Meet the popular Bristol café's doughnut-maker who produces 25,000 doughnuts every week

Pipp & Co has added a new vegan banana and walnut loaf, plus four more vegan doughnut flavours. The banana and walnut loaf bake, which has proved popular in Pipp & Co’s Bristol café, has gone on general sale via the company’s regular channels - wholesalers, stockists, caterers and via its website.

"We trialled the vegan banana and walnut loaf in our café, and our customers loved it," said Mario Evangelista, who co-runs Swindon-based Pipp & Co with his wife Betina. "Although we are best known for our doughnuts, we wanted to expand our range to showcase our diversity as a bakery, and this includes our commitment to creating delicious plant-based products."

The new vegan banana and walnut loaf can be sold whole or sliced. A non-vegan version is also baked by Pipp & Co, which is on sale in the café and will soon be available through wholesalers, stockists, and caterers.

Pipp & Co, in March, launched its first vegan doughnut, a mixed berry flavour, in response to growing demand from customers looking for a plant-based alternative. Since then it has launched a second vegan doughnut - lemon and pistachio – and this month three more vegan flavours are being introduced: mango and Tajin, raspberry and basil, and rhubarb and ginger.

All of Pipp & Co's products are baked in Swindon, with Mario saying: "In the last three months, we have produced more than 20,600 vegan doughnuts a clear sign that demand for delicious vegan options is growing and here to stay."

Now the baker makes 25 to 30 different products daily, compared to half-a-dozen two years ago. Doughnuts and other products from Pipp & Co are available through stockists from Reading to Oxford, and from Stroud to Bristol.

Pipp & Co, which produces more than 25,000 doughnuts a week from its Swindon bakery, also opened their first café in Bristol last year. There are plans for outlets in other locations in the future.