about us
meet the sellers family
The Sellers family have been farming at Carr House Farm in East Yorkshire for six generations. The Side Oven Bakery was founded in 2003 by Caroline Sellers around the farmhouse kitchen table. After a weekend’s breadmaking course in which Caroline had learned the basics, she returned inspired to build on this newfound skill. Our Carr (heavy) land grows high-quality milling wheat, so creating an on-farm bakery to use our homegrown wheat was an exciting next step.
After two years of baking in the farmhouse kitchen and using the traditional ‘Side Oven’ – the same oven that many generations of Sellers used for breadmaking (hence the name!) – farm buildings were converted into a bakery, millhouse and juicery. Around this time, Tim and Caroline went to Germany to find a stoneground mill so that we were able to grow, mill and bake bread all on-site here at the farm.
When the bakery first began, we were baking bread most days and fulfilling orders from both trade and direct customers, as well as attending local farmers’ markets. As time passed Caroline developed a number of other products, with one being a honey-toasted muesli. This proved to be an incredibly popular product and was the beginning of the range of breakfast cereals that are our most popular products today. The day-to-day operational focus shifted from bread to muesli and granola, and the trade and wholesale customers grew.
Tim planted the farm orchard with heritage varieties of apple in 2010. The varieties were all chosen specifically for juicing. He also created a soft fruit orchard for our blackcurrants and the elderflower bushes. We are now one of very few organic commercial growers of elderflowers in the UK. Over the last ten years, we have gradually added to our range of award-winning fruit cordials.
Tim and Caroline Sellers are fifth-generation Sellers’ to farm here, and in the last few years have been joined in the business by daughters Hester and Jessica, to make the sixth generation to work here. Both on the farm and in the bakery we pride ourselves in producing superior quality products, with our full organic certification and always putting the environment at the forefront of our way of working.