Unwrapped

Why Grasmere Gingerbread® believes in giving…

When, in 1854, Victorian baker Sarah Nelson, husband Wilfred and their two daughters Dinah and Mary Ann fell on hard times, they sought refuge in tiny Church Cottage in Grasmere.

With Rory Bremner speaking from the pulpit, Britain’s Got Talent finalist Maxwell Thorpe in hearty voice, Victorian street urchins roaming the aisles and a cameo of Grasmere Gingerbread® inventor Sarah Nelson.

A BOOK called ‘Amelia and her Time Travelling Trainers’ which celebrates the 170th anniversary of Grasmere Gingerbread® is being launched in Grasmere with four FREE storytelling sessions for children during the October half-term holiday.

John Bland, 80, who attends the Cumbria Quality Care Day Centre at Gilwilly, won a special 170th anniversary commemorative tin of Grasmere Gingerbread® after his Shrek-themed spoon was judged a box office hit.

Grasmere Gingerbread® makes sweet deal with Sheffield’s Bullion craft chocolate company.

THREE ‘Golden Tickets’ will deliver cash prizes of £170 to Grasmere Gingerbread® customers during its ongoing 170th anniversary celebrations.

Joanne Hunter, co-director of Grasmere Gingerbread® spoke to Cumbria Business Crack on the 170th anniversary of Grasmere Gingerbread®.

Grasmere Gingerbread has claimed a second prestigious award within a matter of months.

How the plight of a Victorian mother facing homelessness inspired Grasmere Gingerbread® to support Crisis in Newcastle.

Love is in the air as brides-to-be planning their big day once again turn to Grasmere Gingerbread®.

Christmas is a time for giving and sharing so Grasmere Gingerbread ® got in touch with two charities devoted to alleviating the scourge of homelessness.

With a shop measuring just 6ft square, Grasmere Gingerbread® clinched the title of Large Independent Retailer of the Year at the Speciality & Fine Food Fair Awards at Olympia, London.

Grasmere Gingerbread® has opened a second shop in Hawkshead.

Two Lake District legends join forces for a very special offering this year.

Cumbria’s artisans meet and greet each other to cement countywide collaboration.

A children’s author is to host four free storytelling sessions about a cheeky robin visiting The Grasmere Gingerbread Shop.

Grasmere Gingerbread® donated £2,500 to Cumbrian foodbanks outside their historic shop in the Lake District.

Joanne Hunter took a nostalgic stroll around Grasmere and recalled lifelong memories of the village in a special Christmas podcast.

Every December Grasmere Gingerbread® donates money from Christmas mail order sales to charity, with past beneficiaries Shelter and the Samaritans.

Grasmere Gingerbread® picked up two accolades at this year’s in-Cumbria Awards held in Carlisle.

Top Cumbrian chefs aim to cook up a storm using Grasmere Gingerbread® in mouth-watering recipes.

Grasmere Gingerbread® was egg-static when it teamed up with Westmorland Farmhouse & Kitchen to produce a limited edition, handmade, dark chocolate Easter egg which incorporated a swirl of Grasmere Gingerbread® crumbs.

Book your chance to win a night away in a lovely 4* Lake District hotel in this easy-to-enter competition that celebrates English Tourism Week 2022.

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Grasmere Gingerbread® has presented a cheque for £2,325 to the British Red Cross after donating 50p from each Christmas order to the charity which assists communities in crisis.

If you’re searching for something out-of-the-ordinary and extra-romantic this Valentine’s Day, Grasmere Gingerbread® has it covered with an array of unique mouth-watering gifts to share with a loved one or friend. It’s time to get spoiled…

In Charles Dickens’ festive novel A Christmas Carol, Mrs Cratchit’s anxiety before unveiling her steaming hot Christmas pudding ‘like a speckled cannon-ball…blazing in half of half-a-quarten of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top’ is ultimately baseless as husband Bob declares it is a ‘wonderful pudding’. We hope you will feel similarly elated after eating our special Christmas pudding…

It was a case of ‘say goodbye’ but then ‘say hello’ when Grasmere Gingerbread® baker Steve retired but then decided to keep his hand in by coming back to work three mornings a week.

More and more people are swapping high-pressured corporate career ladders and frenzied inner city lifestyles for less stressful and more rewarding jobs in beautiful rural locations. Cumbria and the Lake District are increasingly sought after as locations that offer a superb quality of life without all the hassle of the modern metropolis.

