Background
Owned by father and daughter team Clayton and Hannah Worth, Swansea-based Bowla produce innovative bowler hat-shaped bread loaves which function as an edible bowl and a roll for dipping.
Bowla uses a patented mould which enables the dough to bake into its unique shape and it can be filled with any leavened dough including white and brown bread, Yorkshire puddings and doughnuts.
The initial product concept dates back to 2007 when Clayton had a mishap with a charity shop bought bread making machine – the combination of missing instructions and too much dough led to an accidentally top hat shaped loaf! After years of trial and error, Clayton refined the product concept to develop the company’s patented mould.
As neither Clayton nor Hannah has a baking background, they contacted ZERO2FIVE in late 2022 for specialist bakery support with developing their product range ready for launch.
Support from ZERO2FIVE
Spending a hands-on training day at ZERO2FIVE’s bakery, Bowla were helped to develop their product range. This included the fundamentals of baking theory and technique, looking at different ingredients and their functionality, how to use different pieces of equipment and refining the amount of dough used in their moulds to achieve the optimum product shape.
In addition to the baking day, the team at ZERO2FIVE visited Bowla’s manufacturing site and provided support with the layout of their production area.
Benefits of the support
As a result of the support from ZERO2FIVE, Bowla were equipped with the recipes and baking skills needed to take their products to market.
Bowla successfully launched in April 2023 with a stall at Swansea Indoor Market and the company hopes to franchise and license their moulds and branding to other businesses who would like to sell the product.
Hannah Worth, Co-founder, Bowla:
“The support from ZERO2FIVE has benefited us hugely as a business - they've been a huge part of the journey that we've been on. As two non-bakers starting a bakery business it was quite daunting.
"The team at ZERO2FIVE were really friendly and helpful. They were always on hand to answer any questions we had."
