Village Bakery is a UK-based manufacturer producing baked goods for major retailers across the UK and Europe, alongside their own Jones’ Village Bakery products. Behind their familiar comfort foods is a production operation that has to keep moving around the clock.
For the IT Director and the Infrastructure and Security Lead, that meant security coverage had to extend beyond the team’s normal working hours.
“We’re a 24/7 business, but IT operates during normal working hours,” said the IT Director. “So we needed to get automated responses if we had an issue.”
Village Bakery already had Microsoft Defender Antivirus in place. But what the team really needed was a managed layer that could make Defender activity easier to act on, while giving the business faster response when the internal team was offline.
Challenge | A 24/7 operation with business-hours IT coverage
Village Bakery keeps their IT team lean. Just the Infrastructure and Security Lead handles the day-to-day infrastructure and security work.
That setup made efficiency essential. Before Huntress, the team relied on Microsoft Defender 365 and Antivirus paired with manual reviews. The Infrastructure and Security Lead spent considerable time every day checking for unusual activity and sorting through alerts. While this process gave them visibility, it also kept them in a reactive rhythm.
The after-hours gap was the bigger concern. If an account was compromised overnight or something suspicious appeared when no one was watching, the business needed a response before the IT team logged back on in the morning.
The IT Director had used security operations center (SOC) providers in previous roles, so he knew the value of having experts watching when internal IT was unavailable. The question for Village Bakery was which partner could deliver that coverage without creating a long, painful rollout.
The vendor evaluation took a couple of months. Village Bakery looked at cost first, then trialed multiple well-known providers. Huntress landed in the right range commercially, but according to the Infrastructure and Security Lead, it was the product experience that made the difference.
“The main thing we had with Huntress was just the ease of deployment,” said the Infrastructure and Security Lead. “It was fairly self-explanatory.”
That stood out because trials with other reputable vendors were dragging. The Infrastructure and Security Lead estimated Huntress was deployed in “two days at most,” while other providers looked like they could take “multiple weeks, maybe multiple months.”
Solution | Managed detection that started finding overlooked risks
Village Bakery adopted Huntress Managed Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) and Managed Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) across their Microsoft environment. Huntress now monitors nearly 500 identities, with most users tied to one device and a smaller number using shared accounts or shared devices.
Huntress also gave Village Bakery access to a 24/7 SOC, a round-the-clock team of elite threat analysts supported by AI. For Village Bakery, that meant suspicious activity could be reviewed, investigated, and acted on without waiting for the internal team to manually catch every signal.
The first findings were the kinds of everyday risks attackers hope nobody notices. The one that stood out immediately was employees storing business-critical passwords in spreadsheets. The IT Director calls that kind of file “a master key to the door.” But once Huntress surfaced the issue, Village Bakery moved users with critical passwords into a password manager.
“We wouldn’t have known that was going on if we hadn’t had Huntress in place,” said the IT Director.
Huntress also helped Village Bakery manage VPN usage. The team now blocks VPNs except for their approved service, while still allowing exceptions for senior leaders or employees traveling internationally.
On the endpoint side, the Infrastructure and Security Lead saw a quick operational advantage with automated remediation. Village Bakery had been dealing with an unwanted browser app employees accidentally installed. Removing it manually would’ve required remoting into devices one at a time.
“To our surprise, Huntress found that and just automatically uninstalled it from users’ devices,” said the Infrastructure and Security Lead. “Definitely a nice win.”
The Infrastructure and Security Lead also saw value in Huntress’ management of Microsoft Defender Antivirus. Because antivirus policies weren’t applied consistently across devices, the team lacked centralized visibility and control. With Huntress Managed Defender, Village Bakery could manage those policies through the Huntress platform and take a more consistent approach to endpoint protection.
Results | More time for security improvements that move the business forward
The biggest change for Village Bakery has been the way the IT team spends their time.
“Huntress works, and if something does happen, it’s automatically remedied by the SOC, or it’s brought to our attention,” said the Infrastructure and Security Lead.
With Huntress and the 24/7 SOC handling the monitoring and response, Village Bakery has seen several practical wins:
More time for proactive security work: The IT Director estimates Huntress saves roughly eight hours a week that can now go toward security improvements instead of reviewing Defender activity and digging through logs.
Clearer reporting for leadership: The monthly Huntress reports help the IT Director communicate security value to the board. He uses the summary page to show activity at a glance, then adds a short narrative around the incidents and trends worth discussing.
Greater confidence in the IT solution: That reporting has helped leadership see what’s happening around the business. The IT Director said it’s created “increased confidence,” while keeping expectations realistic.
Reduced potential impact from attacks: The IT Director points to automated lockouts as an example, saying they help minimize “the blast radius of any attack that we do have.”
Support for cyber insurance conversations: The IT Director said Village Bakery’s cyber insurance is “now at the low end of the cost rankings.” When completing the latest renewal questionnaire, he highlighted the automated protections Huntress provides. “I’m sure that had a role to play in driving down the cost of our insurance,” he said.
Conclusion | Staying lean and ready
Threat activity is inevitable, and Village Bakery knows adversaries will keep trying different ways in. The IT Director is blunt about the reality, saying, “Any business that said it’s not being attacked probably doesn’t have the facts.”
With Huntress alongside them, Village Bakery can keep their security operation lean while still getting expert eyes on suspicious activity. The platform and SOC help the IT team respond faster and keep improving their environment before small issues become bigger problems.
The IT Director sums up the biggest advantage simply with, “It’s just that switch from reactive to proactive.”
