THE Forest Bakehouse at Longhope is celebrating winning the award for best local producer at the Taste of Gloucestershire Food and Farming awards. 

The awards celebrate the work of farmers, producers, retailers and pubs and restaurants across the county that people enjoy visiting.

Owners Sue Bailey, Rahel Steffen and Chris Hill attended the ceremony at Cheltenham Racecourse.

Rahel said: “We are thrilled to win the award for us and for our community. Baking is very demanding and it’s lovely to be acknowledged for all our hard work and efforts.

“We were encouraged to apply and were judged on the success of our business and the quality of our products. This is our first award – so we are very proud as the standard of finalists was extremely high.”

The ‘community co-operative’ bakery was set up in 2013 after receiving a local action grant through the Forest of Dean Council as well as money raised by community bread bond investments.

Rahel added: “Members of the community invested in the bakery by purchasing bread bonds to the value of £500 to £2,000 and are paid interest in a loaf of bread weekly. When we opened we were baking 50 loaves a week. We now bake over 500 loaves a week and our business is going from strength-to-strength, so much so we are employing more people to cope with demand.”