With a rolling pin in hand and her grandfather’s baking tools on the counter, she started baking loaves of sourdough so digestible they could turn even the most gluten-wary into loyal customers. From a few loaves to a Southland staple, FlourBro was born.
Brit isn’t a classically trained baker. She’s a mother of three, a self-taught fermenter, and a woman guided by generations of food wisdom. Her grandfather was a certified bread baker. Her granny, a head chef. Her Nana made the kind of scones you dream about, and her mum's cinnamon scrolls are the stuff of local legend.
“I’ve always wanted to learn how to do sourdough,” Brit says. “And lockdown gave me the time and space to try. It’s a craft that takes patience – but once you understand the fermentation, you realise the bread does most of the hard work for you.”
That fermentation process makes her bread easier to digest, and gentler on the gut – something she learned the hard way when her youngest child started reacting to supermarket loaves. With that spark, she built a kitchen in her garage, experimented obsessively, and slowly built a business one hand-scored boule at a time.
Today, FlourBro operates from 171 Dee Street in Invercargill, a tiny, welcoming shop with shelves full of sourdough flavours you need to work your way through, a bench covered in pastries made with love and integrity, and all manner of local-ish made spreads and butters. It’s all just honest, nourishing kai.
Brit is clear-eyed about growth. She’s cautious about scaling too fast, wanting to preserve the integrity of what she’s built. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t dreaming big.
In 2024, she won the inaugural Scott Richardson scholarship and took her love of sourdough global. From LA’s Tartine to bakeries across France, Germany, Denmark and Slovenia, she’s been kneading knowledge from the world’s best, bringing home inspiration and techniques to enrich the Southland food scene.
You’ll find FlourBro’s bread at Compleat Wellness, The Pantry, and in more than a few local kitchens. The shop itself is open Thursdays and Fridays: a tight window, but that’s how it stays fresh, local, and sustainable.
