There’s a new urban grain bakery on the block in the little town of Port Macquarie and this unassuming new figure is harbouring some baking legends that decided to give their own business venture a crack.

When Catherine Jugmans spoke with old friend Tim Dunn about opening a shop together, it was one of those things said in passing that no one actually expects to happen. But, as fate would have it, Catherine moved to Port Macquarie in April 2016 with her partner who is from Port Macquarie.

“Tim and I used to work together in Sydney a few years ago. We kept in contact and he wanted to get out of Sydney and I said ‘great, I’m in Port Macquarie’,” she said.

Their third business partner Reghan Dias worked with Tim at Adriano Zumbo in Sydney, and having the three business partners is ideal because, as Catherine says, it means they can have some sort of lifestyle on top of the business.

“At the moment we’re still on night shift because we’re just settling down, but after Easter we’ll settle back into early morning starts, which will be bake off and then production for the next day,” Tim says.

“Because of the heat we are doing production before bake off – it’s too hot for the croissants at the moment.”

At Urban Grain, Catherine looks after the front of house business side of things, Tim is the master baker behind the bread and pastry and Reghan is the chef behind the pies, sausage rolls, sandwiches and salads, and he looks after the catering.

Tim has a wealth of baking experience, working in top-class bakeries and in fine dining in both Australia and London, including Harrods, The Real Greek, the Westminster Hotel, the Hayman, Central Baking Depot and Adriano Zumbo, where he worked before Urban Grain.

The atmosphere of Urban Grain Bakery itself strongly reflects the team’s ethos and where they want to take the business. The store is located at the end of an arcade and is simply decorated, a bit industrial and rustic with seating for about 10. It has glass all around the shop, which Catherine says is to show their transparency.

“It’s all open and we have all of our storage of our flour on the window sills. We try to be as honest as we can so everyone knows what’s going into their food and we don’t need to hide anything,” she says.

While the store only opened last December, Catherine and Tim say the bakery has been well received, although small towns aren’t without their challenges.

“Port Macquarie is a very loyal town and it’s hard breaking that, but we’re slowly getting there,” Catherine says.

“Customers say the pastry is awesome but they’re a bit afraid of sourdough because this town doesn’t actually have quality sourdough,” Tim adds.

Urban Grain use stoneground flour and are trying to spread the word about why stoneground flour is better for you and makes a superior product. Tim says Urban Grain Bakery is heading towards what he wants the bakery to be, which is a supplier of healthy and nutritious foods.

“I want to get away from the stigma of white bread itself. I want to change the pastries so that they’re healthier too, rather than using the traditional white flour in them,” he says.

On a typical day Urban Grain Bakery will stock their standard line of bread, as well as a few specialty items. They always run a heritage sourdough line as well as a spelt and grain. On alternate days they’ll make ciabatta, baguettes and white rolls.

“Twice a week we have what is probably our favourite loaf – Mount Zero olives with basil and pesto, it is amazing,” Catherine says.

“Our specialty would be our heritage stoneground loaf though – that would be our prizewinner.”

Because they’re so newly opened Catherine says their pastry range is standard at the moment but soon they’ll be doing weekly specials and experimenting.

“We have croissants that are made from stoneground flour, pan raisin, pan au chocolat, and we do a beautiful raspberry and lemon curd Danish – that’s a favourite as well,” Catherine says.

“The stoneground flour is hard to work with but the boys do a really good job being able to produce what they do with it. The nutritional benefit far outweighs anything else.”

Urban Grain has started doing hot cross buns as well in time for Easter, and has pies and sausage rolls daily. There’s always a vibrant salad on the menu, as well as three different varieties of sandwiches.

With their ingredients, Urban Grain try to use local as much as possible.

“We can’t do it for everything, we were trying to find a local olive supplier and we couldn’t – it’s hard to beat Mount Zero olives anyway so we use a local fruit and veg supplier and a local butcher,” Catherine says.

“Our coffee comes from a boutique roaster in Sydney and he’s friends with Tim. He actually makes the coffee machines as well and it’s a beautiful under-bench one.”

For a bakery that’s just opened, Urban Grain Bakery are well on their way to kicking goals for what they want their products to be, as well as educating the community about the health benefits of their products at the same time.