West Sussex bakery co-owned by Romesh Ranganathan gives away £1,000 worth of doughnuts

Coughlans Bakery – co-owned by Crawley comedian and actor Romesh Ranganathan – is opening its second Horsham shop at 1 Piries Place on Friday. It will replace Louise Sloan Opticians, which recently moved to a new premises at 3-4 Middle Street.

But for those who simply could not wait another 48 hours, business director Sean Coughlan invited people to pick up a free doughnut on Wednesday.

Sean gave out £1,000 worth of doughnuts from around 12.30pm – ‘as a little taster for when we open’.

The Coughlan family have been artisan bakers since their grandfather Jack founded the company in 1937. They specialise in fresh, handmade artisan food using local suppliers and the company is now in its third generation of bakers.

They use Jack’s original recipes and also aim to bring out new products every week.

Coughlans already has shops in Maidenbower, Crawley and in Dorking, as well as its other site in Blackbridge Lane, Horsham.

Sean explained: “I’ve wanted a shop in Horsham for a very long time and actually found the shop in Piries Place first and fell in love with the site.

"And then not long after, I found 102 Blackbridge Lane and liked them both – so I decided to go for both.

“All our bakery shops have exactly the same menu so this will be the case for our new Piries Place shop.

“The long term vision is to slowly grow. We make absolutely everything by hand but making sure we grow with control is vital.

"We still, to this day, use original recipes from my grandad’s days from when he founded us in 1937.

"Last year, our dear friend Romesh Ranganathan came on board and is just the best business partner.

"He’s super positive and really helps us giving us the confidence to spread our wings a bit more – hence us venturing into Sussex with our aim to venture further south too.”

Sean said he has a lot of family in Horsham and it’s ‘always been a real favourite place of mine’.

"With regards to community, that is what we love most – as family bakers,” he said.

"Being a hub of the community is one of the most important things. We bake in store, using only the best ingredients.

"We go to London’s new Covent Garden market every night for the best ingredients you can buy – our flour is milled 30 miles away.

"We are also a zero food waste business and support five local homeless charities every single day.

"Without community, we are nothing. We and our team all live in our local communities and we just love it.”