And this is week 15 of our attempt to visit every food stall at Norwich Market, with James querying when I was going to post this, so I’ve rushed matters along. When James and I did all of this before in 2023, I wasn’t entirely surprised and delighted with the quality of the offering as the roll didn’t seem as fresh as it could have been. I happened to be telling someone who supplies Bread Source and he defended their quality and mentioned it wasn’t the best product to buy at 13:00 as the rolls would have been fresher earlier. I don’t really think that this holds entirely true though, it’s not for the customer to know when they’re supposed to order things and lunchtime hardly seems end of day in any event. Anyway, this meant that I was keen to give Bread Source a second chance and I was ready to give them an opportunity to engage so that I was excited and enthused by their offerings as I like positivity.
The food looked appetising and was neatly lined up and clearly priced.
Unlike last time, there were very few filled rolls visible and so perhaps they are keen to ensure that they don’t stay out too long. Unfortunately, this is as far as I can go with my enthusiasm as the team member ignored us when we were standing looking at their collection of their baked goods. I’ve blurred him from the photos as I don’t want to spread any needless negatively, but despite moving into the stall itself and then trying to make random noises to get his attention from his tablet there was no engagement here at all and it wasn’t at all easy to be served. I’d go as far as to say that we weren’t really made very welcome at all, the situation was sub-optimal. I did have the Inbetweeners clip in my mind with the quote:
“Why don’t we at least attempt to have a sophisticated conversation? I know it’s a tall order, and I’m not expecting sparkling, but let’s give it a go…..”
To be fair, I would have been happy with someone saying “hi” and didn’t necessarily even need the sophisticated conversation.
In fairness, my raspberry and pistachio bun was fresh, it had a pleasant taste, the texture was smooth with a crisp edge from the pistachio and it felt like a high quality product. The price tag of £3 wasn’t unreasonable and the quality was better than I had expected, so there’s a win.
James didn’t dislike his doughnut (I actually think that he quite liked it), but signalled his anger by taking a photograph of it next to an ashtray. I didn’t say anything.
Without wishing to be controversial, but I do wonder why Bread Source are still on the market. I can’t remember being ignored at somewhere like Greggs or similar, but I’d understand it more if I was, as people do get tired and bored when serving customers. But, the quality of the engagement from Norwich market traders is exceptionally high because they want to build their businesses up and get a loyal following. If Bread Source left their stall (and I assume they aren’t tied in here, although I’m not an expert on the rental agreements at the market if I’m being honest), it would perhaps allow a new independent food operator in and give them an opportunity to offer something different and have some passion about what they do. Norwich Market is full of traders like that, as this series of posts shows. Given that Bread Source have multiple other shops in the city, I hope that they wouldn’t be too annoyed, although I can’t imagine they’ll read this anyway, if I wrote that I hope they move on to give someone else a go. Which isn’t to note that the company hasn’t done very well and clearly has a substantial following, but it is now a large outfit and times changes….. But, in terms of the positive, the product was decent and I felt that the value for money was reasonable, so it’s not all negative.