Huerta’s Scottish Bakery Bet Hits a Cash Revolt

Carlos Huerta bought Alexander Taylor bakery in Strathaven in April 2026, ending six generations of Taylor ownership. Five months later the 206-year-old shop stopped taking cash.

The Los Angeles buyer, 35, is moving to South Lanarkshire to run a 26-person craft bakery he had never worked in. The first public test of that bet is already on the counter.

Four Months From Photos to Completion

Huerta said he was shown photographs in January 2026, walked the shop in February, and closed in April. He had looked at another bakery in Moffat about two years earlier and wanted a shift into hospitality after years in defence manufacturing, where, he said, “everything is strict and has to be done in a certain way.”

Barry and Claire Taylor, who had run the business since 1997, had listed it in 2025 through Business Partnership after nearly three decades of early mornings. They met at art school in Cheltenham, came back to Barry’s hometown, and later bought the shop from his parents. With their children grown, they wanted to paint again.

Cameron Young, a partner at the broker, said buyers from across the world looked at the story. “It was clear from early conversations that he wasn’t looking to reinvent Alexander Taylor, he was looking to steward it,” Young said.

Huerta kept all 26 staff and asked the Taylors to stay on as consultants through the handover. “I want to ensure that any changes made will be to their benefit and continued growth,” he said. Claire Taylor said his energy showed at the first meeting and that they were “leaving the business to good hands.”

The sale listing, issued while the shop was still on the market, put turnover at more than £750,000 with gross margins of about 75 percent. It offered the trade with or without two freehold shops, and it flagged digital ordering, catering and wholesale as the growth path. Wholesale, the pitch said, was still tiny.

Two Californians Now Control the Shares

The public story is a single Californian taking over. The holding company tells a tighter story. Alexander Taylor (Bakeries) Limited, company number SC884641, was incorporated on 31 March 2026 at 11 Waterside Street and files as a specialist bread and cake retailer.

On 15 April 2026, Carlos Daniel Huerta Chavez and Jack Sterling Flowers were appointed directors. Filings list each as a person with significant control in the 25 to 50 percent band for shares and votes. Roger Lane-Smith, appointed on incorporation, had held 75 to 100 percent and the right to appoint directors until that same date, then ceased as a controller while remaining on the board.

THE HOLDING COMPANY AS FILED

Those bands are not a disclosed 50-50 split, and the filing does not describe Flowers’s job in the shop. He has not spoken in the statements Huerta gave after completion. Huerta is still the person relocating from Los Angeles to run the ovens, the cafe and the hiring. The register simply shows he is not the only Californian with a slice of the company that now owns Scotland’s oldest bakery.

Why Regulars Walked Over Cash

On 21 September 2026 the shop went card-only. The bakery had posted the change a few days earlier as one of several back-office moves “to simplify how we operate, modernise our systems and help us run the bakery more efficiently.”

We know this change won’t suit everyone, and we genuinely appreciate your understanding. As we look after a bakery that has been part of Strathaven for more than 200 years, we also have a responsibility to make sure Alexander Taylor is in the best possible position for the years ahead.

Spokesperson, Alexander Taylor Bakery, September 2026 statement

The same post promised that morning breads, rolls, cakes and savouries were not going away. On the bakery’s own thread, regulars treated the till as the product. One called it a terrible business move and said they would not be back. Another asked what had happened to choice. A former worker said that when the internet drops, which it will, the shop will be giving food away.

That objection is practical, not romantic. A market-town bakery sells cheap items at speed to people who still arrive with notes. Taking cash out of a counter that has taken it since 1820 is the first change customers can feel. Huerta had already said he would not strip out favourite pastries or the sourdough the shop is known for. The fight that arrived was about how you pay for them.

The Shop That Outlasted Six Other Bakeries

Alexander Taylor has stood on the same Strathaven site since 1820 and is widely regarded as Scotland’s oldest bakery. Barry Taylor said the family started as farmers, then two brothers bought building materials and opened a small bakehouse. The town centre had seven bakeries then. This is the one that remains.

