A bakery shop that was launched during the pandemic and has had to survive through unprecedented economic times has closed down.

Pobi in Witney’s Corn Street, co-owned by James Talbot and Jake Jones, both 25, opened in October 2020.

This week they posted on their website: "Today is a sad day for us, it’s the day we have to say goodbye to Pobi. Over the past year we’ve battled with logistics issues, Covid spikes, rising raw material costs, staff shortages to name a few but these have really come to a head over the last couple of months.

"It has put us and the business into a position whereby it is no longer financially viable to keep going. We are extremely sorry to all our loyal wholesale and retail customers who we will no longer be able to serve. The shop, delivery van and wholesale production will cease from today – 25th October."

They thanked their customers and "our amazing team who are immensely skilled and are now our close friends".

In January, James spoke about the business’ first months.

He said: “The first couple of months have been up and down, at the beginning customers were out and about so we were seeing really good sales.

“We had people coming in saying they’d got the bread delivered in March and enjoyed us having the store.

“What we’ve seen recently is more and more wholesale while customers are staying at home.

“For us, it’s weird we’ve only ever known lockdown – we’re a lockdown business so in a weird way, it’s kind of normal to us.

“When lockdowns come in, we shift again to delivery, which we enjoy but not as much as seeing people in the shop.

“We are so grateful to the people of Witney, they’ve kind of took us under their wing.”

In January the bakery split a £10,000 prize with PrintPool, a fellow 2020 business, from the Frilford-based Modus Accountants and its Modus Ignite support programme.

James and Jake started home baking after Jake was made redundant from his job in hospitality and started out by delivering bread and other baked goods to nearby towns.

James, who was raised in Eynsham, took two weeks leave from his job as an account manager for a flavours and fragrance company and got stuck in with getting the shop ready to open.

One poster said on Witney Spotted Facebook page: "With the news of yet another small business closing, is there anything as a community we can do to help it and get it back on track.

Pobi was an amazing place to have in Witney and I for one used it alot throughout lockdown and continued to up till present date. It's such a shame that these lovely places are having to give up what they love doing."

Gregory Patricia Peters posted: "Terribly sad. Popped by there today to buy a loaf of fresh, tasty bread and was disappointed to see the closed sign. I thought it was directly related to the roadworks at the end of Corn Street. I hope that they will continue to bake and that I can find their bread at other outlets."