Coughlans Bakery closed overnight and 176 people lost their jobs. I read the public accounts, and the "we just couldn't afford to stay open" story is missing some pretty big context.
Wanted to write my own post on this rather than in the comments, because its easy for people to see the headlines posted today and move on with a negative impression of the government when in fact fingers could be pointed elsewhere. My sympathies above all are with the staff who have lost their jobs with a day's notice.
89 year old Surrey bakery. 176 staff. Closed with a day's notice on 1 July, with a tearful post blaming fuel prices, National Insurance and business rates, and asking people to "shop local, our high streets need your love."
Here's what the Companies House filings show, and it's a lot to leave out of a farewell letter.
There are two companies run by the same family: the bakery (the bit that closed) and a property company that was basically dormant until 2023, then took ownership of the bakery's buildings and 60% of the bakery itself.
Over the two years before closure, according to the filed accounts:
- £3.28 million was moved out of the bakery in a single year to it's parent company (a year it made a loss).
- The buildings were moved into the family's property company and revalued to around £5.2 million.
- The bakery then paid rent back to that family company to use its own former premises (about £384,000 in the last year, and rising).
- Strip out that internal rent and the group actually made around £200,000 profit, held roughly £470,000 in cash, and was worth about £4.8 million on paper.
- The property company paid its owners around £274,000 in dividends while saying it wanted to "retain capital to support future growth."
On the "government killed us" line: the last accounts (year to September 2025) were signed off by the auditors in early 2026 with no going concern warning, and the directors described the group as "stable and well positioned for continued trading growth" in May 2026, about six weeks before shutting. The employer National Insurance bill actually went up by roughly £74,000 for the whole year. The farewell post claimed an "extra £20k a week." You do the maths.
Comedian Romesh Ranganathan came on board as a partner shortly before all this. Worth noting the outside investment went into the trading side, the bit that closed. The buildings sit in the separate property company.
Caveats, because I'm just someone who read public documents: splitting property from trading, charging rent between your own companies, and paying dividends are all perfectly legal and extremely common. The audited figures only run to September 2025, so trading could genuinely have fallen off a cliff after that. I'm avoiding accusing anyone of anything. Just presenting the public record (which most people don't know how to access, but are readily available on companies house) sitting next to the public statement with is very political in nature and assigns zero blame to themselves.
In short...blaming the minimum wage while millions in assets and cash have quietly been tidied into a company your staff and customers will never see a penny of is a bold way to remind people to "shop local."