Ryan Panchoo On 10 Years Of Borough 22

London is experiencing a free from food boom. Whether it’s dairy, nuts, gluten or all of the above, restaurants and foodie businesses are responding to the call for allergen-safe goods – but none are doing it quite like Borough 22. Working under the motto ‘doughnuts for all’, this London-based baked goods hub is bringing fun back into the free from game. And with nearly 10 years under its belt, we invited Borough 22 founder Ryan Panchoo to share his experience bringing his brand to life, his favourite foodie spots and his top doughnut recommendations.

Q&A With Ryan Panchoo, Founder Of Borough 22

Ryan Panchoo, founder of Borough 22

Hi Ryan, thanks for chatting with us! Can you kick us off by telling us a little about yourself?

I’m Ryan, the founder of Borough 22. I started off life as a bricklayer – not a baker, although it’s a wet trade so the two are similar to some degree. I’ve always had a very big sweet tooth, though.

So, how did you get into the doughnut game?

Baking was generally really popular around the time I started, back in 2014. I think Great British Bake Off was pretty new. So everyone had this interest in baking. It was sort of trendy.

And I had kids. Both of them had allergies to dairy and gluten. I’d get very frustrated, being a parent, that they couldn’t really enjoy the foods that their friends were eating. It just started to become painfully obvious that there was a real lack of food that was safe for them to eat.

There was a lot of stuff that that was dairy free, but nothing that was multi-allergen friendly. You’d often get gluten-free stuff that had dairy in it, or dairy-free stuff that had gluten in it – but very few items would cater for both. And when you did find the items that were multi-allergen friendly, it was often disappointing. You’d get your hopes up, pay over the odds for it, and find that they didn’t actually taste very good.

What used to frustrate me was that everybody would be involved in eating something, except my kids. All their friends would be eating one thing, but my kids would have to bring along their own little packed lunch box of food that was safe for them. So even though they had ‘treat’ foods, they weren’t included in what everybody else was doing. Like they were excluded from the main activity. And, as a child, you just want to be involved. You don’t want to be left out. You don’t want to be the odd one out. So, I wanted to make something that was safe, but also visually appealing, so my kids and their friends would gravitate towards it. So that the experience was inclusive.

And as Borough 22 developed, it kind of shaped itself around these three pillars. I wanted to create something that was safe to eat, delicious and inclusive of all diets. And from there it kind of grew to incorporate as many different people with allergies as possible. We wanted to offer people something that didn’t feel it was made especially for them; it was for everyone.

And it went into a business from there?

Kind of. It all came down to finding something that tasted good for my children. Kids are brutally honest, and they will tell you when something isn’t good – usually by ripping it out of their mouth and throwing it at you. Even though we could find a few items, it was always the taste and consistency that would let it down. I became a bit proactive as a parent, and just thought, ‘You know what? I’m going to do something myself. I’ll make it for you guys.’  And that’s where Borough 22 was born.

I never planned to make into a business, at first. Never planned to sell. I was making it just for my children and my immediate family. And, at the time, you couldn’t just pop along to Sainsbury’s or Tesco’s or Waitrose or whatever, and have a free form aisle where you could select all these weird and wonderful ingredients. It just wasn’t available then.

I had to order ingredients from specialist websites. And it wasn’t cheap. I’d get a bag, use it for one recipe, and then it would sit in the cupboard for three or four months – and the danger was that it would expire.

Your kids also can’t eat everything that you make. A recipe might make 12 items, whether it’s brownies, cupcakes or doughnuts, and then they’d have one or two. And by the next day, they just wouldn’t be as fresh. So you just end up chucking the load.

But I wanted to find a way to keep baking like this, because it fascinated me. Experimenting with all these ingredients and getting, you know, the oohs and the ahhs. The satisfaction from making everyone happy.

I didn’t really want to stop doing that, but also had to be mindful that we didn’t have unlimited funds and time to be able to keep experimenting. And that was it. The best way to keep going was to offer it to the general public. And that’s where sort of it was born, back in October 2014, almost 10 years ago.

Where did the name ‘Borough 22’ come from?

It came from New York, actually. I was over in New York on holiday, and noticed the five boroughs that make up New York: Staten Island, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan and Queens. And it just got me thinking: ‘We have boroughs in London – how many do we have?’ There are 32 boroughs in London. (Some people count the center of London its own borough, so 33 unofficially.) At the time, I was living in South East London, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. I ended up just looking up on Wikipedia what borough number that was, and it was 22. Hence the name of the business.

A lot of people mistake us for being part of Borough Market – we’re not, sorry!

There’s a misconception that free from baked goods just aren’t great – is the goal to change this idea?

