VIDEO: Battle of the Silkstone bakeries heats up

National franchises and traditional family favourites go toe-to-toe

ON a quiet suburban street corner, between a major housing and shopping development and traditional local favourites, the battle of the bakeries is in full swing.

In one corner are the family owned and run favourites, serving pies and pastries to the Silkstone community for decades, but in the other corner is a national franchise, armed with secret pie ingredients.

A third bakery within a matter of metres was a situation Hot Bread Bin owner Tuyet Huynh had been dreading since Bremer high school vacated the site on Grange Rd in 2011 and development of $85 million shopping centre and 140 strong housing precinct started.

Ms Huynh and husband Huy Nguyen enjoyed a constant lunch-time tradie trade while the construction was in process but close to three months later, the development could be their fatal competition.

BAKE OFF: Johnny and Julie Nguyen and Tuyet Huynh from the Hot Bread Bin are holding their ground despite strong competition.. Picture: Rob Williams

The small family-owned bakery's shelves are busting with home baked treats and Vietnamese lunches as an edge on the new competition.

Ms Huynh is worried the pork rolls won't be enough.

"We are very lonely here and it's very inconvenient," she said.

"It was very scary before it opened and now we're worried."

Ms Huynh said the development brought a third bakery to the street corner but also halved the customer parking.

"My husband already works 2am to 5pm but we're just going to have to work harder because we're not moving."

Across the street and nestled between plenty of car parks and a gleaming Coles supermarket, Leon Ly and his wife Sandra Tran have two generations of baking experience, multiple state and national pie titles and secret ingredients behind their business Ray's Patisserie.

BAKE OFF: Johnny and Julie Nguyen and Tuyet Huynh from the Hot Bread Bin are holding their ground despite strong competition. Picture: Emma Clarke

Mr Ly can reveal the secret ingredients are soy sauce and nutmeg.

The pair also have bold plans to expand into two other Ipswich suburbs.

"My father has been 30 years in the bakery industry and in 2006 we were the best pie in Australia, John Howard came and shook our hand," he said. "My father had 30 bakeries around Australia.

"We were concerned about the competition and the day before we signed the lease we went and tasted the competition and still went ahead with it.

"We were confident. We are the winner, why we're confident is we know exactly what we're doing."

While his personal pie preference is bacon and cheese, Mr Ly said the key to a good pie was in the ingredients and the stiff quality control standards his wife set.

"Basically beef stinks, to kill the stink, you have to put something in to kill the stink and soy sauce isn't strong enough," he said.

"My wife is quality control, anything that is not acceptable by her doesn't make it."

A third bakery owner on the same street corner, who wished not to be identified, said she previously enjoyed strong trade from the school students and loyal customers for the past 10 years.

She said they were customers she depended on to stay baking in the future.

"I've got a lot of loyal customers, we've had very loyal customers," she said.

Originally published as VIDEO: Battle of the Silkstone bakeries heats up