Speltbakers came about in 2010 and started in our kitchen in Bramblestown in Gowran. Originally from Germany, I never saw eye to eye with the sliced pan and was always baking our own bread. With Asthma in the family, a homeopath turned us to spelt and thus speltbakers was born.
Glasrai and Goodies, the beautiful small deli in Gowran, opened at a similar time and started taking our bread. The Good Earth health food shops in Kilkenny followed suit and we were away.
In 2013, with a LEADER grant, we moved from the kitchen to a renovated shed across the yard and with a designated facility and bigger ovens, we grew another bit and started selling at markets.
We are still a tiny bakery, we still work with “small” pastry ovens and struggle against insufficient electricity supply that makes our lights dim when both ovens are on. However, since most family members sleep when we work, that is not much of a problem!
As the kids grew older, they all joined the business for a while and other staff members joined the growing circus. Now the children have all moved on and we work with 5 amazing part time bakers and deliver to Waterford, Kilkenny and Carlow.
We are members of Real Bread Ireland and believe passionately in good food, real bread and healthy, local food supplies. We sell to shops in Kilkenny and Waterford, we sell at markets in Inistioge, Kilkenny, Carlow and Porlaoise and we also do home deliveries and postal orders. Basically, we do our best to bake good bread and get this to our local customers.
We bake Wednesday to Saturday except for 10 days over Christmas and the new year and our annual leave for 3 weeks in July.
The Team
Josephine Plettenberg started the idea and owns the business. Her children Bella, Pauli and Felix all worked as bakers over the last few years, while another son, Seppie, was instrumental in technical back-up. In 2023 Alan Walton, Emer Tuohy and Willie Culleton work with us as bakers. Alan also runs the Kilkenny bread round and sells at the market in Kilkenny. Emer also does the Kilkenny bread round and the Market support in Carlow. Tom Dempsey is in charge of the Waterford run.
