June 24, 2024 • 42 mins
Join host Jim Serpico in this delectable episode of Bread For the People. Meet Sandy Smith, co-founder of Sandi's Breads in Palmyra, PA. Discover their journey from a home kitchen to a bustling bakery. Hear Sandy's baking expertise and the heart behind Sandi's Breads, offering 40 delicious varieties today. Indulge in their heavenly pastries and signature breads like Honey Whole Wheat. It's a captivating story of passion, dedication, and bread perfection. So grab your favorite loaf, tune in to Bread For the People, and join the remarkable duo of Sandi's Breads for a taste-filled adventure.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
My name's Jim Curpico. And thisshould I start with my name? What
should I start with? This isbread for the people. Do you like
it like this? Welcome to bread? Or do you like it like this?
Welcome, Ready, Welcome to breadfor the people? Mine? Is
there a script for the people?Welcome to bread for the people. I'm
(00:30):
Jim Curpico. Have a very specialepisode today, Please help me. Welcome
Sandy Smith from Sandy's Bread from Palmyra, Pennsylvania. Sandy's Bakery was born out
of the desire to provide great nutritionfor her four children. She started the
(00:52):
bakery with her husband Tom, andI'm looking forward to hearing a lot more
about it, Sandy. Yes,Welcome to bread for the people. Well,
let's talk bread. Thank you somuch for joining me. I know
I kind of hit you out ofthe cold, and you're like, is
this a crazy man who wants totalk to me about bread? Well it
was a surprise, a delightful one, but a surprise. You know.
(01:15):
I spend a lot of time researchingbaking and looking at other accounts online and
admiring the work. And you know, I like to find interesting people to
talk to about bread because it's certainlya passion of mine, and I started
a home bakery a little over threeand a half years ago with my family.
(01:38):
It began with my three children andmy wife. And my three kids
are all but out of it becausethey're on to different parts of their life,
living in other towns, going tocollege, this and that. But
my wife and I are still atit. And we just spent a weekend
baking and hitting a farmer's market.Oh okay, and I'm curious to hear
(01:59):
about your story. Let's start withthis weekend. All right. I understand
your bakery is open Fridays and Saturdays. Do I have that right? That's
right. We're actually located in afarmer's market. We moved the whole operation
into the market and we'd bake thereTuesday through Saturday, but we're open for
(02:21):
retail Friday and Saturday. So it'sa little bit different business model. It
sounds a lot more appealing to mebecause we're kind of setting up a store
each place we go and then breakingit down. And in fact, as
we speak, my wife is inthe emergency room getting a sonogram, oh,
(02:44):
because we think she might have ahernia or something from all the lifting
we did. Oh my word,those were the old days for us.
Before two thousand and six, wedid outdoor markets and yep, we would
bake at the house. I wouldmake all the breads. We have a
trademark product called Grabinola, so thoseare our granola bars, and we would
(03:10):
do all of that baking at thehouse and then schlip everything to the other
you know, to the outdoor markets. Yeah, so it's not work.
It's so much work. It's it'sso hard to describe to people, especially
bread, because it's not that it'sheavier or more. It kind of is
(03:30):
more because you're selling a lot ofthese small units at price points between five
dollars and let's say twelve dollars,and then you're always guesstimating, at least
in our case, because we dohave one regular market, so we have
a good feel of what that's goingto be and we have a routine.
But on the other days of theweek we'll pop up and we're doing our
(03:52):
best to estimate and work to ourgross potential. That doesn't change even when
you're in an indoor mark for years. We are still guessing. Every single
week. Tom and I talk aboutwhat we think the production should look like
at this point, he does thebread production. I do the pastry production.
(04:16):
But it's still every single week andpeople say, you know, people
customers look at us and say,how do you figure out how to do?
You know how much to bake?And it's a guessing game. Yeah,
and it's my least favorite part ofit. We missed. We missed
yesterday's target big time. Oh okay, because so it's I would assume we're
(04:42):
not that far from each other mileagewise. It's been raining most weekends by
you, right, yes, right, So same here in Long Island,
New York. And we had onceagain our Friday and our Saturday was canceled
this weekend. So Sunday we weredoing a farm a pumpk and form and
we figured, Okay, everyone's dyingto get outside. It's almost Halloween.
(05:04):
This is their chance to go anddo their thing with the family. So
we baked a lot. We bakedaggressively, and I would say we ended
up only selling twenty five percent ofour baby. Oh my, that is
devastating. It was one of thebiggest misses we've ever had. Oh goodness.
Yeah, I remember those days andwe still have days not quite to
(05:27):
that extent, but it's tough.What we've done is we've learned how to
repurpose some of our product. Wehave a big walk well not a big
it could be bigger, but wehave a walk in freezer, and product
that doesn't sell off the shelves oneweekend gets turned into other products. So
(05:50):
we have Christine's and croutons, andwe make a stuffing mix and we do
what ever we can and then youknow, the rest of it goes to
the local food pantry. So we'reglad to be able to support them.
Sure, we delivered to two pantriestoday. You know, we don't have
(06:13):
the consistency of a place or amarket to do what you're doing with the
repurposing. That's what sounds One ofthe appealing things about what you're doing to
me is having you know, thewalk in and the consistency to be able
to sell those other products. Ithink that's pretty great. Yeah, it
makes a huge difference. I don'thave to remember what we did with extra
(06:36):
product back in the day. Yeah. Yeah, So how did it all
start. Let's go back to thebeginning. I assume you guys had other
jobs. Actually, when it allstarted, I was a stay at home
homeschooling mother of four. Okay,and my husband was working out of the
house, and I figure, gee, if I can sell a loads of
(07:00):
bread, then you know, I'llgo to the grocery money. So that's
that's how the first few years ofour bakery went. And it was an
adventure, you know, having allthe kids sitting at the dinner table and
saying, okay, bread's coming out. Pick up all your school books and
(07:23):
putting down the cooling racks so thatthey could get their stuff out of the
way and the bread can get cool. It was. It was different.
It was it was fun in away. It was an adventure. And
then in two thousand and six,Tom and I went full time together and
bought commercial equipment, moved the bakeryout into a space in a neighboring town,
(07:48):
and started baking. It was thefirst that's when we picked up our
first wholesale account and we started thefire following year, we started at the
market where we currently are, butwe didn't move the bakery until we had
(08:09):
been in that market for a year. So let's jump way back before we
get to these moments. Your kidswere in elementary school years, yes,
yeah, and did they participate inmaking the bread, not as much.
