Earlier this year, after mapping Wenzel's bakeries in North London, I wrote "I really should draw some Coughlans maps one day." Alas I'm too late, they ceased trading on Tuesday.
Coughlans were a family bakery chain based mostly in south London and Surrey. The founder was Jack Coughlan who opened a single shop in Thornton Heath way back in 1937, so they haven't quite reached their 90th anniversary. Here's the store in Wallington with its comfortingly brown frontage, but alas no queues for bread because the shelves are now empty.
Coughlans were a proper bakery pitched between the elite flakery of Gail's and the mass-produced churn of Greggs. They served up loaves and crusty rolls, also gingerbread men and eccles cakes. Yes you could walk out with a sourdough toastie and a Chocolate Lotus Biscoff Cupcake but alternatively a hot bacon roll and a slice of bread pudding, which was all bases covered. Coughlans were also proud of baking their own, indeed "At 2am this morning our bread was still flour" is not a sign you'll ever see in Pret. They always seemed well targeted for a shopping parade staple, serving both the comfortingly everyday and the sweetly forward-looking, but alas they couldn't hold back the march of economics.
News of closure came at the very end of June, announced by 3rd generation boss Sean Coughlan on social media. We've gone into immediate voluntary liquidation, he said, which isn't something he ever thought would happen. He explained that even up to the end of March all was well, indeed a recent burst of cash from new co-owner Romesh Ranganathan had provided a welcome boost. But on 1st April business rates went up, which when you have 31 stores dents profits, and all this on top of an increase in National Insurance contributions the previous year. He said various global conflicts had seen the fuel bill double, also the price of ingredients had gone "through the roof".
But what actually tipped the balance were our two recent heatwaves because when it gets too hot people don't come out for baked goods and takeaways. Sales during June's prolonged record-breaker were apparently 50% of normal, still with all the same overheads, so with daily turnover tumbling they decided to pull the plug. Sean said he was devastated and that he was hurting, but also that "business rates have absolutely smashed local retail". He didn't say out loud that the Chancellor had screwed his business but that was the subtext, a progressive measure imposed just as high streets were increasingly unable to cope.
There are indications that the closure was abrupt and not especially well-thought through. Staff were apparently informed of the closure via text message rather than any coordinated communication. The day after the closure the Wallington store still looked open apart from a sheet of paper in the window on which someone had used a faded black marker to write WE ARE CLOSING DOWN THANK YOU AND SORRY. The Addiscombe branch did at least have a proper "We are closing" notice but when I looked through the glass a tray of unsold pasties and sausage rolls was still uncovered on an otherwise stripped counter.
Nothing whatsoever has changed on the Coughlans website which still lists 31 open stores and urges you to consider buying vegan party platters. As for Instagram all is normal there too, the reel with which Sean announced the closure to the public having expired after 24 hours. Coughlans do come across as having been inept online, with just three Instagram posts in the last year and a single Meal Deal offer on their website which expired in September 2017. Facebook and Threads were updated more regularly but appear to have frozen a week before the closure, including several pleas to order iced lattes locally during the heatwave, which clearly didn't work.
Journalists at Inside Croydon have been doing some digging and wonder if something else has been going on. The latest annual accounts for Coughlans Bakeries show turnover increasing to £6.8 million and losses falling from £229,600 in 2024 to £98,800 in 2025, so the financial foundations appeared strong. There had also been a significant withdrawal of "tangible assets", down from £3,476,436 to £607,929, suggesting £2,868,507 had been transferred elsewhere. This change coincided with the directors setting up a new company called Smitham Lodge Estates Ltd which in its first year mysteriously acquired £5,617,500 of "investment property". The Coughlans have since claimed that "the separation of the property assets from the trading business was not something undertaken in anticipation of the current circumstances", but the fact remains that one of the two companies has been liquidated and the other hasn't.
Now it's too late, I have of course done the Coughlans map thing. (London's in white and all the administrative districts bordering Greater London are grey)
The 31 bakeries are very much a south London and Surrey thing, so if you've never been south of Wimbledon you'll never have seen one. Interestingly the northernmost Coughlans is their very first shop in Thornton Heath, suggesting they decided it was only ever worth spreading southwards. 12 of the bakeries are in London, the vast majority in the borough of Croydon (plus two in Wallington and one in West Wickham). All the rest are in Surrey bar three in West Sussex (Horsham, Horsham, Crawley) and one in Kent (Westerham). All the stores which opened in the last five years were outside London.
Coughlans isn't the only regional bakery chain to have succumbed to outside forces. In 2020 east London icons Percy Ingle threw in the towel, thwarted almost overnight by the pandemic. Northwest London continues to be covered by Wenzel's, seemingly going strong, but even though they've expanded elsewhere they've never entered Percy Ingle or Coughlans territory. Meanwhile southwest London is long past its budget bakery chain phase, preferring fancy artisan outlets instead.
It's always sad when a longstanding business closes, especially one that brought affordable pleasure to thousands. But I worry that what we're seeing in the capital is the slow extinguishing of what I'd call 'proper' bakeries doing ordinary stuff, increasingly edged out by expensive alternatives selling overpriced fruity croissants and Scandi treats to pastry fetishists with the wherewithal to pay for it. Younger Londoners wouldn't even know what a Chelsea bun was, let alone hanker for one, so won't even notice as the tradbakery clientele ages and the last sandwichmongers close their shutters for good. If Andy Burnham could bring just one great thing down from the north and install it in the capital, some decent bun shops would be excellent.
