The Coughlan family has announced that, after 89 years in business, Coughlans Bakery has closed its doors for the final time.
Read more below.
The statement and accompanying video from Sean Coughlan are genuinely depressing. It tells the story of a family business pushed beyond breaking point by soaring costs. Higher National Insurance contributions, rising business rates, energy bills, and the increasing cost of doing business all combined to make continuing impossible.
For many of us in the vegan community, this news hits particularly hard.
Coughlans was one of those rare traditional British bakery chains where vegans could walk in and feel genuinely spoilt for choice. Their vegan range grew into something remarkable over the years, with sausage rolls, pies, shortbreads, celebration cakes, tarts, muffins, and countless other bakery favourites all suitable for plant-based customers.
Whenever I visited a Coughlans shop, I never left with just one item. I usually walked out carrying at least two boxes packed with goodies.
It felt like a proper bakery that happened to care about vegan customers… and it seemed to be getting more and more vegan. I lived in hope that it would tip over into completely plant-based at some point.
I have seen some people trying to frame closures like this as evidence that vegan food or vegan-friendly businesses are somehow falling out of fashion. I simply do not believe that is what is happening here.
As I discussed recently on The Vegan Pod with The Vegan Society, this is not uniquely a vegan problem.
Independent businesses across the UK are being squeezed from every direction. Business rates continue to climb. Ingredient costs have risen dramatically. Employers are facing higher National Insurance costs. Energy prices remain painfully high compared with just a few years ago. Inflation has changed how people spend their money. Family businesses that have served their communities for generations are finding it harder and harder to survive.
The closure of Coughlans is part of that much bigger picture.
Supporting independent businesses has never been more important, but asking people to shop local is no longer enough.
We also need to ask bigger questions about the systems that have brought us here. We can all see what happens when wealth becomes increasingly concentrated, when large corporations dominate markets, and when small businesses are left carrying ever greater costs. We can see the consequences when public services and essential infrastructure are privatised and become more expensive and harder for independent traders to rely on. Family businesses are disappearing from our high streets and that should concern all of us, regardless of whether we (or the businesses) are vegan.
There are no easy answers, but pretending everything is working perfectly fine is not one of them.
To the entire Coughlan family and everyone who worked in the bakeries over the years, thank you.
Thank you for treating vegan customers as though we mattered. Thank you for proving that a traditional family bakery could embrace plant based food without compromise. Thank you for all the sausage rolls, cakes, pies, and sweet treats that made so many people’s days a little brighter.
If Coughlans was ever part of your life, I encourage you to visit their Facebook or Instagram pages and leave a message of thanks. It will not change what has happened, but I am sure it would mean a great deal to a family saying goodbye to nearly nine decades of baking.
Our independent businesses deserve better. Our communities deserve better. We all deserve better. I hope we work out how to start demanding it.
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