Brown & Blond Leeds: Brownie business transforms derelict building in Morley into £500k bespoke bakery

Brown & Blond is a handmade brownie company founded by George Welton in his mum’s kitchen in 2010. It now makes around 60 different gooey, rich and chocolatey brownie flavours which are sold in cafes, delis, restaurants and independent retailers across Leeds and beyond.

The business has gone from strength to strength in recent years, prompting it to invest in bigger premises. It has moved from a 1,200 square foot site in Wortley to a 6,500 square foot bespoke brownie bakery on Melbourne Street in Morley.

Brown & Blond has invested £500,000 on the new bakery, which will allow the business to increase production from 1.5m to 5m units of brownies per year. It has also increased its staff numbers from eight to twelve people.

George and his wife Lucy got the keys to the Morley bakery in 2022 and it has taken 12 months of work to completely renovate the almost derelict building.

The bakery has been kitted out with modern equipment, including a high-tech Food Tools portioning machine which can efficiently cut trays of brownies into individual portions without creating any waste. This piece of kit was funded by the Product, Process and Innovation (PAPI) fund via the University of York.

The business has grown organically over the last 13 years, with brownies sold to wholesalers, delis, restaurants and cafes or direct to customers business online. Its current turnover is £1.6million which has grown 10-fold since 2016.

George said: “Our ambition has always been to make the best and most delicious brownies on the market, and this focus on quality has enabled us to grow organically over the last 13 years.

"It’s taken us 12 months to renovate and fit out our new 6,500 square foot bakery, and we’ve done a lot of it by hand while Lucy was pregnant with our second child, so to finally move in and start producing brownies is amazing.

"When these premises go full steam ahead it can make 100,000 brownies a week which will enable us to grow our stockists across the UK. My ambition is to build the wholesale businesses nationwide which will ultimately create more jobs and investment in the Leeds area.”