They participated in staying out of myway more than they participated in getting their
(08:35):
hands in the bread. But atthe outdoor farmers' markets, they helped out
a lot. So our second child, our oldest daughter, was a real
help. When Tom would take ourproducts down closer to Philadelphia, she would
go with him and she got towhere he could take a nap and she
(08:56):
could handle the stand. She wasabout nine years old, wow, And
she was very competent with that.And then when we first we're up at
the farmstead market, our kids wouldcome in and help. So the girls,
especially all three of the girls,have very good retail skills. And
(09:18):
it's yeah, but they started younghaving to deal. There's some life lessons
that come along with being a kidand growing up in this environment and hitting
the farmer's market. It's not youthink. Definitely. All of my kids
have decided they don't want to bebakers and they don't want to work out
in retail, but they all reallyrespect what we do and they speak proudly
(09:43):
to other people about what we do. So, you know, so that's
they really have learned a lot.We used to tease them that they were
buying friends with baked goods when theywent into public school, but they learned
the value of what we do.It's hard, it is. I don't
think I thought about how hard itwas. To me. It was just
(10:05):
a new adventure and I'd like thechallenge of trying to figure out how to
bake sour dough for my first time, and took a long time to figure
it out. Well, the interestingthing for us is neither of us had
any formal training either. I grewup baking at my mom's knee, doing
(10:26):
a totally different method of baking.And when we saw what was the method,
well, it was just your basicwhite bread. You know, cake
yeast and you know, knead thebread and the kitchen aid and go from
there. What I learned was adifferent method using whole grains, and the
(10:52):
absorption rate of your liquids is different, the texture is different, the proof
time is different, and certainly theflavor profile that we get is phenomenal compared
to what I used to do.But that was just our basic loaf breads.
When we moved into the farmstead market, we were able to start doing
(11:13):
sour dough things and more artisan breads, and Tom and I watched a lot
of YouTube videos on how to formthe breads and how to cut them,
and read. I read a lotof books. I do all of the
recipe development. So I was thetechnology geek when it came to bread recipes
(11:37):
and then just taught him whatever Ifigured out. And we still kind of
operate that way. That seems likea great way to break it down and
divide and conquer. You both havea background in dairy science, Yes,
does that come into play it allthese science aspect of it. The food
(12:01):
science definitely does. Understanding how differentingredients react. Just having that way of
looking at things helps understanding of dairynot as much, but understanding of agriculture
is huge for us because what wedo is we buy our grain, we
(12:26):
stone mill it ourselves, and peoplewant to know about where their food comes
from when they come to our counter. So being able to in a way
represent the agricultural industry makes a bigdifference. Absolutely. So when you make
a move eventually, well, whenyou were doing it out of the home,
(12:46):
you started doing some farmers' markets bybaking at the home, correct,
that's correct? And how many loaveswould you go through at a market.
At that point, you're asking formemories from way back. I don't know,
probably a few dozen, okay,very many, but you would sell
them and get great feedback. Soyes, each step of the way,
(13:07):
there was some kind of forward momentum, like there was a demand for this
product, and somehow you felt wecould we could stretch this a little bit
further each time. Yes, Yes, and we went through you know,
we went through the different farmers' markets. We learned, as you have,
every different market has its own rhythm, and we learned that we didn't have
(13:31):
to bake as much for this marketas for that market. And we also
started taking suggestions from our customers aswe got to know them, so we
developed I developed different recipes just basedon what people were looking for, you
know. I started out with abasic whole wheat loaf and developed a seed
(13:54):
loaf with a lot of different stuffgoing on in it. I developed a
dealing veggie loaf that I wanted fortomato season so we could have a really
good bread for tomato sandwiches. Andwe just we just went like that.
So when you started with your WholeWeek, I think I read it the
(14:15):
honey Whole Week yes, was itone hundred percent whole wheat? Was there
any white bread flour? There is? We do use some commercial bread flour.
We use King Arthur bread flour,the Sir Lancelot, and we still
do that. You know, ourbreads are primarily our own stone milled flour,
(14:35):
so our percentages of whole wheat aremuch higher than what you'd find in
a lot of commercial breads. Well, I do a honeyhole wheat with King
Author special patent, not the Lancelot, and it's fifty percent that and fifty
(14:56):
whole wheat, okay, and thenI use the honey Okay, you're using
a higher percentage of whole week.Yes we are, Yes, we are.
In that particular loaf, we're closerto seventy or seventy five percent.
Wow, which we can do becausethe flour that we use is a totally
different product than what you buy offthe shelf that's shelf stable. So typically
(15:22):
whole week that you buy from thestore is going to be roller milled in
the regular process, and then they'lladd back some of the brand and maybe
some of the other components. Whatwe have has all of the naturally occurring
oils still in the flour, whichmeans it's not shelf stable, but it
(15:48):
gives it some very different characteristics.Now, I assume you and the cellar
of the flour when they're talking aboutshelf stability in this case, is talking
about the flour sitting on the shelf. Right now, how does what about
the bread you make? Is thatany less shelf life? No, it's
more, it's actually more. It'sa greater shelf life, much much greater.
(16:14):
One of our artisan loaves can sitnow, it can sit in a
bread bag on the counter for aweek to a week and a half without
developing any you know, any unsightlyadditions. So and part of that is
because of the I'm sorry, becauseof the oils and the freshly milk flour.
(16:41):
So when your customers buy that bread, you put it in a brown
bag unless they want it sliced.We do have a slicer, and a
lot of people opt for that.In that case, that goes in a
plastic bag. Okay. And thenwhen they ask how do I take care
(17:02):
of this bread? What should Ido? What's the answer to give it
the best shelf life? At homewith your bread, keep it on the
counter, don't ever put it inthe refrigerator. And if you're going to
tell us, why, ah,Because the refrigerator is designed to pull moisture
out of things. It's it's designedto keep things dry so they don't get
(17:23):
nasty in there. And when youput any kind of a baked good in
the refrigerator, it's going to stalemuch more quickly. I'm always amazed that
even chefs that I work with don'tknow that, because when they have my
bread and or I bring it,or they have some left over, they're
(17:47):
like, Jim, I'm going tojust put this in the refrigerator for a
couple of bits, And I'm likeno, And this is a trained professional.
