When it comes to the baking industry, it’s not uncommon to see family-run businesses spanning multiple generations. Baking Business caught up with a few bakeries to find out the perks and challenges of working with family, and just what it is about baking that gets into the blood.

Name: Shane Pallot
Bakery: Grain Bakery, WA
Shane Pallot from Grain Bakery in Perth is a fourth generation baker, with the family history in the industry stretching back to a bakery his grandfather opened together with his father-in-law. His daughter, Annalyce, has also joined the business in recent years.

Shane Pallot and his daughter Annalyce with the potential sixth generation of bakers

His story:

“My pop started the first bakery with his father-in-law, so they were generations one and two. Then my dad was three and I’m four,” he said.

“My daughter, Annalyce, came on about three years ago when we got Grain. So she’s generation five.

“My dad was always a baker – he left school around 14 to help his father [in the bakery] who was not only a baker but a single operator. Dad’s mum would run the front of the shop and Pop would run the back. After Dad’s mum died Pop said ‘you’ve got to come work at the bakery. This is our life’. So Dad did at the age of 15, and helped to run a Wheatbelt town bakery in Cunderdin.

“When I was about 16 I told Dad I’d come work for him and he said no. Then, when I met my wife, Mandy, at about 22 or 23 he finally said ‘look, let’s see if you like the industry’. We were just a little pie shop then – Bake-Inn Pie Shop. We did a little bit of bread, but not a lot, but I just loved the industry.

“While running the pie shop, we bought Tasty Bake Garden City and ran that for five years. We, as a business, just grew and grew. We eventually had an offer for us to purchase Trackside Bakery, which was on the Perth Railway station and was one of WA’s Australia iconic bakeries, so Mandy and I sold The Bake-Inn Pie Shop and ran Trackside for the next 25 years.

“It was about three years ago that Annalyce said she’d like to get into the bakery business, but not at Trackside. She said, ‘I want to do boutique artisan bakeries and I want to go back to the old school sort of products like your dad used to do’.

“I opened up Grain Bakery in 2021. Annalyce ran the store on her own with me in the background training her in the aspects of running a small business and it’s just gone from there. She loves it and I needed that drive. Us old school bakers sometimes need the younger ones to come in. I still love it. I can’t see myself playing golf or lawn bowls every day. I’d still come in every single day.

“Annalyce decided she needed her finger in the pie and we both opened another Grain Bakery in Shenton as a partnership in November 2023 and sold Trackside Bakery.

“Working in a family business is good. The stability is amazing – you know your job’s always there. You still have to put bread on the table at the end of the day and it’s hard work, but you don’t have that 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday job.

“All our family love it. I would like to say there will be more [generations]. I’d love them to come into this industry because it’s very rewarding and fulfilling and it’s good to have family in there.”

Name: Philip Hide
Bakery: Hide’s Bakery, Vic
Philip Hide is a third generation baker and runs Hide’s Bakery in Benalla, Victoria, with his brother Stephen. The bakery has remained in the family since his grandparents, Percy and Florence Hide, first opened it in 1929 in Wodonga, although the business was relocated to Benalla after WWII.

Philip Hide

His story

“When I was a little boy I was over in the bakery all the time. My father and his two brothers were in the bakery and I was basically there every day when I was a little fella. I think that’s what drew me towards being a baker or pastry chef,” he said.

“I was coming over here at eight or nine and just basically helped out. My grandfather was a baker in WWI, so I don’t know if I had the genes or what, but I enjoyed it. I still do.

“One of my uncles was a fighter pilot in WWII and after he came out they [the bakery] were in Wodonga, so they came back to Benalla just after the war. My uncle was actually one of the first country apprentices at William Angliss, so he basically taught me the trade.

“I then went to William Angliss in the ‘80s as well and trained there. My father was a very good cake decorator, so I learned a lot from him.

“Working with my father and uncles, it was like having three fathers. They were all telling me what to do. My brother also came back and I worked with him… we got on well.

“I don’t know if there will be a fourth generation at Hide’s Bakery. There are a few older ones looking at it. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Name: Corey Fechner
Bakery: Apex Bakery, SA
Corey Fechner is a third generation baker working in fourth generation business, Apex Bakery, the Barossa Valley. Corey moved to the city as a teenager and trained as an IT technician before deciding to join the family business.

The second generation of bakers at Apex Bakery

His story

“I lived two doors down from the bakery, and my grandfather lived next door to the bakery, so it was always a part of my life. I was always involved in the bakery from a young age and so were my cousins and my sister. I was here as a young kid eating doughnuts and spending a lot of my Saturdays just being a nuisance or trying to help,” he said.

“I was always encouraged by my parents to go and see the world, so as soon as I could – at 17 – I moved to the city to experience life outside the bakery. I did that for 10 years, and then I met my partner and we had a child.

“But it was always inside of me that I wanted to see Apex Bakery continue, and all the hard work that my grandfather had put in and that my father and uncles had put in. I didn’t want to see that go to waste.

“I actually came back to the area for a job. I had an IT job lined up at one of the wineries here in the Barossa that didn’t start for a few weeks. I was bored and I came over to the bakery and started helping my uncle doing the nightly mixes, because we do all slow ferment dough. Then I started working in the front of house in the shop, which was cool because I got to learn about all the products we did.

“After about two weeks, when I was supposed to start my new job, I went to my dad and said I’d actually like to stay on at the bakery.