Grasmere Gingerbread® prides itself on working collaboratively with other local artisan suppliers and small family businesses in Cumbria and the north of England. Over the years it has helped us to create an array of innovative and exclusive products that are authentic to the region where we live and work.

For most people, one of life’s greatest and simplest pleasures is enjoying a steaming mug of freshly brewed coffee. So, welcome to Sarah Nelson's Comfort Coffee, a delicious medium-bodied roast bursting with a bitter-sweet ‘tart’ fruit flavour

After our most successful ever Christmas mail order sales, we donated £3000 to The Salvation Army who work tirelessly helping the hungry, homeless and lonely.

Are you in love and missing your sweetheart? Or - in these toughest of times when so many of us are just separated from family and friends because of ‘lockdown’ and the need to ‘stay safe’ maybe you just want to tell someone ‘Hello, I’m thinking about you’ or ‘You’re in my heart’. If so, send them a fabulous Grasmere Gingerbread® heart decorated with your special personalised message to let them know they’re loved and valued. 

As Christmas approaches, the Lake District’s fragile tourism industry is waiting patiently to welcome you back to the Lake District to enjoy some Christmas shopping. 

GRASMERE Gingerbread® is using its online shop to stock many new products by its Cumbrian artisan suppliers with many more coming down the pipeline in the next weeks.

They include an eco-friendly 65% alcohol hand sanitiser by Pure Lakes, homemade fudges by Country Flavour, jewellery by Tilly Mint Silver and even pocket hug cards by Invite you to the do.

Joanne Hunter talks about family business with broadcaster, comedian and keynote public speaker Emma Stroud in her latest podcast.  Journalist Alan Air previews their verbal bout.

Aficionados of all things Grasmere Gingerbread® are sure to be delighted by two new lovely collectibles added to our merchandise portfolio in 2020 by two wonderful Northern artisan suppliers.

Shoppers praised Grasmere Gingerbread® over its innovative red/green traffic light system to help keep people safe from Covid-19.

Impressed customers took to TripAdvisor to post congratulatory comments.

At the start of the Covid-19 outbreak we appealed to our customers to nominate doctors, nurses, carers and other people working in frontline services who might appreciate a gift of Grasmere Gingerbread®.

WHEN a couple’s wedding in the Peak District was postponed because of Covid 19 they overcame their disappointment by thinking of others.

Grasmere Gingerbread® raised £1,600 for Shelter, the charity that campaigns to end homelessness and bad housing in England and Scotland.

PUTTING your boyfriend on the spot is tough enough at the best of times.

A TRAIN name plate with an amazing track record has gone on permanent public display in Carlisle thanks to Grasmere Gingerbread®.

Grasmere Gingerbread® is a global icon – and that’s official!

“We are a relatively isolated county and many Cumbrians live far apart from each other. Isolation – at a time when many mental health services have been cut back – can contribute to loneliness, depression and crippling anxiety that stops people leading fulfilling lives,” 

165 years after it was first made and started attracting curious visitors to its door, Grasmere Gingerbread® has been formally recognised by Cumbria Tourism (CT).

WHAT was once fed to pigs in Grasmere village has raised a staggering £5,000 for vital conservation work in the Lake District.

Grasmere Gingerbread® is in the running for the 2019 Cumbria Tourism Makers & Producers Award.

POET TS Eliot’s masterpiece The Wasteland evokes the misery of human depression.Its opening line ‘April is the cruellest month’ is a literary reminder that suicide and depression rates are highest in the spring.

USING milk from pedigree Jersey cows that may be traced back to the original breed in 1763, Abbott Lodge near Penrith has created an exclusive ice cream for Grasmere Gingerbread®.

TV’S Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith praised Grasmere Gingerbread® after it collected a prestigious food award.

Grasmere Gingerbread® is one of the UK’s most prestigious exporters. It was formally recognised as an Export Champion by the Government’s Department of Trade.

CRUMBS! Hundreds of new students received a spicy-sweet surprise welcome to theUniversity of Cumbria.

GRASMERE® Gingerbread has phased out 95 % of its plastic bubble wrap on mail order deliveries.

A LETTER and telephone interview earned a teenage girl a rare work placement at the prestigious 164-year-old Grasmere Gingerbread Shop in the Lake District.