I just can't believe it. Imean, it was new to me
when I got into the bread business. I had not known that. But
I think people's instincts are because withcheese and meats, yes it does prolong
(18:07):
the life, but with bread itdoes the opposite. Yeah. Yeah,
And with any of our baked goods, I tell people that that's not the
place to keep it. What we'vefound though with our breads is I have
mentioned earlier, the naturally occurring oilsin the grains are still in the flour
(18:29):
and what that does is it createsa loaf that goes into the freezer really
well. Our products freeze beautifully andthey come out like they're fresh baked.
And I've heard that We've worked witha number of executive chefs in the Hershey
area, Hershey and Harrisburg, andto a person, they have all reinforced
(18:52):
that amazement at how well our breadsand other products freeze, and that more
specifically in relation to sour dough asa rising agent. Or are you also
talking about some of you your regular, active or instant yeast breads that goes
for everything we produce. Wow,So it has to be related to the
(19:18):
flour on your own milling. Yes, absolutely. And when we first started,
I didn't have a mill of myown, so I would go a
few towns over and have a storethat had a mill take care of that
for me, and I would comehome with fifty pounds of freshly milled flour
(19:40):
and stick it in the freezer.What we discovered is when I started milling
it right before mixing it, ithad a totally different effect. The breads
improved, the lift, you know, the oven spring improved, the flavors
certainly improved, the texture improved.It made such a difference. So that
(20:04):
was a lesson. So I've nevermilled my own flour. If I wanted
to start, Is there a cheapway to begin? Do I need special
equipment that's heavy? Is there somethingsmall? There are a number of small
mills that you can purchase, Andwhat we started with were a couple of
(20:26):
just countertop mills. I can't rememberthe technology they are. Yeah, I
can't remember what it's called, butit's not a stone mill. When we
moved to the stone mills, whenwe started buying commercial equipment, and we
were going through hundreds of pounds offlour in a week and I just couldn't
(20:49):
keep up. But the little countertopmills are a great start, and you
can get those for two to threehundred dollars. Really yes, okay,
And then where do you get theraw materials to melt? We have a
provider here in the area that actuallyservices this half of the country and we
(21:12):
just get fifty pounds bags of grainfrom them. Wow. Yeah, it's
and it's really good. It's awheat that comes out of Montana. It's
a particular variety that's relatively rare.When you're looking at the national wheat crop
and it has a very distinctive flavor. The other grains that we mill do
(21:36):
not have an aroma or a flavor, but what we use for our breads
definitely does. That's great. Soafter the home and after the success at
the farmer's markets, what was yournext step getting some wholesale accounts? So
(21:56):
I started taking breads in a basketand cold calling chefs in the area.
And that was that took a littlebit of chutzpah for me to, you
know, walk into a restaurant witha basket on my arm of breads and
a cutting board and a knife andsay, I'd like to speak to your
chef. It was a lot offun. In most cases, nobody really
(22:22):
looked at me and said, whatare you doing here? Go away?
Yeah, and it was it wasreally I did that too. Yeah,
it's nice. I did it atthe beginning. Now I went to Deli's
maybe you know forty ct type ofrestaurants. What kind of restaurants were you
going to? These were the upscaleplaces because I knew that Deli's wouldn't be
(22:49):
able to afford our product, somore of the I couldn't go to bars
and pubs and and those kinds ofplaces. I had to hit more of
the the upper level. Like inthis area. We've got the Hotel Hershey,
which which is Michelin rated, andwe baked for them for almost ten
(23:17):
years. Wow. And I nevercould have done that without having the commercial
equipment. But that was you know, that was a that was a real
achievement for us. Now is thatbread seven days a week to Hotel Hershey
or several days a week we deliveredto them two or three times a week
(23:38):
and we weren't providing all of theirbreads. Okay, But did you have
a staff at that point or isit still just you and your husband?
We have we have other part timeemployees Okay, yeah, we didn't at
that point, right right, Wedidn't do that all all on our own.
And now we've got I don't knowabout seven employees. Everybody's part time,
(24:00):
and we have some young people whowork for us on the weekends to
help with the market on Saturdays.And we have the one person who is
indispensable in the bakery is our dishwasher. She is amazing and we literally could
not get through a day without her. It's so much they've so much cleaning
(24:26):
that you have to keep up withconstantly. Yeah, and you don't want
it to sit right, That's right, you need to attack it right away.
Yeah, because doe when it's beensitting for a while gets pretty ugly.
Yeah. But yeah, so wehave we have, like I mentioned
earlier, we have the bakery dividedbetween the bread side and the pastry side.
(24:49):
And so right now we really don'thave that many wholesale accounts since COVID
and the whole economic situation, sowe're mostly just making for retail. So
Tom can handle the bread side andI have help on the pastry side because
we have such a large variety ofpastries at this point that I can't do
(25:15):
it all my own. Now,if you learned this and Tom learned this
on your own by watching videos,I understand, because again I'm kind of
living through an alternate version of whatyou guys are doing. You know,
I can recreate a recipe, Ican tweak a recipe, but the logistics
(25:36):
of scaling is not often taught onvideos. That's right. The recipe is
this is a great loaf, thisis a great flavor, and then you
have to figure out how to scaleit, and if you are really scaling
it, I'm curious to see howyou came up with your systems because I'm
still on systems that I created inmy head, which are But the largest
(26:00):
mixer I have is a twenty courtmixer. But I do bake. I
could bake three to four hundred loavesa day in a twenty court mixer.
Wow, yes, good for you, you know. So, so basically
what I do. And I don'tdo this all the time, you know,
but I always bake on Fridays,I'm baking over one hundred loaves always.
(26:26):
But what I what I do isI do my drys knowing what I
could fit in that mixer and alsoknowing what I could fit in my containers
after its mixed, so that itdoesn't rise and go over right. Certain
of the breads I do a coldfermentation. I also bake plenty of sour
doughs where I just do one longbulk ferment. But I'm using buckets and
(26:51):
cambro containers and certain refrigeration. AndI just figured this out. I don't
know if it's practical. I don'tknow if I ever got a real commercial
bakery. This is how I shoulddo it, and I don't even know
where to learn the right way todo it is. But I am curious
to talk to someone like you.How do you do it? How did
you learn it? We did.We started just like what you're doing.
