THE telephone rings and Gerald Dumas breaks off from his paperwork to answer it. He listens patiently and eventually gives a firm "Sorry, I can't help" reply.

It's a wholesale order for Italian bread, but Gerald is not interested. The 36-year-old has been there, done that, as the saying goes. For four years he worked a 16-hour day, employed 24 people and needed five delivery vans.

He baked speciality breads for Marks & Spencer and the NEC Group to name just two of his big customers.

"I got a real buzz from it all," he concedes.

"The problem was I had become an office rat. Too much of my time was caught up in the office. I wasn't seeing my young daughter, Matilda, and I was becoming increasingly unhappy about the quality of what we were baking.

"The business had got too big and when that happens you lose control of the final product.

"Finding good skilled staff had been a problem from the start. Being in the catering business I had plenty of contacts and we were never short of orders. Within a year of setting up, the business was thriving. If anything it grew too fast, we were too busy."

Being busy is every businessman's dream. But it can become a nightmare if skilled staff can't be found to undertake the work.

Gerald explains: "There is a real skills shortage in Britain - it's the same in France - and finding good staff has been an on-going problem for us. Once baking was seen as poorly paid with long hours and it is tough compared with many jobs. Only a fraction of those who actually complete college will still be in the business a year on."

Gerald struggled on hardly noticing the impact it was having on him and his family.

It took a quiet word from his Yorkshire-born wife Heather before Gerald realised what was happening. "My wife took me to one side and said I had to slow down. I knew she was right."

Now he works a 10-12 hour day and even has time to help out with his father-in-law's cattle and lambs which are kept on the Pillerton Priors farm in Warwickshire which they all share. It's a long way from Paris, but Gerald wouldn't be anywhere else.

"I miss the food and my family but I'm a country boy now, when I pop over to Paris I can't wait to get back."

Just because he's scaled down his business doesn't mean Gerald's taking it easy. He employs six people now and does much of the baking himself. That means producing 29 different breads each day and then there are fresh cream cakes and tarts and savouries as well as the lunchtime food that is sold in the shop.

Gerald's enthusiam for baking is only surpassed by his customers' enthusiasm for his bread and cakes. His shop is a bread-lovers paradise with a fantasic array of French and Italian breads on offer, and that's just the start. A Cotswold Stilton cheese bread vies for position with a walnut loaf and customers are known to rave about the honey-on-seed loaf.

"The way we make our bread means it keeps better. You can keep it for between three and five days. This is because we use of a very slow process to make our bread which gives it time to mature. It can take between 12 and 36 hours to produce one of our loaves from start to finish.

The longer process also adds to the flavour and texture.

Gerald also buys his ingredients locally.

"In baking I have five key ingredients cream, milk , cheese, butter and flour. I source all of these locally whenever possible. It is something which I think is important."

As well as the shop, Bread Pancheon in Chipping Campden, Gerald's bread and cakes are sold at farmers' markets across the region and he is a loyal supporter.

"I'm a great fan of farmers' markets. They helped me when I was getting started and I think they are an excellent way to get to know your customers and what they want. The farmers' markets in Worcestershire are some of the best organised that I've sold at and they do a lot to help local producers."

Gerald sells his breads and cakes at about five markets a week including Evesham, Worcester, Bromsgrove, Broadway, Kidderminster and Pershore.

"I still have people phone up wanting to place the big orders but I have made it a rule not to take on anymore wholesale work.

"For me baking is not just a craft but a way of life."

For details call 01608 682736.