CUMBRIA’S Grasmere Gingerbread® is celebrating its 164^th birthday with a stunning national accolade

Gingerbread® staff hit the road on a good-natured meet-and-greet countywide tour of their suppliers.

‘If you build it, he will come,’ from Field of Dreams is one of the most famous movie quotations of all time.

The 164-year-old, fourth generation business was named the Best Food Producer in the county.

January got off to a flying start – literally – when Joanne Hunter, co-owner of Grasmere Gingerbread® travelled to a San Francisco trade show to meet lots of dedicated American customers.

THE original secret recipe for Grasmere Gingerbread® has a new home.

A FAMILY-OWNED Penrith courier stepped in to Christmas and saved the day for hundreds of customers of Grasmere Gingerbread®.

FOR the first time in its 163-year-old history, Grasmere Gingerbread® is the spicy-sweet star of a giant advertising billboard.

GRASMERE Gingerbread® was thrilled to be shortlisted in the Family-Owned Business of the Year category of the 2017 Amazon Growing Business Awards.

Grasmere Gingerbread co-owner Joanne Hunter welcomed the county’s famous Blue Badge guides to the village to help them brush up their valuable local knowledge.

JOANNE Hunter, co-owner of Grasmere Gingerbread® has won a prestigious North West Special Achievement Award.

Presented to her at the influential E3 Business Awards at the Macron Stadium, Bolton, it recognised her ‘great spirit, strength, commitment and business success.’

THE growing worldwide popularity of Grasmere Gingerbread® has inspired a womb-to-the tomb campaign featuring original artworks.

THE Grasmere Gingerbread Shop’s iconic sign has been renewed by one of the UK’s most controversial artists.

IT’S official – Grasmere Gingerbread is a taste sensation after being Highly Commended in this year’s 2016 Cumbria Tourism Awards.

GRASMERE enjoyed a right Royal treat when Prince Charles called in to give our community a morale boost.

AFTER a six-month closure due to severe damage caused by Storm Desmond in December 2015, the A591 between Keswick and Grasmere has re-opened.

We are working harder than ever to make it as easy to possible for you to buy our delicious Grasmere Gingerbread!

A FORMER Colour Sergeant in the Royal Marines, baker Ron Mewis was never late – whatever the weather – in his 15 years working for Grasmere Gingerbread.

THE weirdly wonderful world of Gingerbread Men is brought to life by the imagination of Tyneside artist Sarah-Jane Szikora in her fantastic new book.

LIFE imitated art when a painter famed for her portrayals of gingerbread men met the real thing in Grasmere.

SARAH-Jane Szikora’s weird and wonderful gingerbread men gift cards are deservedly popular with customers of The Grasmere Gingerbread Shop.

IT was in 1854 that Grasmere cook and baker Sarah Nelson perfected the recipe for her now world-famous Grasmere Gingerbread.

Grasmere Gingerbread bakers Nigel Prickett and Steve Mellor celebrated 25 years’ service.

IF you happen to be in Stockholm on December 13th you may be presented with free gingerbread as you walk down the street.

OOR ER MISSUS! The Grasmere Gingerbread® Shop has some of the cleverest, cheekiest customers in the country.

MILLIONS of TV viewers saw two former Coronation Street and Carry On stars serve astonished customers inside The Grasmere Gingerbread® Shop.

SPORTY gingerbread men stole the show at a Young Farmers’ Club biscuit competition which featured an Olympic theme.

The first couple in the UK to get married in a beach hut tied the knot with complimentary Grasmere Gingerbread® Wedding Favours.

ONE of Cumbria’s most distinctive birds – the dipper – has a new lollipop named after it.

The Grasmere Gingerbread Shop’s Cumbrian Suppliers initiative has been praised by the Federation of Small Businesses and Cumbria Chamber of Commerce.

Playwright Alan Ayckbourn gave it a non-speaking part in his version of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya entitled Dear Uncle.

Cumbria’s Great North Air Ambulance gets cash boost from The Grasmere Gingerbread Shop’s customer counter donations.

Grasmere Gingerbread® and Pure Lakes Skin Care collaborated to launch an exciting new range of ginger bath and body products.

Joanne Hunter, a partner in The Grasmere Gingerbread Shop, was immortalised in Manchester artist Michael J Browne’s painting The English Garden.