General News
27 March, 2025
White loaf among the state’s best at Waacks Bakery
WAACKS Bakery is celebrating its success after gaining the honour of producing the third best white block loaf in the state at the Victorian Baking Show on Saturday, March 1.
WAACKS Bakery is celebrating its success after gaining the honour of producing the third best white block loaf in the state at the Victorian Baking Show on Saturday, March 1.
Owners Shane and Kate Ratcliffe said it is ‘really pleasing’ to gain this recognition for their locally owned bakery.
“For a small business like us, where we're quite niche with our product mix, we face those challenges going up against very large businesses,” Mr Ratcliffe said.
“This award is a testament to the quality of guys we have baking for us.
“It's not easy putting bread on the shelf every day at an affordable price, up against a lot of these bigger supermarkets.”
In addition to the location at 56 Main Street in Stawell, Waacks Bakery also operates locations in Horsham and Ararat.
“It's not easy running three locations, I can guarantee you that,” Mr Ratcliffe said.
“Every day we're presented with different challenges, and having almost nearly 40 staff on our on our books, we're probably one of the bigger employers around.
The couple bought Waacks Bakery in 2022, having previously built a construction materials business from the ground up in Melbourne.
Mr Ratcliffe said the couple built their Melbourne business on three core principals; quality of product, value for money and customer service.
“Quality of product, that has to be exceptional ... if you are good value for money, then consumers will naturally congregate to you … and then customer service, without that, your other two are completely irrelevant,” Mr Ratcliffe said.
When the couple decided to move from Melbourne to Stawell they looked at a couple options of what they could do before deciding to buy a food business.
“We both have a small passion for cooking and we enjoy eating good food and creating and making good food so, so that sort of naturally lent itself into a food based business,” Mr Ratcliffe said.