(27:15):
We just felt our way along whatwe do now. We do have a
twenty court and we use that forsmall batches, and we have a sixty
court and we prep all of ourdry ingredients on Saturday or on Tuesday,
and we do some of the mixingon Wednesday and load the dough like we
(27:44):
mix and measure out the dough aftera bulk ferment and lay it out on
full sheet trays and put it inthe cooler. Ah huh. And then
we have other loads that we mixon Thursday, and we'll do the same
thing. Many of our bagged loaves, well, all of our bagged loaves,
(28:07):
the you know, the honey,whole wheat, country white, Italian
not Italian oatmeal, twelve grain cinnamonraisin, all of those loaves get baked
Thursday afternoon for Friday and Saturday sale. The artisan loaves are all prepped.
Many of them are mixed ahead andproof overnight in the cooler, also on
(28:34):
full sheet trays just cut in youknow, eighteen ounce pieces and covered.
You know, we wrap the traysin plastic, and then we have a
we have a speed rack that wejust roll into the cooler, got it.
But then we have yeah, butthen we have like, if there's
extra dough left over, we'll putthat in a five gallon bucket. And
(28:57):
so we have stacks of gallon bucketsin the cooler as well. And this
is mostly for the artisan breads,yeah, because what you do is you
take that dough and you add itback to your batch, and it helps
maintain the flavor profile of your breads. When you say the batch, are
(29:22):
you talking about a week later?Yeah, yeah, exactly, it's almost
like a biga or something that's beensitting around. Yeah. And I even
do that with our croissants. I'llkeep all the trimmings from the croissant dough
and throw that in when I mixthe new batch. Right, that's cool,
(29:42):
and we make the croissants are awhole green croissant, And that's another
multi day process, using the coolerto retard and allow the bread or the
dough to proof. Right, Ifyou don't mind me asking how large as
the footprint of the bakery. Itsounds like there's a lot going on there.
(30:03):
There is a lot going on.It's about six hundred square feet.
Oh wow. And we don't produce, But we don't produce three hundred loaves
in a day. We don't sellthat many loaves in a weekend. But
we have so many other things thatwe're producing. It's not just about the
loaves anymore. So it's developed intoa very different business model than the one
(30:26):
that we started out with. Right, and it may it may continue to
develop. Right, Covid kind ofmade everybody rejigger everything and kind of changed
the flow of business. Yes,it did. We had to pivot with
covid. We've got well, yousaw our website and we had to on
(30:49):
the fly. I developed another pageon the website so that people could order
online, and we started a wholeordering process us and I was updating the
menu every week and taking orders,which was really nice. It got our
customers trained to order ahead, whichgives us I started. Yes, my
(31:15):
wife wants to go back to it. So with COVID, I think everyone
was in the mindset for a lotof reasons. They thought it was a
novelty, They thought it was fun. They didn't want to go out,
and we started off strong, andwe kept strong for a few six months
maybe, and over time we werenot getting as many orders anymore. I
(31:37):
think for a lot of different reasons. There were other options and people were
going out and farmers' markets were back, and then I was getting frustrated baking,
so specifically to order. I wantedthe freedom to be able to make
a mistake and just go to themarket with what I have baked, right,
(31:57):
because even if if it's one mistakeor two mistakes, that's at least
four more hours depending on when youcatch it. Yes, indeed, we've
and vultures like that recently. Ohit drives me crazy because it's just also
labor intensive and time intensive, andyou want the customers to be happy.
(32:22):
And I would always make one mistakeor more. Well, you know,
in this area we have a lotof amish, and when you get amish
would work. They always try toput a little mistake somewhere. They'll put
a little or chairs that they've woventhe seats for. They'll always have a
(32:46):
little something because that's what makes itspecial. So you can look at it
as you're always making something special.Yeah, it's true, but I was
or about the customer complaining I didn'tget so and so, and then I
have no more of those. Yeah. One thing that I've learned is when
(33:09):
we're at the market and it's Saturdaymorning or Saturday afternoon and someone comes in
and says, well, you don'thave any of this left, and I
saw it on the menu for theweek. You know, it's the same
song and dance every week. I'dlove to take an order. Would you
like to order ahead? It reallyhelps us with production planning, and that
(33:31):
way I can assure you that you'llget your product next week exactly, which
is why I'm considering some kind ofsubscription. I've never tried it. I
know some people have success with it, and then it helps us plan.
Yes, there are a lot ofbakers. We belong to the Artisan Baker's
(33:52):
Guild, and there are a lotof bakeries out there doing exactly what you're
talking about. Yeah, it's veryvery helpful. There's, in fact,
there's software out there that that canhelp you plan how to do that.
And we have talked about doing somethinglike that, and we talked about it
(34:13):
during COVID and we've never quite gottenit off the ground. And some of
the bakeries out there are even doingyou know, personal delivery, and that's
what we did well, and we'venever been able to organize that, partially
because we started out with four smallchildren and now because the scale of the
(34:34):
bakery is just kind of in between. Yeah, we were able to get
through it with various drivers. Icould say we would have two drivers out
on any giving. We would justdo it on Saturdays, okay usually And
I'm telling you, at the beginning, we would get in sixty houses and
they would order you know, betweenone and three loaves. But then it
(34:58):
started to peter down. But itis it is more logistics to figure out.
You've got to figure out the routesfor the drivers. That's a big
thing, by the way. Ohwell, and it's costing a lot more
now than it did before. Wellthat's the other thing. You know,
a lot of drivers don't want toput the wear and tear on the car,
(35:19):
and then you have to pay extramoney for gas. There's a lot
that comes with all of it.There's nothing, there's no easy way.
There's no easy way. Well,and we are very fortunate that we have
built so many good relationships that wehave not had to pay drivers because we
have older retired people who love usand just volunteer too. It's a great
(35:45):
idea take things for us and that'sfun. We you know, we pay
them back with baked goods and we'vewe've just developed the most wonderful friendships over
the years. That's great. It'sbeen a privilege to get to know some
of these folks. Now. Whenyou made the jump to the full time
(36:07):
bakery and rented space, I knowyou said you were raising the kids,
homeschooling them. What about your husband. He was working in agriculture at the
time, and he had been downsizedout of jobs three times in ten years.