“I never did any formal training, but did a lot of on-the-job training. I’d sit there for six months and watch before I was allowed to touch anything, and then as we slowly picked it up I started to ask ‘why do we do it that way?’ and the answer would be ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it’. So, over the years I’ve done quite a bit of research and spoken to people to work out if the way we’re doing things is done for a certain reason.

“The flexibility of working with family is always good, but I think it’s the pride and the sense of the bakery being something that’s been here for so long that stands out more. We see a lot in the Barossa Valley that family businesses get to the third generation and then they get sold off.

“My grandfather started here when he was 12 years old. I think it’s tough to withstand a lot of the pressures – things always look easier on the outside. But the rewarding nature of it is what I love the best.

“I’m going to do the same trick as my father and encourage my kids to go away and then if they come, they come back. I’ve got two children and my cousin has two children so there’s a few more in the wings, but we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Name: Steve Plarre
Bakery: Ferguson Plarre’s Bakehouse
Steve Plarre is the fourth generation to enter the family business – Ferguson Plarre’s Bakehouse. After completing a Bachelor of Commerce degree he stepped into the business first as an accountant and finance manager, and is currently company CEO.

Steve (right) and his brother Michael

His story

“Both my brother and I grew up with cakes and pies in the household from day one. From the age of seven or eight we’d both jump in the car and head into work with Dad on a Saturday morning to help out in the bakery – although it wasn’t really helping. It was more like making a mess and eating the profits,” he said.

“Mike and I worked every school holiday from the age of about 14, riding our bike to work at 4am. After school Mike absolutely loved the hands-on bits of being a baker and went straight into the business. He did his apprenticeship after his VCE.

“I really enjoyed the management and marketing side of things and completed a Bachelor of Commerce  at the University of Melbourne. I worked part-time in the business during my degree, starting at 4am and then heading into uni at about 10am. When I finished my degree I took over as the company accountant and finance manager and started putting my learnings to use.

“Mum and Dad did a great job of telling us they had zero expectations of us joining the business and that there were much easier careers than baking! At this point Dad was getting up at 2am and getting home at 2pm, going to bed at 6pm and repeating, so they were being very honest. But Mike and I loved the bakery and always thought we ‘might’ join the business.

“I did explore the idea of working elsewhere but I was just so excited to put my uni learnings to work in the business after having such a good understanding of what the business needed to improve.

“Most people in the family bakery businesses that I know had a very similar experience to my brother and I. You get to spend time with your family and literally ‘baking’ people happy. There’s a lot to love about it and I think that’s why so many people end up following in their parents’ footsteps.

“Food and cooking sits at the heart of all cultures and communities and this always starts with cooking for your family. When you turn it into a business, the family is so often already involved and, like I said, there is an innate human joy in creating delicious food for other people to enjoy.

“[Working in a family business] you naturally get an incredibly in-depth understanding of the business from an early age, and this is powerful and incredibly valuable regardless of whether you continue on in that business.

“In terms of challenges, there are plenty. Plenty of families don’t get along and there’s always a big risk that personalities can impact important decision-making processes. Having clearly defined position descriptions and reporting structures are vital.”

Name: Stewart Latter
Bakery: Bread Basket, NSW
Stewart Latter is a fourth generation baker who owns Bread Basket in the NSW Hunter Valley. He did his apprenticeship under his father, Don, at the family-owned Latter Bros. bakery in Maitland, which at the time was the largest family-owned bakery in the state.

Stewart Latter

His story

“I grew up with the industry. Dad owned a bakery for most of my childhood and, being a child, I’d always go in there and help him on Sunday. I’d stand on a milk crate and put pie bottoms in – there were always jobs to be done. It wasn’t expected and I was never forced into it, but I was drawn to it because I’d seen my father work hard and I appreciated what he did,” he said.

“It was on my 15 birthday that I started as a first year apprentice baker. There was no TAFE college as such so I did it by correspondence for four years to the Sydney TAFE. Then I came back and did another four years as a pastry cook.

“We had a great like back when I first started. The job was only five days a week, so there was no weekend work – at that stage bakeries weren’t allowed to bake on weekends – the actual shopping hours were 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday and then a half-day on Saturday if you were in a smaller bakery. I worked in a plant bakery that my father and uncle owned. We supplied bread, cakes and pies to supermarkets.

“It’ll be interesting looking back in the next 20 years and see if it [multi-generational] businesses continues, because it’s certainly a lot harder than it used to be. It’s a tough gig, owning a business and running it. But I’ve met some great friends and had some great experiences.

“I’m the last generation in the business. Besides owning the bakery the four generations have always owned a farm, because back in the old days they owned the farm to cut wood for the wood-fired oven. Because they always had property they also always had cattle, because what else are they going to do with a paddock full of wood?

“Both my kids are in their 30s. One is managing a huge station in the territory and the other works part-time in charge of the dairy herd at the Ag college that’s in the Hunter Valley. And I still have the beef farm.

“The baking industry has been very good to me, and I think it’s a great trade. It can be very rewarding, I just wish more kids were drawn into it. I’ve been fortunate to qualify 32 apprentices in my career so far and there’s probably another 89 or 100 that didn’t make it.

“I couldn’t have done this for so long without the love, support and hard work of my wife, Sharon.

“There’s a privilege there of owning a business and training them properly that sometimes people take a bit for granted. There’s lots of hard work but it’s very rewarding.”