Controversial upmarket bakers Gail’s announce 40 NEW shops in England will likely be open by February subsequent yr – as protests over growth fail to break income

Upmarket bakery chain Gail’s is planning to have 40 new stores open in England by February after profit boosts – despite protests which have been mounted against recent new outlets.

The fast-growing chain said it wanted to continue expanding in areas across the country in the years ahead.

Gail’s opened 36 cafes over the past financial year, including the first locations in the south west of England, and the next 40 covering the latest financial year are set to be opened by the end of February 2026.

Sales totalled £278million in the year to the end of February 2025, up by about 20 per cent compared with the previous year, according to new accounts filed.

But the firm did reveal pre-tax losses surged to £7.8million, from £7.4million the year before, as it invested in new stores and saw business expenses and staff costs rise.

Gail’s had more than 4,000 staff at the end of February – about 500 more than the previous year, following the latest recruitment drive.

It also has a wholesale business that sells baked goods to other stores and supermarkets such as Waitrose and Ocado.

Directors of the company said the wholesale market was ‘very competitive’ but that it was attracting new and existing customers with high ‘quality at reasonable prices’.

Gail’s, whose sourdough loaves start from about £4.80, said the retail arm – meaning its bakeries – was the ‘faster growing and more profitable part’ of the group.

The company added: ‘But the market also remains very competitive and we recognise that to be able to grow we must continue to provide innovative world-class food in attractive neighbourhood bakeries.’ 

Gail’s told the Daily Mail: ‘We are pleased to have delivered strong year-on-year growth. This performance is underpinned by the increasing demand for high-quality, nutrient dense food, and by the support of the communities we serve.

‘We will continue to build on this momentum by growing with purpose and remaining committed to improving access to good food.’

Locals including rival traders have been raising concerns in recent months over Gail’s openings in their high streets – with criticisms that the stores symbolise gentrification and skyrocketing house prices.

Cafes and restaurants recently said a Gail’s store at the top of Crystal Palace hill in south London could ‘brainwash’ customers into buying elsewhere due to the influence of the corporate giant.

A post shared by independent coffee shop Brown & Green cafe in the Crystal Palace Triangle – at the heart of the town centre – attracted thousands of likes on Instagram.

It read: ‘I think we’d all be lying if we said we weren’t worried about this giant moving in. For all us independents, day-to-day trade isn’t a granted. We graft. We make changes. We number crunch. We cut hours. We reduce menus. We work. We get up and we do it every day. And, to be clear, it’s hard.

‘Our café in the triangle doesn’t make a profit. Yes, we are busy on weekends but this doesn’t cover our weekday losses. It’s tough out there and we are all fighting to stay afloat. Our friends and neighbours and all the small cafes on the triangle are trembling.’

In a final plea, it added: ‘Please think where you buy your coffee, your pastries, your bread, your lunch, brunch, breakfast… us local businesses appreciate you immensely.’

Laura Tilli, who runs the cafe with twin sister Jess, told the Standard: ‘Since Covid, everybody is struggling to stay alive and keep afloat. People don’t understand the expense and cost of running a café. Yes, we’re busy at the weekend but on weekdays it’s dead in the triangle.

‘The main concern with Gail’s coming in is that they’re going to be operating out of a huge site – it used to be a big pub.

‘We are worried it’s going to blow everybody out of the water. We are all selling pastries and coffees but they brainwash people. The Crystal Palace Triangle is very diverse. Some cafes only have eight or 10 covers.’

A Gail’s spokesman told the Daily Mail the chain ‘wholeheartedly supports independents’ and is ‘one of many businesses, only a small part of the retail picture’.

Earlier this year, locals and business owners on a street in Stoke Newington, north-east London, expressed fears their unique row of shops would be ‘ruined’ and ‘turned into Oxford Street’ following the announcement of a new Gail’s bakery.

Local couple Jay Karim and Malin Sonesson said they would not visit the new branch, with Mr Karim saying: ‘I’m not too happy, there are bakeries that have been here for 20 years. It is very much the peak of gentrification when a Gail’s opens.

‘It does devalue the street a little bit but the people who come here regularly will stay local, they know their places. I’ve got nothing against Gail’s but this is the wrong place.’

Ms Sonesson added: ‘I think it is terrible. It ruins the street. I think part of the soul of the street is going. Church Street is all about independent, bespoke little shops and boutiques.

‘Gail’s and Pret-A-Manger are just another coffee shop – it is all the same.’

Previously, hundreds of residents in Walthamstow, north-east London, also signed a petition to stop the company opening on their High Street amid fears it could run independent cafes out of business.

Gail’s, based on a firm founded by Gail Mejia in 1993, opened its first branch on Hampstead High Street in north London in 2005 and has since expanded to 170 outlets.

It was valued at £200million in 2021 when US private investment firm Bain Capital bought a majority stake. 

The so-called ‘Gail’s theory’ is a longstanding idea that Gail’s bakeries boost house prices – though MailOnline revealed this year that house prices in neighbourhoods blessed by the red and white awnings and exposed brick aesthetic of a Gail’s bakery are not actually rising any faster.

Our analysis using Government figures looked at house prices in the immediate vicinity of each established Gail’s store.

This compared the prices of homes sold in the quarter ending September 2024 to the same period the previous year. MailOnline ran its audit for every MSOA – a geographical area home to around 1,500 people – in authorities where Gail’s operates.

It found that the presence of a Gail’s bakery does not seem to have any meaningful effect on house prices.

Before the bakery established itself as a middle-class phenomenon, it was originally a wholesaler called The Bread Factory founded by Gail Mejia in 1993.

Ms Mejia and others among London’s ‘best bakers’ supplied artisanal bread and cakes to restaurants and hotels, from a site in Hendon, north London.

Tom Molnar and Ran Avidan, two businessmen working at one of the world’s biggest consultancy firms McKinsey, bought half the company in 2003 and two years later opened that first branch in Hampstead, in the London borough of Camden.