It seemed like every time another childwas born, Wow, he was
(36:30):
looking for another job. And thelast time around when the twins were born,
we just looked at each other andsaid, you know, it's time
to get out there. We're gettingkicked out of the nest here of that
illusion of job security just isn't workingfor us. Okay. So part of
the decision was to take matters intoyour own hand yep and work for yourselves.
(36:52):
So it was partly a financial decision. We are opening a business to
sustain ourselves. Yes, it's somethingwe think we're good at and our customers
that they are asking for. Yes, that's exactly what it was. And
Tom had always had a vision ofus doing something together, whether it was
farming or doing something else, andso this was a real dream of his.
(37:15):
And yeah, it's been an interestingride. We've been doing this for
about twenty years almost. And yeah, I hear a lot of people talking
about retirement and I can't imagine it, but we're what I say, Yeah,
we're doing the twenty four to seventogetherness thing for a number of years
(37:37):
now, so I can understand thatsome people would be a little nervous about
it, but for us, it'sbeen wonderful. Now, if he's primarily
focused on the bread production with yoursetup, is he getting there at two
in the morning, is he doingovernights or do you have it set up
in a way where you could bakeduring the day. Well, remember that
(37:59):
we're only open Fridays and Saturdays forretail, so no, we're nine to
five on Tuesday and Wednesday and ThursdayFriday mornings. He gets in there around
four, okay, and does theartisan bread production and then throughout the day
(38:22):
he might be producing more just tokeep up with things going on the shelves.
But like the bagged whole wheat breadsthat I mentioned before, we don't
make any more of those during theweekend. What we produce on Thursdays is
what is there for the weekend.And because the breads have the kind of
(38:43):
shelf life that they do, Idon't even address questions about day old bread.
You know, our our stuff isfresh for days, so we don't
really worry about that. But yeah, so Fridays and Saturdays the day,
well, Friday, the day isearlier, but we're not that kind of
(39:04):
bakery fortunately, because that would justbe like going back to milking cows.
And if you went back into wholesale, that would change, right, some
of it would change. Yes,Right now, we are not pushing our
usage of our facility that much.We've got we've got enough bandwidth in terms
(39:27):
of baking space that we could goand produce quite a bit more without having
to really expand our hours. Itwould be helpful at that point to have
another person on the bread side,but we could still maintain without having to
come in it too. Right,as we come to the close of this,
(39:51):
I'm curious to know if it's aprofession that you would recommend to a
young person finished with college years lookingto start a career and be their own
boss. Well, we certainly loveit so, yes, I think it
really helps to love people's That's alwaysbeen a priority for me, and I
(40:15):
love the fact that I can playand experiment with different ingredients and develop new
things all the time. It's notlike a rote you know, pump this
this paperwork out the same way everyweek. There are some things that are
(40:36):
repeated every week, but there's somuch room for creativity and I really love
that part. And everyone I talkto in food really appreciates being able to
do that. Me too, That'sone of the things I love about it.
Yeah, it's fun. I reallylike to add and try some new
things. And I'm actually looking forwardto my outdoor farmer's market season, including
(41:00):
this coming weekend, so I havetime to experiment even more. Yes,
yes, one of these times,you'll have to come out to the Hershey
area. We're not that far away, you know what. Every once in
a while we do find ourselves outthat way, and I'll certainly be in
touch. That sounds great, allright, thank you? So much for
taking the time to share your storyand some anecdotes, and I think I
(41:23):
learned a few things. Well,I think I did too. Thank you
so much for having me have agreat, great time with your bread.
This episode of Bread for the Peoplewas brought to you by Side Hustle Bread,
Long Island's handcrafted, artisanal bread company. Side Hustle Bread is a family
run business that's bringing the neighborhood feelback to Long Island, one loaf at
(41:45):
a time. If you like whatyou're hearing, don't forget to head on
over ty tunes and rate and reviewthis episode. Reviewing and rating is the
most effective way to help us growour audience. This episode was produced by
Milestone TV and Film. I'm yourhost, Jim Serpico. Blessed be the
bread everyone. M hm mm hmm.
My name's Jim Curpico. And thisshould I start with my name? What
should I start with? This isbread for the people. Do you like
it like this? Welcome to bread? Or do you like it like this?
Welcome, Ready, Welcome to breadfor the people? Mine? Is
there a script for the people?Welcome to bread for the people. I'm
(00:30):
Jim Curpico. Have a very specialepisode today, Please help me. Welcome
Sandy Smith from Sandy's Bread from Palmyra, Pennsylvania. Sandy's Bakery was born out
of the desire to provide great nutritionfor her four children. She started the
(00:52):
bakery with her husband Tom, andI'm looking forward to hearing a lot more
about it, Sandy. Yes,Welcome to bread for the people. Well,
let's talk bread. Thank you somuch for joining me. I know
I kind of hit you out ofthe cold, and you're like, is
this a crazy man who wants totalk to me about bread? Well it
was a surprise, a delightful one, but a surprise. You know.
(01:15):
I spend a lot of time researchingbaking and looking at other accounts online and
admiring the work. And you know, I like to find interesting people to
talk to about bread because it's certainlya passion of mine, and I started
a home bakery a little over threeand a half years ago with my family.
(01:38):
It began with my three children andmy wife. And my three kids
are all but out of it becausethey're on to different parts of their life,
living in other towns, going tocollege, this and that. But
my wife and I are still atit. And we just spent a weekend
baking and hitting a farmer's market.Oh okay, and I'm curious to hear
(01:59):
about your story. Let's start withthis weekend. All right. I understand
your bakery is open Fridays and Saturdays. Do I have that right? That's
right. We're actually located in afarmer's market. We moved the whole operation
into the market and we'd bake thereTuesday through Saturday, but we're open for
(02:21):
retail Friday and Saturday. So it'sa little bit different business model. It
sounds a lot more appealing to mebecause we're kind of setting up a store
each place we go and then breakingit down. And in fact, as
we speak, my wife is inthe emergency room getting a sonogram, oh,
(02:44):
because we think she might have ahernia or something from all the lifting
we did. Oh my word,those were the old days for us.
