About our Whitley Bay Bakery
Visit our tiny Whitley Bay micro bakery for bread, pastries, and coffee.
You’ll find us at 70 Whitley Rd, Whitley Bay, NE26 2NE
Come in and say hello
Our story
Our business began during the summer of 2020 when Covid lock-down forced us to look inwards. As a way to nurture our passion for quality ingredients and good food, Ben began baking bread and pastries from our terraced house kitchen for friends and neighbours. By the end of the same year, people started queuing outside our door and suddenly we had a consistent group of regular customers that to this day are buying bread from us every week.
After lock-down restrictions started to ease, in January 2022 we took part for the first time at the Green Beans Market situated in Whitley Bay Metro Station. This was an unexpected success that gave us the confidence needed to look at our hobby as potentially a business.
For a whole year we continued making and selling from home every week and, once a month, attending the market at the Station and in the summer months we moved our selling location from our living room to a weekly market stall at our friends’ The Ticket Office at Whitley Bay Metro Station. In August 2022 Ben was featured in the BBC News – Business, which gave us a great boost of notoriety.
However, disaster struck on the 17th of February 2023, when Whitley Bay Metro Station suffered a great amount of damage following storm Otto, forcing an indefinite closure of the Station and leaving The Sustenance Society without a place to sell from.
We took this downfall as an opportunity to test our resilience and push our plans ahead. We now operate from our lovely shop situated at the heart of our community, together with our wonderful team of people. Come and join us on our bakery journey
Where it all began
Ben
Ben has worked in the catering industry for over 25 years. He has been head chef, manager and operation manager for a number of catering businesses.
Over the years in this industry, Ben developed a strong ethos for minimising food waste. He believes that as a society we need to train ourselves to see waste as potential and stop throwing food away.
Ben is the founder of The Sustenance Society as well as head baker.
Angie
Angie is Ben’s partner and worked in the design and architecture industry for over 10 years.
She also loves food beyond belief and has been trained by Ben in baking ever since The Sustenance Society’s inception.
I've been wanting to go to this lovely boutique bakery for such a long time, but I just couldn't find the time due to work. But this morning (7 March 2025), I finally made it there, and I'm so glad I did! I bought 10 of the delicious croissants, as well as different breads and other lovely products, to try out. Why did you buy 10 to test? I didn't want to go empty-handed to my friends at work, so I did. 🙂
I'll let you in on a secret: from the first bite of the croissant, all I could say was 'oh my god'. I mean, a croissant can only be made so perfect, right? After eating the croissant, I thought to myself, "What were the other croissants we've eaten so far?"
It's not oily like the standard croissants you eat, and it doesn't melt in your mouth straight away. The base was slightly overcooked, but the slightly burnt flavour made it perfect.
I really want to describe it, but I just can't find the words. It was the most perfect croissant I've ever tasted. I don't know who the owner, the producer, the master is, but I want to say thank you and thank you.
I would highly recommend you give this place a try.
Prices very reasonable - shame it’s not open for half the week.
You'll find us here
We’re somewhere in between Whitley Bay and Cullercoats metro stations and a short walk from the Cullercoats roundabout
Come say hello and experience The Sustenance Society.