Balfours descendant spends millions on SA bakery
A longstanding SA bakery is changing hands, and the new buyer has plenty of dough in her blood.
Port Adelaide’s Mayfair Bakery and Patisserie has been sold to the great-great-granddaughter of the Balfours family – Kris Moroney – in a deal said to be in the multimillion-dollar range.
Over the past 12 years, current owner Phil Donnelly – who bought the business for $1 in 2014 at 21 – has transformed the 150-year-old business into a major player in the national baked goods space.
The bakery’s goods are made in Port Adelaide, and Donnelly says they are also now being sold in Drakes, Foodland and Tony & Marks stores across New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory.
A cornerstone product for Mayfair is Donnelly’s own gluten-free baked cheesecake, which he developed into a retail-ready product line.
That cheesecake is the brand’s top-selling bakery item across Foodland, Drakes and Tony & Marks locations.
The sale will settle on October 1, said Donnelly, now 36. It is just the third time the brand has changed hands over the past century.
Donnelly purchased the business in 2014 from Barry Schultz, whose family had been running the bakery for 57 years at the time.
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“When we launched into the supermarkets, I had in the back of my mind that this would be a good time to exit,” Donnelly, a 2025 InDaily 40 Under 40 alum and a recipient of the Premier’s Food Awards Next Generation award, said.
“We’re on a good growth trajectory and there’s confidence in the market,” he said, noting the business was in discussions with Coles and Woolworths.
“It’s not like we’re selling at the bottom when there’s no growth.
“Having someone confidently see that the business is in a good direction is incredible.”
Donnelly said he took the brand – started in 1870 – from no employees to now 36: “We’re far bigger than I think people realise”.
“We’ve got product all the way up to Cairns and Uluru.
“We’ve had a customer pop in the other day that loved the cheesecake so much that they tried in Uluru that they came to Port Adelaide to see where it was made.”
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Speaking to InDaily, Moroney said baking was “in my blood”. She started baking at 16, and was a Baker’s Delight franchisee at 21.
“It’s a real full circle moment for my family in many ways,” said Moroney, whose favourite Mayfair product is the blueberry cheesecake.
“We’re very proud of our Balfour heritage.
“The biggest drawcard for me was eating his products over the years; ridiculously tasty, such good quality.
“To be given the opportunity to be the next custodian, it’s like grabbing the Olympic Torch and running that next leg of the race now.”
Moroney said she had been doing some behind-the-scenes work and wanted to grow the gluten-free range.
But her top goal: “I’d like to be sitting on a Qantas flight eating a slice of our wonderful cheesecake”.
Donnelly said he would be sticking around with the business for handover and would remain as a consultant, but had bigger plans in the works.
While unable to reveal more, Donnelly said he would be “heavily involved in helping South Australian food manufacturing businesses enter new markets and help them progress”.
Particularly for Port Adelaide food businesses that he believed “sometimes get overlooked”.
“Sometimes people don’t see [Port Adelaide] as a food destination, but it really is one of the biggest hubs in SA for food manufacturing,” he said.
“I’m proud to be an ambassador for that and to champion that moving forward.”
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