Established in 2020, Raglan Bagels is another success story that has risen out of the global pandemic.
Like many people facing reduced working hours and the potential loss of jobs, Steve Dube decided to reinvent himself and have a crack at the food industry.
Although it’s not quite as straight forward as that, he started accounting studies first, but his love of bagels won out in the career transformation competition.
Before the first wave of Covid hit New Zealand, Steve had been working as a production manager for Raglan Food Co. He had developed a pretty good understanding of the food production business but had never been responsible for the actual food making.
It was here that Steve started his Raglan Bagel journey during the first lockdown with time on his hands and the desire to future-proof his career potential.
“There were no hours at Raglan Food Co because we couldn’t sell that much; all the cafes were closed. That’s why I started studying accounting because I wanted to do something different.”
“I got my accounting certificate but I found it kind of boring. I’d been making bagels for a long time and my partner said maybe you can just do bagels, and we’ll see how it goes.”
The very next day Steve began working on his food registration, website and promoting Raglan Bagels on social media.
“Within a week, I had 100 followers on Instagram and they were really keen to have bagels in Raglan.”
The thumbs up from the local Instagram community gave Steve the encouragement he needed to get his paperwork in order and within a month he set up shop in Raglan’s very own tiny shop.
“I did a day in the tiny shop to get a taste of the public’s response and within two hours I had sold out.”
From a first bake of 150 bagels, Steve is now producing 1000 bagels a week out of the Raglan Old School Arts Centre commercial kitchen – also used by Raglan Food Co when it started out as Raglan Coconut.
Steve credits the Raglan community with supporting his business venture, including a local supermarket and several cafes.
“When I started a year ago, The Shack was the first café that contacted me on the first day of my Instagram account opening. I’m really grateful for having such a nice community helping other small businesses to grow,” he says.
In August, the local Supervalue came on board to help Steve when the lockdown restrictions forced him to temporarily close the tiny shop for bagel business.
“We started with around eight packets (of four bagels) per week at Supervalue and now we sell around 60 packets.”
The bagel recipe Steve uses is one he has developed through many trials in the kitchen and is a hybrid of his favourite New York and Montreal-style bagels.
A Montreal native himself, Steve came to New Zealand seven years ago; he was following his heart after a woman he had a ‘crush’ on moved to Raglan. His partner Dominique Lecourtois runs design and dressmaking store Lecourtois Couture in Raglan and Steve says she has been behind his bagel endeavours from the beginning.
When he started his small bagel venture, Steve had two varieties – a plain and a sesame. He now has five types of bagels, adding the poppy, cinnamon and raisin and an everything bagel to the mix.
The everything bagel combines two types of sesame seeds, poppy seeds, onions and garlic, and Steve says the cinnamon and raisin is popular with Kiwis.
“I wanted to do a sweet bagel because Kiwis have a sweet tooth.”
With the help of an anonymous backer, he has been able to purchase new equipment and now sells toasted bagels with various toppings from the tiny shop, in addition to the packets of bagels.
“He’s kind of a philanthropist and has a lot of businesses. He really likes helping small business to grow. Because I grew so fast, he just gives me business advise now,” he says.
Steve has a lot of ideas for the future growth of the business and in the long-term he envisions Raglan Bagels in supermarkets and food stockists across the country.
Plans for a Raglan Bagel shop have been put on hold; with the heightened level of uncertainties around Covid, he is content keeping it small and adding new varieties from time-to-time.
“At the moment, I’m trying to keep all my expenses low. So, when Covid is over I can step up easily.”
Get your taste of Raglan Bagels at the tiny shop on Bow St, Raglan. With the increasing Omicron cases Steve is at the tiny shop on Saturday only and will be back on Wednesday as soon as possible. Check him out on Facebook and Instagram @RaglanBagels.
