The road to becoming a Master Artisan Baker

The road to becoming a Master Artisan Baker

The Healthy Loaf 100% Gluten Free’s, Master Artisan Baker, Graham Gardner grew up in a large family where everyone pitched in to help keep the family, the household and their business running. As a teenager Graham began his apprenticeship at 14.5yrs, in 1976 with his father. After 6 years learning the craft of Baking in the family bakery, Graham began relief baking in 1982 and worked throughout Victoria, from Alexandria to Rye, from Melbourne to Apollo Bay and just about everywhere in between. Graham and his wife Deirdre opened their first successful business in South Melbourne in 1988. As a young family they were overwhelmed by the success and busyness of the business and after two years they sold it to focus on raising their family. Graham and Deirdre moved with their three children to Colac, in western Victoria. In 1992 Graham and Deirdre opened the Winchelsea bakery after the community had been without a local bread shop for twelve years and were welcomed by the township with open arms.

Deirdre and graham raised their family juggling business commitments and building their skills and expertise as small business owners and developing professionals. In his early forty’s, Graham took the opportunity to formalise his experience and studied Business Sales and Marketing. Whilst Deirdre had trained as a Remedial Massage Therapist in the late 1990’s and enjoyed exploring a lifelong dream of working in the health field. Nevertheless, as their circumstances changed and their children grew older and left the nest they found themselves settled in Geelong, where Deirdre had spent much of her childhood, and they saw an opportunity for an exciting new type of bakery, one that helped people improve their health, by selling them an excellent product they could not get anywhere else in the area, in 2012 the Health Loaf 100% Gluten Free, was born.