Popular South Australian bakery, Home Grain, closes its Mt Compass site

Family-run Home Grain Bakery has closed one of its four regional sites in an effort to survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

Home Grain Bakery owners Toff and Cara West inside their Mt Compass store, which they have decided to close. Picture: Mike Burton/AAP

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A popular bakery brand in the Fleurieu Peninsula has closed one of its outlets in an effort to survive the economic downturn created by COVID-19.

The family-run Home Grain Bakery has shut its Mount Compass site, which had catered for holiday-makers travelling toward the coast along Victor Harbor Rd.

It was one of four bakeries for owners Toff and Cara West, opened in August 2015.

“The whole business is declining, definitely,” said Mr West, who with his wife opened the first Home Grain in Aldinga at the end of 2011.

“That store (Mt Compass) in particular is quieter through winter, and we’re coming up to winter. Given the lack of people travelling … and our lease is up in June … it was a question of, do we walk away now?

Home Grain Bakery owners Toff and Cara West have made the difficult decision to close their Mt Compass site as it’s no longer sustainable. Pictured with their children, Meg, 7, James, 8, and Charlie, 4. Picture: MIKE BURTON/AAP

“We’re really trying to be strategic too in that, I’m expecting this to go on for at least six months, operating in a world where we’ve got fewer people coming in and we can’t have more than two or three people in the store at a time.”

The Wests have managed to relocate their two full-time and four casual staff to other sites. Mr West said their aim is to retain the 50 employees across the business, though it’s not an easy task.

“We’re running lean,” he said. “We’re an awkward-sized business, between small and big, so you don’t get some of the benefits of a bigger business … survival in this environment is critical.”

The team is focusing on a “core offering” of pies and coffee, for which Home Grain is well known, at the remaining Aldinga, McLaren Flat and Middleton bakeries.

“Our goal is to provide every essential worker their morning coffee, a delicious lunch and a smile,” Mr West said. News of the Mt Compass closure follows the business shutting shop over Easter – an otherwise busy time of the year. Fellow popular Fleurieu bakery, Port Elliot Bakery, also shut its doors over the long weekend as South Australians were encouraged to stay home.