audrey Roscoe in the early 1980s.
“It has taken more than a year to come to this decision. I mean we have tried everything. We tried scaling back on our range of products and retracted some service levels to try and reduce costs,” said Robbie Roscoe, who along with brother Jeff and their mother, Audrey, run the 26-person operation.
But he said with utility prices going through the roof, ingredient prices constantly increasing, low-carb and gluten-free diet fads, and big-box stores such as Walmart, Superstore and Costco selling at prices they simply can’t compete with, the writing was on the wall.
“It’s been a long journey and we’ve put a lot of time into this decision, but there’s no light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
Roscoe suggested that light started to dim in 2007, when Nova Scotia-based Sobey’s purchased Thrifty Foods for $260 million from the Campbell family.
He said it didn’t take long for the relationship between the grocer and Island Bakery to change.
Island Bakery had grown alongside Thrifty Foods (it had produced Thrifty Foods-branded hot dog and hamburger buns and other products) and when Thrifty Foods expanded so did Island Bakery.
“At our height we had more than 40 employees and were delivering as far as Campbell River five days a week,” said Roscoe. “And we did some deliveries in Vancouver for Thrifty Foods. As they grew, so did we and we reached to Vancouver and delivered to their stores there.”
The symbiotic relationship led to Island Bakery building the Cobble Hill facility in 1999 to handle the business as well as its expanding portfolio of restaurants, smaller retailers and institutions.
But the in-house deal with Sobeys dried up and Island Bakery saw its shelf space greatly reduced.
Roscoe said their shelf space was cut in half and then gradually reduced to just a few feet per store as Sobeys had to accommodate the agreements it had made with national brands that required a certain level of exclusivity.
“We’ve lost millions in sales since Sobeys took over,” he said.
Now Roscoe, who has been working at the bakery since he was 13 and full-time since graduating high school in 1989, faces the proposition of not having to get up before the sun, and actually having some time to consider what’s next.
The first order of business will be to tear down equipment and sell the building. They looked for a buyer for the business and the building, but nothing seemed to work.
For now, Roscoe chooses to reflect on what the family has accomplished over the past 38 years and takes some pride in “bowing out gracefully” and having made an impact on the community through sponsorship commitments.
He said that through it all his mother, Audrey, 82, drove every day from Colwood to run the office, while his brother, Jeff, a self-taught engineer, kept the machines humming and the bakery working.
“Our customers brought our products into their home for 38 years and we just can’t be more proud about that,” he said.
Island Bakery’s store will stay open until Feb. 10.
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