Absolutely. The misconception is there for a reason – largely because people aren’t really aware of what’s out there. I’ve definitely seen over the last 10 years this development of recipes, ingredients, techniques, as well as an increase in people who are becoming diagnosed with coeliac disease or an intolerance. I definitely think it’s linked to the lifestyle we’ve had over the last few decades that has favoured ultra processed foods. And the generations that are coming up now are the ones that are suffering from all the stuff that was eaten by generations before. We’re now experiencing all of these issues with our health, gut health and allergies.

We have quite a lot of options now, but beforehand many restaurants and grab-and-go food outlets considered it a bit of a box-ticking exercise. I really think we can get as near to, if not better than, the standard counterpart. That was always the goal with the doughnuts.

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Has it been difficult marketing as a free from business?

Borough 22 has grown to incorporate as many different people with allergies as possible. We wanted to offer people something that didn’t feel it was made especially for them; it was for everyone. Something generic that everybody can access. That inclusivity was really important to me, because I saw what it was like for my kids.

But it is difficult. We’ve got two banners, for example, that we use when we do pop-ups and whatnot. One just has the Borough 22 word art, and the other has the words ‘gluten-free and plant based doughnuts’. And sometimes we’re not sure how to market ourselves. Is being free from something that’s important to get across to people, or do we just advertise ourselves as doughnuts?

It’s a really tricky one, and it seems to work differently depending on the venue that you’re in. But the goal is that we just wanted to create good food that just happened to be safe for everyone, just happened to be gluten-free, just happened to be plant-based. That’s been the driver going forward.

And have there been ups and downs with the food itself?

Well, yeah. The first doughnuts we made were baked. And they tasted really great. You know, they won awards, and they’re now stocked in Selfridges. But in my heart, I knew what a standard fried doughnut should taste like, and that’s what I was striving for. I was trying to nail that recipe for eight years.

It was eight years of getting my heart broken, honestly. So much so, that I can tell you exactly when I cracked the recipe: 1 May 2022. It was probably about 11 or 12 o’clock at night. I had three different recipes, and they had all failed. I then had this idea to take elements from each recipe, plus a couple of other bits to tweak it, and just went for it.

I went to bed thinking it looked okay, but I couldn’t bring myself to tear it open or anything. I didn’t want to get my heart broken again after all that effort. And I just remember waking up in that morning, on 1 May 2022, and pulling it apart. And you had that pull, that stretch. And I was like, ‘Oh my goodness.’ I filmed it, put it on Instagram and then it just took off from there.

So, yeah, it was incredible. Absolutely incredible. But it was a lot of hard work. All of these ideas that you have, you’re taking them in subconsciously – you know, waking up in the middle of the night, having dreams about them, writing them down. And I never went to school for this. It’s all been self-taught. It’s been a lot of trying for the best. Sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding.

And it’s been a huge learning curve, getting to know the nature of different ingredients – especially in the free-form world – and how they substitute, how they work, what their functionality is. All of that has sort of culminated over those eight years to get me to that point, basically. So a lot of hard work. But we cracked it, eventually.

What’s the most common response you get to your doughnuts?

We’ve had people cry before. I used to encourage people to have their phone out when they see and try the doughnuts for the first time, so that I could see their reaction. We had quite a few come through.

People would say that they transported them back in time – you know, to when they could have the ‘real’ thing. We’ve had that lovely moment where people have said they’ve gone back 47 years, and they’ve said, ‘this tastes exactly like that doughnut. How have you done this?’ Just the disbelief mixed with satisfaction and indulgence.

And I’ve been asked before, you know, like, what do you consider success? For me, I always go back to those reactions. It’s never been about the money for me, because I developed it for my family. In fact, I was spending so much money that I had to turn it into a business. The greatest compliment you can pay to a chef is when that plate comes back completely clean, with nothing on. Like you can put it straight back in the cupboard, because it’s sparkling.

So for people to respond like that, that’s almost like the thing that spurs me on.

It’s been 10 years since you started out – did you see yourself being here when you first kicked things off?

Absolutely not. I think everything I’ve done is with trepidation. I’ve been so scared to release it into the market. It’s something I’ve created, going out for people to scrutinize. But it was also difficult not to hear anything. At the start, I was dropping deliveries around London myself – and when I didn’t hear anything after they’d eaten them, I’d panic. I would worry they hated it.

But I never thought it would get to this level. Even throughout lockdown, we were busy. As we came out the other side, it sort of dropped off. I think people were adjusting to going back out into the world. And I thought then, you know, maybe it might be time to slow down the business. But it was just at that moment that I developed the fried donut, and it just kind of transformed everything.

So we still sell the baked and fried donut. But I never thought, you know, I’d be in this position. I’d have a company, people working for me in the kitchen, in management. And just to have the opportunities that are being presented to us at the moment is so exciting. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be here. So yeah. ‘No’ is the short answer to that one.