Each generation changed the work to match the town. In the Victorian years a great-grandfather pushed into a courtyard at the back. In the 1920s, coaches between Ayrshire and Edinburgh stopped in Strathaven, and the family fed day-trippers. Barry and Claire added their own recipes, including sourdough before it was fashionable, and painted the two shops either side of Waterside Street a pale aquamarine. The production side is about 1,580 sq ft, with a corner retail door and a cafe-deli across the street.

THE TAYLOR TIMELINE

1. 1820: The bakehouse opens in Strathaven, one of seven in the town centre.
2. Victorian period: A great-grandfather expands into the rear courtyard.
3. 1920s: The family caters to coach-trip crowds stopping in town.
4. 1997: Barry and Claire Taylor buy the shop from Barry’s parents, Edna and Alistair.
5. November 2025: The couple list the business so they can return to painting.
6. April 2026: Huerta completes the purchase and keeps the 26 staff.
7. 21 September 2026: The shop stops accepting cash.

Claire Taylor had already heard the plea not to sell. “I’ve had people say ‘I hope you never sell’ and come up to me in absolute horror,” she said while the listing was live. “The main thing is we don’t want to run out of enthusiasm.” They had, she said, put in a long shift. The bronze plaque on the Strathaven Heritage Trail stayed on the wall. The name on the till did not.

A Defence Buyer Wants UK Fame

Huerta is new to baking as paid work. He brought more than nine years in sales and purchasing in the defence sector, which he said trained him in operations, negotiation and growth. At home the craft ran through the women in the family. His aunt runs a small takeaway kitchen in Mexico and baked from his grandmother’s cake recipes; he used to help. He is a Mexican native who had never met the grandfather, on his biological father’s side, who he said played a large part in the rise of Grupo Bimbo in Mexico.

That company is a different planet from Waterside Street. Grupo Bimbo describes itself as the world’s largest baking firm, with 250 bakeries and snackeries, a presence in 99 countries, more than 152,000 staff and annual sales of over US$23 billion. Huerta’s claim about his grandfather is his own, and he has not named the man. “Although I never had the chance to meet him, I feel a strong sense of purpose in following a similar path, bringing that legacy into a country I admire and am excited to explore,” he said.

The path he has described in Strathaven is not a miniature Bimbo. He wants the heart of the business to stay in the town, and he wants the name known far beyond it. After completion he said the aim was to make Alexander Taylor one of the best-known bakeries in the UK, not merely one of the oldest. He also wants a Victorian-looking refit that matches the old family photographs, a pastry chef to cover the work Barry did, and, as a first new line, conchas, the Mexican sweet bread with a sugar crust. In May he said the pastry team was still locking the recipe.

The Phone Line That Still Takes Orders

The April plan was digital ordering, stronger catering and wholesale, and more visibility, with heritage kept on the tin. By early October the live shop still asks customers to telephone. The official site says it cannot take orders by email or through Facebook, and it points people to 01357 521260, option 1. Bakery hours remain 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday and from 7am on Saturday; the cafe opens a little later and shuts on Sunday.

Hiring started almost as soon as the BBC interview landed. In April and again in May and June the shop advertised for qualified bakery, patisserie and confectionery staff, full-time and part-time, with transport to Strathaven required. That sits beside the promise to keep the original 26 people. The extra ads are the growth bet in plain language: more hands, not fewer.

WHAT HUERTA SAID HE WOULD DO

• Digital ordering: Promised after the sale; the public site still runs on phone orders only.
• Catering and wholesale: Named as the main growth route when the shop was listed, when wholesale was still a small slice.
• Card-only tills: In force from 21 September 2026, the first change customers have queued about.
• New lines: Conchas were in recipe trials in May 2026; a Victorian-style refurb of shop and cafe is planned.
• People: The original 26 were kept, and the shop has since advertised for more trained bakers.

Stewardship and efficiency are now sharing one counter. Huerta still has to find a pastry lead, still has to make wholesale more than a footnote, and still has to get a website that cannot take an email order to match the digital pitch that sold the deal. Flowers remains on the register beside him. The aquamarine shops are still baking in Strathaven. The notes and coins are not.