Before two thousand and six, wedid outdoor markets and yep, we would
bake at the house. I wouldmake all the breads. We have a
trademark product called Grabinola, so thoseare our granola bars, and we would
(03:10):
do all of that baking at thehouse and then schlip everything to the other
you know, to the outdoor markets. Yeah, so it's not work.
It's so much work. It's it'sso hard to describe to people, especially
bread, because it's not that it'sheavier or more. It kind of is
(03:30):
more because you're selling a lot ofthese small units at price points between five
dollars and let's say twelve dollars,and then you're always guesstimating, at least
in our case, because we dohave one regular market, so we have
a good feel of what that's goingto be and we have a routine.
But on the other days of theweek we'll pop up and we're doing our
(03:52):
best to estimate and work to ourgross potential. That doesn't change even when
you're in an indoor mark for years. We are still guessing. Every single
week. Tom and I talk aboutwhat we think the production should look like
at this point, he does thebread production. I do the pastry production.
(04:16):
But it's still every single week andpeople say, you know, people
customers look at us and say,how do you figure out how to do?
You know how much to bake?And it's a guessing game. Yeah,
and it's my least favorite part ofit. We missed. We missed
yesterday's target big time. Oh okay, because so it's I would assume we're
(04:42):
not that far from each other mileagewise. It's been raining most weekends by
you, right, yes, right, So same here in Long Island,
New York. And we had onceagain our Friday and our Saturday was canceled
this weekend. So Sunday we weredoing a farm a pumpk and form and
we figured, Okay, everyone's dyingto get outside. It's almost Halloween.
(05:04):
This is their chance to go anddo their thing with the family. So
we baked a lot. We bakedaggressively, and I would say we ended
up only selling twenty five percent ofour baby. Oh my, that is
devastating. It was one of thebiggest misses we've ever had. Oh goodness.
Yeah, I remember those days andwe still have days not quite to
(05:27):
that extent, but it's tough.What we've done is we've learned how to
repurpose some of our product. Wehave a big walk well not a big
it could be bigger, but wehave a walk in freezer, and product
that doesn't sell off the shelves oneweekend gets turned into other products. So
(05:50):
we have Christine's and croutons, andwe make a stuffing mix and we do
what ever we can and then youknow, the rest of it goes to
the local food pantry. So we'reglad to be able to support them.
Sure, we delivered to two pantriestoday. You know, we don't have
(06:13):
the consistency of a place or amarket to do what you're doing with the
repurposing. That's what sounds One ofthe appealing things about what you're doing to
me is having you know, thewalk in and the consistency to be able
to sell those other products. Ithink that's pretty great. Yeah, it
makes a huge difference. I don'thave to remember what we did with extra
(06:36):
product back in the day. Yeah. Yeah, So how did it all
start. Let's go back to thebeginning. I assume you guys had other
jobs. Actually, when it allstarted, I was a stay at home
homeschooling mother of four. Okay,and my husband was working out of the
house, and I figure, gee, if I can sell a loads of
(07:00):
bread, then you know, I'llgo to the grocery money. So that's
that's how the first few years ofour bakery went. And it was an
adventure, you know, having allthe kids sitting at the dinner table and
saying, okay, bread's coming out. Pick up all your school books and
(07:23):
putting down the cooling racks so thatthey could get their stuff out of the
way and the bread can get cool. It was. It was different.
It was it was fun in away. It was an adventure. And
then in two thousand and six,Tom and I went full time together and
bought commercial equipment, moved the bakeryout into a space in a neighboring town,
(07:48):
and started baking. It was thefirst that's when we picked up our
first wholesale account and we started thefire following year, we started at the
market where we currently are, butwe didn't move the bakery until we had
(08:09):
been in that market for a year. So let's jump way back before we
get to these moments. Your kidswere in elementary school years, yes,
yeah, and did they participate inmaking the bread, not as much.
They participated in staying out of myway more than they participated in getting their
(08:35):
hands in the bread. But atthe outdoor farmers' markets, they helped out
a lot. So our second child, our oldest daughter, was a real
help. When Tom would take ourproducts down closer to Philadelphia, she would
go with him and she got towhere he could take a nap and she
(08:56):
could handle the stand. She wasabout nine years old, wow, And
she was very competent with that.And then when we first we're up at
the farmstead market, our kids wouldcome in and help. So the girls,
especially all three of the girls,have very good retail skills. And
(09:18):
it's yeah, but they started younghaving to deal. There's some life lessons
that come along with being a kidand growing up in this environment and hitting
the farmer's market. It's not youthink. Definitely. All of my kids
have decided they don't want to bebakers and they don't want to work out
in retail, but they all reallyrespect what we do and they speak proudly
(09:43):
to other people about what we do. So, you know, so that's
they really have learned a lot.We used to tease them that they were
buying friends with baked goods when theywent into public school, but they learned
the value of what we do.It's hard, it is. I don't
think I thought about how hard itwas. To me. It was just
(10:05):
a new adventure and I'd like thechallenge of trying to figure out how to
bake sour dough for my first time, and took a long time to figure
it out. Well, the interestingthing for us is neither of us had
any formal training either. I grewup baking at my mom's knee, doing
(10:26):
a totally different method of baking.And when we saw what was the method,
well, it was just your basicwhite bread. You know, cake
yeast and you know, knead thebread and the kitchen aid and go from
there. What I learned was adifferent method using whole grains, and the
(10:52):
absorption rate of your liquids is different, the texture is different, the proof
time is different, and certainly theflavor profile that we get is phenomenal compared
to what I used to do.But that was just our basic loaf breads.
When we moved into the farmstead market, we were able to start doing
(11:13):
sour dough things and more artisan breads, and Tom and I watched a lot
of YouTube videos on how to formthe breads and how to cut them,
and read. I read a lotof books. I do all of the
recipe development. So I was thetechnology geek when it came to bread recipes
(11:37):
and then just taught him whatever Ifigured out. And we still kind of
operate that way. That seems likea great way to break it down and
divide and conquer. You both havea background in dairy science, Yes,
does that come into play it allthese science aspect of it. The food
(12:01):
science definitely does. Understanding how differentingredients react. Just having that way of
looking at things helps understanding of dairynot as much, but understanding of agriculture
is huge for us because what wedo is we buy our grain, we
(12:26):
stone mill it ourselves, and peoplewant to know about where their food comes
from when they come to our counter. So being able to in a way
represent the agricultural industry makes a bigdifference. Absolutely. So when you make
a move eventually, well, whenyou were doing it out of the home,
(12:46):
you started doing some farmers' markets bybaking at the home, correct,
that's correct? And how many loaveswould you go through at a market.
