Imma The Bakery are establishing themselves as leaders in their fields, taking home not one but three Britain's Best Loaf 2026 prizes. This includes the overall prize announcing Tona and her team at Imma The Bakery as Winners of Britain's Best Loaf 2026. We caught up with Tona to find out her inspirations and take a tour of the bakery, and we even spotted Matthews flour in the stands too!
Can you tell us a little bit about your bakery?
I'd been working in fine dining for a long time and I really disliked the fact that in order to be part of those amazing experiences, you had to pay higher prices. We were trying to come up with a way to put ourselves together and come up with an experience that really touches people's souls through something that they can have more commonly. And this was the way to do it! We have this intention where we're coming to repeat something we do every day, so we want to try and achieve a better results than we did yesterday. We try to push ourselves each and every day.
What's the most rewarding part of being a baker?
What I really love is the connection that is created when someone comes in and buys something, we've created a community and it's magical. It's the intimacy of knowing someone is eating what we've prepared for them, and it's a very special feeling.
You've been using Matthews Cotswold Flour for a while now, how did you first discover Matthews Cotswold Flour?
We were looking to get the best of out the grain, the best flour, and we were really trying to keep away from imported grain. We wanted to work with someone who pushed regenerative agriculture and mills quality flour using those practices. There's so much we can extract in the flavour from the grain from someone that really puts a lot of effort into getting things at a nice level.
Do you have a favourite flour from the range that you tend to buy?
We buy and love the Wychwood flour.
Do you have a favourite bread or pastry that you love to make?
I love granary bread, it's something you don't find everywhere and just the malted flour and malted grain makes it really special.
How do you balance tradition with creativity in your baking?
What is tradition if not something that has been built by a lot of people doing new things. Something that was not a tradition 500 years ago is today. The reality is that we haven't discovered anything new as bakers, we are just finding new ways of interpretating what we have been doing for as long as there's been baking in humanity. I think it's about pushing what we can do to try and do it better, and try and find some way to put something really special into the world.
Where do you see your bakery in the next five years?
I'd like to think we'll be in the same place, doing the same thing, and constantly trying to get ourselves to a better quality, an even more sustainable production, and to keep servicing the people that have created a habit to come here and enjoy our products. Back in the day, there was an oath that bakers would pledge where you swore to never leave a village to starve. So, to me, we've basically pledged an oath and we are here to do it until we cannot doing it anymore.
