Bread Ahead has been told its lease at Borough Market will not be renewed, with founder Matthew Jones telling followers the market cited the bakery’s international expansion as the reason. Borough Market, a registered charity, said only that lease decisions follow a formal process applied “fairly and consistently,” as the two sides gave conflicting accounts of a dispute that Jones said could cost 83 jobs.
Bread Ahead began as a bakery and baking school stall at Borough Market in 2013 and has since opened further sites in Wembley, Chelsea and Leicester Square. The company opened its first bakery outside London on Harpenden High Street this month, under what it describes as an owner-operator model for long-standing staff, and has separately opened a bakery in New York and signed a partner for outlets across Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. Matthew Jones said Borough Market told him the bakery had become “too successful because we’re franchised internationally.”
Two accounts of the same decision
Jones told followers on Instagram: “Borough Market has informed us that Bread Ahead has to leave the estate. The reason the charity gave us is that we’ve been too successful because we’re franchised internationally.” Borough Market, approached for comment, did not confirm or deny that account, saying it valued its relationships with traders and that lease renewals followed “a formal process” communicated to traders in advance, applied “fairly and consistently” across the market. It declined to discuss the specifics of Bread Ahead’s tenancy, citing confidentiality.
Franchise, or owner-operator?
Jones’s description of Bread Ahead as “franchised internationally” sits alongside a different account of its own expansion the company gave only days earlier. Announcing the Harpenden opening on 7 September 2026, Bread Ahead described it as an owner-operator model, giving long-standing employees a stake and a share of profits rather than a franchise agreement. Bread Ahead’s own website does not publish a franchise recruitment page, and the exact structure behind its New York bakery and its partner-led sites in Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia has not been set out publicly, though an overseas partner taking development rights for a whole territory would point to what is known as a master franchise.
Good to know
An owner-operator model, in which existing staff take a stake in a new site, is a distinct arrangement from franchising, in which an outside franchisee buys into an agreement with the brand. Companies sometimes describe both as routes to expansion without treating them as the same thing.
The jobs at stake
Jones said the “devastating” decision would mean the loss of 83 jobs in London if it goes ahead, and described the business as entirely self-funded. “I’ve never borrowed a penny in my life. I’m bootstrapped to this business,” he said, adding that he had worked as a chef for 30 years after leaving school at 15. He said the two sides were in “a bit of legal back and forth” and that he was waiting for a response from the market.
What comes next
Neither Bread Ahead nor Borough Market has set out a timetable for the trader’s departure, and the market says it does not comment on individual tenancies. For other multi-site operators trading from London’s historic markets, the dispute raises a question increasingly relevant across UK hospitality and retail: how a market or landlord treats a tenant’s growth once that growth extends well beyond a single high-profile stall. Operators looking at a first site of their own can compare bakery and pastry franchises recruiting in the UK.
