A commercial bakery inside HMP Northumberland has grown, adding 20 training places for prisoners.
The bakery has moved into a former prison kitchen that had fallen out of use, which it has converted into a modern production unit. The work cost more than £100,000.
The Oswin Project, a local charity, runs the business jointly with Sodexo, the private company that operates the prison. Five funders gave grants towards the expansion. They were The Convey Trust, St Hilda’s Trust, Scottish Power, the O’Flaherty Foundation and The Community Foundation.
Professional bakers and volunteers staff the bakery together. It produces 25 kinds of pie, along with bread, quiches and cakes. A staff canteen and outside catering contracts buy its products.
Its workforce of prisoners will rise from 10 to 30. The men earn food safety qualifications and learn specialist baking skills they can use in any bakery after release.
Invited guests and sponsors toured the new facilities at an official opening at the prison on 3 September.
Products from the bakery already sell through ‘Café 16’. The café has one outlet inside the prison and another at Newcastle Cathedral. The prison’s farm shop and local outlets also stock them. The bakery will keep buying ingredients locally where it can.
Fiona Sample, Chief Executive Officer of The Oswin Project, said Baking Out gave prisoners work and learning, backed by mentoring. She said this helped to break the cycle of reoffending. According to her, 80 per cent of prisoners were on return trips to jail.
She put the charity’s reoffending rate at 3 per cent, against a national average of 38 per cent. She also criticised successive governments for treating new prison places as the answer, calling that option expensive and ineffective.
Vicky Robinson, Director at HMP Northumberland, said the prison was proud of its long-standing partnership with the charity. She described the new bakery as a strong addition to the prison’s range of purposeful activities.
HMP Northumberland is a category C prison for men in the North East. It last had a full inspection in December 2025. Inspectors rated all four areas as reasonably good: safety, respect, purposeful activity and preparation for release.
