Like many small businesses across the country, Australia’s first social enterprise bakery, The Bread & Butter Project, has certainly felt the impacts of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic – but thanks to some agile thinking and committed staff, the business is keeping the doors open.

With café and restaurant sales and product distribution disrupted due to COVID-19, The Bread & Butter Project undertook a complete pivot in its business model to ensure it can continue providing high-quality sourdough breads and pastries.

Normally operating as a wholesale bakery, which uses 100% of its profits to support training and employment opportunities for refugees and asylum seekers in Sydney, the business has expanded beyond supplying cafés and workplaces, many of which were closed during the height of the pandemic, and is now supplying large-format retailers such as Woolworths Metro and Harris Farm Markets.

Within two weeks they shifted from being a largely wholesale enterprise to becoming much more consumer-facing via online retailers and supermarkets, and as their pro bono communications partner, Polymer helped the bakery break this announcement via a targeted media release campaign in conjunction with the Woolworths media team, which resulted in significant coverage across the country in trade and consumer press, that achieved a potential viewership of over 2.3 million readers.

The Bread & Butter Project loaves, now available in Woolworths Metro