“We’re just still doing it because people need feeding. But we’re struggling”
Adam Tunc, who runs the Sunshine Cafe on East Street in Bedminster(Image: Bristol Post)
It’s been the staple breakfast of champions for the working people of Bristol for generations, but now the cost of preparing a full English breakfast and placing it in front of a customer in one of the city’s many traditional cafes is becoming so high that cafe owners say they face a dilemma – either put the price up too much or stop serving them.
This week, the cost of a plate of sausage, eggs, bacon, beans and hash browns, maybe a grilled tomato and some mushrooms too, was debated in parliament, with MPs calling for the abolition of business rates for hospitality businesses like pubs and cafes, just to keep the traditional English breakfast out of danger.
On one of the few remaining streets in Bristol with a range of traditional cafes that still serve a full English, cafe owners confirmed that the prices of the ingredients have rocketed in recent months and years.
“Oh my word, tell me about it,” exclaimed Adam Tunc, who has run the Sunshine Cafe in East Street, Bedminster with his brother and family for almost 15 years. “I don’t think people realise just how much things cost for us now. Just as an example, I used to buy all the milk and bread for the toast at Aldi and we’d be spending £15 each time. Now the same amount is £30,” he said.
“We use free-range eggs and we buy them in huge packs of 360 eggs – we serve a lot of breakfasts – and we’d be spending no more than £40, and now it’s £72,” he added, reeling off just how much all the different elements of a full English have gone through the roof recently.
“I used to get the sausages for £4 a pack, and the same pack now is £9. Bacon’s gone up, beans have gone up, everything. The thing is, all this has gone up so much and the cost of each English breakfast we serve has gone up by pounds, but I’m putting up our prices to the customers by pence,” he explained.
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On a mild November morning, the cafe is buzzing – the earlier rush of tradies is over, and now the seats are full of young mums with toddlers, older couples, pensioners and builders on a mid-morning break from one of the many construction sites in the area.
“I’m keeping it affordable, reasonable, or at least trying to. Our customers are all working people, or people on benefits or pensions. No one’s got any extra money to spend. But whereas before we would make our money on breakfasts, now we’re hardly making anything,” he said.
“We’re just still doing it because people need feeding. But we’re struggling, and if it carries on we’ll either have to stop or put the price up to the kind of prices people can’t afford,” he said.
Anthony Miller, who runs the East Street Deli on East Street in Bedminster(Image: Bristol Post)
Further along, the East Street Deli is another serving a hearty breakfast. Proprietor Anthony Miller is quick to acknowledge the issue. “It’s the baked beans!” he exclaimed. “That’s the thing that surprised me most. The big cans we get, they’re like £1.10 a can now. Everything is up now,” he said.
“We do everything with really good quality ingredients, so the sausage and the bacon is all top quality. I could do it for a lot less if I bought rubbish meat and rubbish bacon and stuff, but I reckon each plate of a full English we serve now has cost us £6 or £7 to put together, which is much more than it used to be,” he added.
In the Commons this week, calls were made for the Government to abolish business rates for High Street hospitality and leisure businesses. Conservative MP Mark Pritchard said the Government ‘would not be forgiven’ if the English breakfast disappeared from the nation’s cafes.
The breakfast menu at the East Street Deli on East Street in Bedminster(Image: Bristol Post)
“Cafes play an important part on the high street, bringing people in,” he said. “Under this Government, mushrooms are up, bacon is up, eggs are up, sausages are up, bread is up, tea is up, milk is up, and therein is a threat to the full English breakfast. And there are many things that this Government might be forgiven for, but taking away the full English breakfast from the high street is not one of them,” he said.
Shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith echoed his fears. “I enjoy a full English as much as I suspect my colleague does. And it’s not just breakfast – it’s lunch, it’s supper, it’s tea, it’s dinner, and it’s the great British pub. All of whom are under threat.”
Communities minister Miatta Fahnbulleh, who last month came to Hartcliffe to announce a £20 million community investment programme, acknowledged the strain businesses are facing.
Inside the Sunshine Cafe on East Street in Bedminster(Image: James Beck/BristolLive)
“That pressure did not happen overnight, they are the consequence of 14 years where we have not seen productivity growth,” she said. “They are the consequence of 14 years where the economy hasn’t grown.
“Now we understand the economic reality, and we are taking action to respond to that economic reality,” she said, adding that it was ‘disingenuous’ of the Conservatives to pretend they had not left the economy ‘decimated’.