Raglan baker Lucy Donaldson has struck triple gold with her gluten free breads which, in little more than two years, have become so popular they’re now ordered right across the country.
Three of Lucy’s loaves – marketed simply as the white one, the seedy one and the fruity one – all won gold medals in New Zealand’s prestigious Outstanding Food Producer Awards announced last week, with her sourdough claiming a silver.
‘Lucy’s’ branded breads also won big-time last year, with two golds and one silver.
Safe to say then that this locally born and bred 34 year old has largely captured the gluten intolerance market – along with that for those with allergies – with a product of a consistently high quality.
So what does winning twice over in as many years mean to Lucy? Apart from the kudos, it brings both “credibility and customers” to her fledgling business, she says.
With the help of three staff Lucy’s now turning out between 1200 and 1500 loaves a week from her recently built Frankton bakery.
In the lead-up to Easter Lucy’s been particularly busy in the bakery – starting work at 4am rather than the usual 7am – because she’s also produced 180 six-packs of gluten free hot cross buns daily, her recipe voted by Auckland-based lifestyle magazine Denizen as New Zealand’s best.
It all started in the kitchen of her Whale Bay home when as a young mum she decided to go gluten free while breast-feeding colicky babies, in the hope of getting some relief.
Already making her own sourdough and substituting with Volare’s sourdough, Lucy approached the Waikato-based Volare’s team and asked why not make a gluten free product. They simply didn’t have time, but offered Lucy – who’d become quite the home baker – the chance to come up with a gluten free loaf of her own.
The enterprising mother-of-three jumped at the opportunity to collaborate with a brand like Volare.
She insists it was a lucky case of the “right time, right place”, but there were still two years of trials amid a few lockdowns and the building of a purpose-built bakery courtesy of Volare before Lucy’s gluten free breads could be launched.
Now they’re in every Volare store, many health food shops, farmers markets and are delivered direct to customers nationwide.
Hubby Elliot however reckoned she was “making bricks” at first – so Lucy set out to prove him wrong.
She experimented with a lot of alternative flours to wheat and studied the properties of different wholegrains, ensuring her choice of substitutes would provide nutrients for a healthy diet.
Lucy’s especially proud of her white sandwich loaf that stays soft enough to wrap around a sausage for instance – no mean feat in the gluten free market.
Life has become quite a juggle since abandoning her career as an operating theatre nurse but Lucy’s passionate about the product and her change of direction.
She gets up in the wee hours and goes for a run before work – a habit she labels her “coping mechanism” – leaving Elliot to drop their two boys off at Te Uku School and their daughter at Matapihi Kindergarten. Finished work by two in the afternoon, Lucy is back in time to pick the children up.
All her loaves are made by hand so each is unique, she says. And they’re made with fewer ingredients – no eggs, nuts, dairy products or preservatives – so are best eaten fresh, she adds, as there’s not the long shelf life of “normal” breads.
Her breads can be ordered online for home delivery all over New Zealand, Lucy explains, the day’s bake being sent via a perishable post overnight courier. There are now also 40 stockists throughout the North Island.
A new range of dried goods will be released later this year, reveals Lucy’s marketing manager Ezra Andre – an old friend from way back at Raglan Area School – but that’s another story.
By Edith Symes