And where would you like to see Borough 22 in 10 years’ time?

I want to keep doing what I’m doing. I’m always looking for ways we can get to people quickly, as fresh as possible. It may be that we do something with supermarkets and develop a product that we can put on shelves, in whatever form.

I definitely would like to have my own outlet. To master something here in London and then replicate that around the country, because there is so much activity outside of London. Outside the UK, even. It’s a global issue. It’s everywhere. We get DMs all the time from people all over the world, like in Europe and America – someone actually offered to fly me to America to make them doughnuts.

It just seems that, at this point in time, there’s nothing like this in the market. But there’s an appetite for it (literally), which is really exciting. So to be able to take it outside of the UK, to have a presence maybe in America, the Middle East or in Europe, whether that is a franchise or we do it ourselves, that would be amazing. I just think I truly believe the product is exceptional, and I just want people to be able to experience it in the best way possible.

What are your top free from dining recommendations in London?

My top recommendation hands down is Good F’ing Pizza. Dijon Bascombe is popping up all over the country. Hats off to him, man. His pizza is incredible. You cannot tell it’s gluten-free. We’ve done a lot of pop-ups together now. I’ve lost count how many we’ve done, but they’ve been really fun.

Niche is another. I haven’t actually been there yet, but I’ve heard very good things. It’s a completely free from restaurant in Angel – I’m talking nut-free as well. The guy behind it, Marc Warde, actually runs a company that specializes in completely allergen free food, so it’s high on my list of places to visit.

And the third one would probably be a toss-up between Libby’s and Manna Dew. They both make gluten free pastries – so croissants, cakes, cheese twists, baked goods. They do it all. Manna Dew does use dairy, but I think they have a couple of vegan products too. Anything a little bit sweet, though, I’m here for it.

@borough22doughnuts With love, Borough 22 Doughnuts. Doughnuts For All. #borough22doughnuts #doughnutsforall ♬ original sound – Borough 22 Doughnuts

What’s your opinion on the cronut?

I think it’s interesting. I guess I’m a creative person, so I like to see people being creative with foods. The cronut was created by Dominique Ansel, who is a legend. An absolute legend. There’s this huge curiosity for it, and the queues he used to get for it at his bakeries in New York in London were phenomenal.

I’m here for it. I’m all here for people experimenting. I mean, sometimes they get a bit out of hand – but the cronut was different. There was also the brookie, which I think I saw at B of Bloomsbury. Another fantastic idea that people love. And generally, anything that’s deep fried or covered sugar tends to be quite nice. So, I’ve got no problem with trends like this.

What’s your top Borough 22 recommendations?

My benchmark is always original vanilla glaze. And I think we’ve got a Krispy Kreme to thank for that. When they brought out theirs back in the 90s, it was nothing that anyone had ever seen in this country in terms of doughnuts, and it kind of went crazy.

But yeah, I always have a benchmarks. If it’s coffee, I’m ordering a flat white. If you can make me at good flat white, then I’ll spend more money with you. If it’s some kind of bakery, then I’ll order a plain croissant. And for Borough 22, I’d always say go for the vanilla glaze. And I know you can have sugar doughnuts or cinnamon sugar doughnuts – they’re quite plain as well – but the vanilla glaze is something else. We use a hot glaze on a hot doughnut, so you get a crystallization. And I just think it’s quite superior to the other doughnuts.

And then, yeah, once you’ve had that, open yourself up to the rest of the range. But yeah, the glaze is still my favourite.

How do you live a life in balance?

I think you just need a lot of structure. And preparation. I’ve had to learn that as a baker anyway. Before Borough 22, I was baking maybe one day a week. I had one day a week off from work, and that would be my baking day – where I did everything from start to finish. And it was a disaster. I learned very quickly not to underestimate the art of preparation.

It really helped me do a day of work in the kitchen if I prepped as much as I could the day before. Just getting little things prepared, like the labels and the boxes, all the ingredients weighed and ready to go. Because when you’re a baker you can start work sometimes at one in the morning, the last thing you want to do at that time is use your brain. You just want to walk in and just pick something up, pour it into a bowl and get going. So, my life in balance is all about preparation. Prepare, prepare, prepare, prepare – and then on the day, everything’s just smooth sailing.

Anything else you’d like to tell our readers?

I just want to say a massive thank you to everybody that has bought from us and recommended us. We’re here to stay, and we want to keep serving goodness – and good doughnuts. We really believe that anything can be replicated through plant-based and allergy-free means, and replicated well. We’re actively looking for ways that we can showcase this. So, there’s a lot more in store for you. Thank you for riding with us so far. And, for anyone that doesn’t know us yet, we look forward to welcoming you to the Borough 22 family.

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Images courtesy of Borough 22