A Liverpool dad who built his own business out of his kitchen during lockdown is now running a successful bakery that supplies some of the city's best cafes and restaurants. Andy Cook, 37, from Aigburth , used to work as an outdoor adventure provider, but after 14 years spent working in the industry he saw all his jobs disappear virtually overnight when the coronavirus lockdown first hit.
Andy had worked providing everything from school residential trips to overseas expeditions, and was on the verge of setting up his own company as a freelancer when the pandemic saw all his work dry up due to the restrictions put in place by the government. Luckily for Andy, he had been spending his free time working in a local bakery to develop some new skills which he could use during the quieter winter months of his regular job. When Andy's work got cancelled due to the lockdown, his passion for baking became a source of income he could fall back on when times were tough. The south Liverpool baker took on a job at a supermarket bakery to help make ends meet, and also started baking delicious sourdough at home, which he would sell to his neighbours for the bargain price of £1 a loaf. Andy told the ECHO : 'I lost a year's worth of work in the space of two days. It was quite a scary time and a pretty rough couple of weeks scratching around until I realised I had this secondary skillset to fall back on.' His budding new business became 'Plattsville Bakehouse', named after his home kitchen where he would bake expertly crafted loaves for a steadily growing stream of customers. Andy said: 'I started selling it off the doorstep for a pound a loaf and each week it got busier and busier. As time went by people were driving from across Liverpool, so I set up an Instagram. I started off just baking one day baking a week, and then some local businesses caught wind of what I was doing, loved the sound of it, so I had a couple of commercial clients and it all snowballed from ther