Borough Market will not renew its lease, says Bread Ahead

Borough Market will not review the lease on Bread Ahead's bakery and baking school, the company's founder Matthew Jones said this week, and he has taken the argument public under the hashtag #SaveBreadAhead.

Jones said he had been told the business had become too successful for the market, and that its expansion outside London counted against a renewal. "I honestly never imagined that being successful could put our home at risk," he said in the statement that opened the campaign.

Borough Market declined to discuss the tenancy, citing confidentiality. In its statement the market said it values its relationships with traders, that lease renewals go through a formal process, and that terms are communicated to traders well before expiry. It said it remains in contact with the Bread Ahead team.

A market's traders are its product; one that outgrows the arches is an awkward case.

What the market says about renewals

Borough is run by a charitable trust and its traders hold leases rather than freeholds, which leaves the trust with the final say on who occupies which arch. It has never published the criteria it applies to a renewal, and this week's statement named none.

Jones's position is that Bread Ahead remains founder-led and independent, and that growth has not changed what the business does at Borough. He said he intends to defend that position for the sake of the staff and the site.

From one stall to Dubai and New York

Bread Ahead started at Borough in 2013 with a stall and three products. It became a bakery, then a baking school that has taught tens of thousands of people, then a doughnut business with a permanent queue. It now trades in Dubai, Bangkok and Saudi Arabia and opens its first American site in New York in November.

That growth is the fact both sides are arguing about. A market's traders are its selling point, and a trader that outgrows the market is a harder case to settle than a trader that fails.

Neither side has given a date for the expiry of the current lease. British hospitality has spent the year closing sites at about twenty a day, which makes a landlord's decision about a profitable tenant unusual enough to be worth following.