At that point, you're asking formemories from way back. I don't know,
probably a few dozen, okay,very many, but you would sell
them and get great feedback. Soyes, each step of the way,
(13:07):
there was some kind of forward momentum, like there was a demand for this
product, and somehow you felt wecould we could stretch this a little bit
further each time. Yes, Yes, and we went through you know,
we went through the different farmers' markets. We learned, as you have,
every different market has its own rhythm, and we learned that we didn't have
(13:31):
to bake as much for this marketas for that market. And we also
started taking suggestions from our customers aswe got to know them, so we
developed I developed different recipes just basedon what people were looking for, you
know. I started out with abasic whole wheat loaf and developed a seed
(13:54):
loaf with a lot of different stuffgoing on in it. I developed a
dealing veggie loaf that I wanted fortomato season so we could have a really
good bread for tomato sandwiches. Andwe just we just went like that.
So when you started with your WholeWeek, I think I read it the
(14:15):
honey Whole Week yes, was itone hundred percent whole wheat? Was there
any white bread flour? There is? We do use some commercial bread flour.
We use King Arthur bread flour,the Sir Lancelot, and we still
do that. You know, ourbreads are primarily our own stone milled flour,
(14:35):
so our percentages of whole wheat aremuch higher than what you'd find in
a lot of commercial breads. Well, I do a honeyhole wheat with King
Author special patent, not the Lancelot, and it's fifty percent that and fifty
(14:56):
whole wheat, okay, and thenI use the honey Okay, you're using
a higher percentage of whole week.Yes we are, Yes, we are.
In that particular loaf, we're closerto seventy or seventy five percent.
Wow, which we can do becausethe flour that we use is a totally
different product than what you buy offthe shelf that's shelf stable. So typically
(15:22):
whole week that you buy from thestore is going to be roller milled in
the regular process, and then they'lladd back some of the brand and maybe
some of the other components. Whatwe have has all of the naturally occurring
oils still in the flour, whichmeans it's not shelf stable, but it
(15:48):
gives it some very different characteristics.Now, I assume you and the cellar
of the flour when they're talking aboutshelf stability in this case, is talking
about the flour sitting on the shelf. Right now, how does what about
the bread you make? Is thatany less shelf life? No, it's
more, it's actually more. It'sa greater shelf life, much much greater.
(16:14):
One of our artisan loaves can sitnow, it can sit in a
bread bag on the counter for aweek to a week and a half without
developing any you know, any unsightlyadditions. So and part of that is
because of the I'm sorry, becauseof the oils and the freshly milk flour.
(16:41):
So when your customers buy that bread, you put it in a brown
bag unless they want it sliced.We do have a slicer, and a
lot of people opt for that.In that case, that goes in a
plastic bag. Okay. And thenwhen they ask how do I take care
(17:02):
of this bread? What should Ido? What's the answer to give it
the best shelf life? At homewith your bread, keep it on the
counter, don't ever put it inthe refrigerator. And if you're going to
tell us, why, ah,Because the refrigerator is designed to pull moisture
out of things. It's it's designedto keep things dry so they don't get
(17:23):
nasty in there. And when youput any kind of a baked good in
the refrigerator, it's going to stalemuch more quickly. I'm always amazed that
even chefs that I work with don'tknow that, because when they have my
bread and or I bring it,or they have some left over, they're
(17:47):
like, Jim, I'm going tojust put this in the refrigerator for a
couple of bits, And I'm likeno, And this is a trained professional.
I just can't believe it. Imean, it was new to me
when I got into the bread business. I had not known that. But
I think people's instincts are because withcheese and meats, yes it does prolong
(18:07):
the life, but with bread itdoes the opposite. Yeah. Yeah,
And with any of our baked goods, I tell people that that's not the
place to keep it. What we'vefound though with our breads is I have
mentioned earlier, the naturally occurring oilsin the grains are still in the flour
(18:29):
and what that does is it createsa loaf that goes into the freezer really
well. Our products freeze beautifully andthey come out like they're fresh baked.
And I've heard that We've worked witha number of executive chefs in the Hershey
area, Hershey and Harrisburg, andto a person, they have all reinforced
(18:52):
that amazement at how well our breadsand other products freeze, and that more
specifically in relation to sour dough asa rising agent. Or are you also
talking about some of you your regular, active or instant yeast breads that goes
for everything we produce. Wow,So it has to be related to the
(19:18):
flour on your own milling. Yes, absolutely. And when we first started,
I didn't have a mill of myown, so I would go a
few towns over and have a storethat had a mill take care of that
for me, and I would comehome with fifty pounds of freshly milled flour
(19:40):
and stick it in the freezer.What we discovered is when I started milling
it right before mixing it, ithad a totally different effect. The breads
improved, the lift, you know, the oven spring improved, the flavors
certainly improved, the texture improved.It made such a difference. So that
(20:04):
was a lesson. So I've nevermilled my own flour. If I wanted
to start, Is there a cheapway to begin? Do I need special
equipment that's heavy? Is there somethingsmall? There are a number of small
mills that you can purchase, Andwhat we started with were a couple of
(20:26):
just countertop mills. I can't rememberthe technology they are. Yeah, I
can't remember what it's called, butit's not a stone mill. When we
moved to the stone mills, whenwe started buying commercial equipment, and we
were going through hundreds of pounds offlour in a week and I just couldn't
(20:49):
keep up. But the little countertopmills are a great start, and you
can get those for two to threehundred dollars. Really yes, okay,
And then where do you get theraw materials to melt? We have a
provider here in the area that actuallyservices this half of the country and we
(21:12):
just get fifty pounds bags of grainfrom them. Wow. Yeah, it's
and it's really good. It's awheat that comes out of Montana. It's
a particular variety that's relatively rare.When you're looking at the national wheat crop
and it has a very distinctive flavor. The other grains that we mill do
(21:36):
not have an aroma or a flavor, but what we use for our breads
definitely does. That's great. Soafter the home and after the success at
the farmer's markets, what was yournext step getting some wholesale accounts? So
(21:56):
I started taking breads in a basketand cold calling chefs in the area.
