Staff walkouts and ‘stolen’ recipes: the bizarre case of SugarFall Patisserie

It’s 3.51pm by the time the case is heard. The three accused have been here since 10am, switching between basement canteen and harshly lit upper corridors of Glasgow Sheriff’s Court to kill time. They’ve been summoned here on four separate occasions since November 2024 — 14 months and counting. 

This is the crunch point. If their accuser doesn’t turn up, his case is over. He’s skipped two previous diets at short notice, forcing trial postponements. The first time, he claimed sickness. The second time he was in China.

When Marianna Balwierz and her former co-workers, Yulia Blazhenko and Olexander ‘Sasha’ Trach, were first charged, a lawyer she consulted proclaimed the case against them “nonsense”. It seemed absurd the state prosecutor would pursue it. But they did.

The details are unusual. On one side is Karolis Juskenas, the young owner of SugarFall Patisserie, a glossy West End artisan bakery frequented by Glasgow’s food influencers. He alleges the trio have stolen from him. Not money, not goods — but recipes. 

They deny the charge, countering with a slew of mistreatment claims, including thousands in withheld wages, inappropriate behaviour from their boss and being coerced into signing non-disclosure agreements created on ChatGPT. 

If they lose, their jobs — and visas, in Blazhenko and Trach’s case — are in jeopardy. 

Court 11 is the first time all four have seen each other since it all blew up. The three accused are crying less than the last time I met them here, in late 2025. They’re more familiar with the vicissitudes of Scotland’s legal system now. 

“It feels better,” Balwierz says. “We've done it, we know what it’s like.” Along with her neat black skirt suit, she wears an air of contempt for proceedings. She thinks they’re a farce.

The three take their places in the dock, interpreters by their side; Juskenas is summoned to the witness box. In a black turtleneck, he looks more like a magazine editor than a bakery owner. He rarely glances at his former employees, only doing so when asked. The last time he saw Balwierz , in a Merchant City cafe, she says he was pleading with her not to report him for assault. He says the incident didn’t happen, never mind the bruising on her knee, police report or blood dripping down her ankle. 

How did they get here — over cake?

'What's the truth?'

The case turns on what happened in SugarFall in the summer of 2024. By that point, Balwierz , Blazhenko and Trach had all been working at the bakery for just over a year. When she first joined, in February 2023, Blazhenko had been impressed by her new boss, despite his awkward demeanour. 

Then 24, Juskenas was two years younger than Blazhenko and hailed from a similar part of the world: Lithuania. His apparent success with SugarFall gave her hope that she and Trach might be able to recreate the life and patisserie they’d left behind in Ternopil, the Ukrainian city they’d fled in 2022. 

Resettled as refugees in Glasgow, the young couple knew Scotland only as “tartan skirts and ships”, says Blazhenko. They spoke no English at first, picking up phrases from TikTok. Balwierz was different; in her 30s, she had lived in Glasgow for years, her English as fluent as her native Polish. Hired as SugarFall’s manager in July 2023, she focused on raising the bakery’s profile. In a prime Byres Road spot, SugarFall’s high-end creations seemed like a social media sensation waiting to happen. 

At first, the three weren’t close. Juskenas sat between them. He was initially friendly to the chefs, offering them lifts to work and chatting about his life, but the relationship soon soured. Juskenas told Balwierz that Blazhenko and Trach were trying to “take advantage of him”. He had a particular dislike of Trach, saying he was always shirking his duties. She believed him, she says. Juskenas inspired a protective instinct. 

To Balwierz, Juskenas complained about feeling trapped by SugarFall, a business founded by his parents in 2019. He and his ex-girlfriend had replaced the older Juskenases as directors on Companies House in 2021, and his mother still occasionally worked in the kitchen, part of a dozen staff employed at the patisserie by 2023.

Juskenas presented himself as a professional chocolatier but acted more like a kitchen assistant, it seemed to Blazhenko, handling customer deliveries. He veered between grand plans — opening a Paris branch of SugarFall — and frustration with his staff. 

Signs of trouble arose in early 2023. Balwierz began receiving complaints from the staff: that Juskenas made racist and homophobic jokes, that he monitored workers via CCTV, texting them about their movements while out of the room. A barista quit that August, citing the “uncomfortable work environment” he had created. 

These incidents seemed to happen when Balwierz wasn’t there. Juskenas dismissed them as miscommunications. SugarFall denies the allegations, saying claims of inappropriate remarks are “entirely untrue” and that no formal complaints were raised.

But strain continued to show. On Balwierz ’s birthday day off in October 2023, texts began coming in from the bakery: another mini-crisis. An afternoon tea order had failed to go out for a big Glasgow city council event. Balwierz had assured the customer it would arrive in time; now she knew they’d never be back. Juskenas blamed Blazhenko, the only pastry chef on duty, for the mishap, saying she hadn’t helped with the prep. Blazhenko told a different story: she’d completed most of the order, while Juskenas held up the show, returning late with ingredients and not pulling his weight. 

Balwierz didn’t know what to think. When Juskenas arrived at work, she pulled him into the kitchen with Blazhenko and asked, point blank, “What’s the truth?” 

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