And that was that took a littlebit of chutzpah for me to, you
know, walk into a restaurant witha basket on my arm of breads and
a cutting board and a knife andsay, I'd like to speak to your
chef. It was a lot offun. In most cases, nobody really
(22:22):
looked at me and said, whatare you doing here? Go away?
Yeah, and it was it wasreally I did that too. Yeah,
it's nice. I did it atthe beginning. Now I went to Deli's
maybe you know forty ct type ofrestaurants. What kind of restaurants were you
going to? These were the upscaleplaces because I knew that Deli's wouldn't be
(22:49):
able to afford our product, somore of the I couldn't go to bars
and pubs and and those kinds ofplaces. I had to hit more of
the the upper level. Like inthis area. We've got the Hotel Hershey,
which which is Michelin rated, andwe baked for them for almost ten
(23:17):
years. Wow. And I nevercould have done that without having the commercial
equipment. But that was you know, that was a that was a real
achievement for us. Now is thatbread seven days a week to Hotel Hershey
or several days a week we deliveredto them two or three times a week
(23:38):
and we weren't providing all of theirbreads. Okay, But did you have
a staff at that point or isit still just you and your husband?
We have we have other part timeemployees Okay, yeah, we didn't at
that point, right right, Wedidn't do that all all on our own.
And now we've got I don't knowabout seven employees. Everybody's part time,
(24:00):
and we have some young people whowork for us on the weekends to
help with the market on Saturdays.And we have the one person who is
indispensable in the bakery is our dishwasher. She is amazing and we literally could
not get through a day without her. It's so much they've so much cleaning
(24:26):
that you have to keep up withconstantly. Yeah, and you don't want
it to sit right, That's right, you need to attack it right away.
Yeah, because doe when it's beensitting for a while gets pretty ugly.
Yeah. But yeah, so wehave we have, like I mentioned
earlier, we have the bakery dividedbetween the bread side and the pastry side.
(24:49):
And so right now we really don'thave that many wholesale accounts since COVID
and the whole economic situation, sowe're mostly just making for retail. So
Tom can handle the bread side andI have help on the pastry side because
we have such a large variety ofpastries at this point that I can't do
(25:15):
it all my own. Now,if you learned this and Tom learned this
on your own by watching videos,I understand, because again I'm kind of
living through an alternate version of whatyou guys are doing. You know,
I can recreate a recipe, Ican tweak a recipe, but the logistics
(25:36):
of scaling is not often taught onvideos. That's right. The recipe is
this is a great loaf, thisis a great flavor, and then you
have to figure out how to scaleit, and if you are really scaling
it, I'm curious to see howyou came up with your systems because I'm
still on systems that I created inmy head, which are But the largest
(26:00):
mixer I have is a twenty courtmixer. But I do bake. I
could bake three to four hundred loavesa day in a twenty court mixer.
Wow, yes, good for you, you know. So, so basically
what I do. And I don'tdo this all the time, you know,
but I always bake on Fridays,I'm baking over one hundred loaves always.
(26:26):
But what I what I do isI do my drys knowing what I
could fit in that mixer and alsoknowing what I could fit in my containers
after its mixed, so that itdoesn't rise and go over right. Certain
of the breads I do a coldfermentation. I also bake plenty of sour
doughs where I just do one longbulk ferment. But I'm using buckets and
(26:51):
cambro containers and certain refrigeration. AndI just figured this out. I don't
know if it's practical. I don'tknow if I ever got a real commercial
bakery. This is how I shoulddo it, and I don't even know
where to learn the right way todo it is. But I am curious
to talk to someone like you.How do you do it? How did
you learn it? We did.We started just like what you're doing.
(27:15):
We just felt our way along whatwe do now. We do have a
twenty court and we use that forsmall batches, and we have a sixty
court and we prep all of ourdry ingredients on Saturday or on Tuesday,
and we do some of the mixingon Wednesday and load the dough like we
(27:44):
mix and measure out the dough aftera bulk ferment and lay it out on
full sheet trays and put it inthe cooler. Ah huh. And then
we have other loads that we mixon Thursday, and we'll do the same
thing. Many of our bagged loaves, well, all of our bagged loaves,
(28:07):
the you know, the honey,whole wheat, country white, Italian
not Italian oatmeal, twelve grain cinnamonraisin, all of those loaves get baked
Thursday afternoon for Friday and Saturday sale. The artisan loaves are all prepped.
Many of them are mixed ahead andproof overnight in the cooler, also on
(28:34):
full sheet trays just cut in youknow, eighteen ounce pieces and covered.
You know, we wrap the traysin plastic, and then we have a
we have a speed rack that wejust roll into the cooler, got it.
But then we have yeah, butthen we have like, if there's
extra dough left over, we'll putthat in a five gallon bucket. And
(28:57):
so we have stacks of gallon bucketsin the cooler as well. And this
is mostly for the artisan breads,yeah, because what you do is you
take that dough and you add itback to your batch, and it helps
maintain the flavor profile of your breads. When you say the batch, are
(29:22):
you talking about a week later?Yeah, yeah, exactly, it's almost
like a biga or something that's beensitting around. Yeah. And I even
do that with our croissants. I'llkeep all the trimmings from the croissant dough
and throw that in when I mixthe new batch. Right, that's cool,
(29:42):
and we make the croissants are awhole green croissant, And that's another
multi day process, using the coolerto retard and allow the bread or the
dough to proof. Right, Ifyou don't mind me asking how large as
the footprint of the bakery. Itsounds like there's a lot going on there.
(30:03):
There is a lot going on.It's about six hundred square feet.
Oh wow. And we don't produce, But we don't produce three hundred loaves
in a day. We don't sellthat many loaves in a weekend. But
we have so many other things thatwe're producing. It's not just about the
loaves anymore. So it's developed intoa very different business model than the one
(30:26):
that we started out with. Right, and it may it may continue to
develop. Right, Covid kind ofmade everybody rejigger everything and kind of changed
the flow of business. Yes,it did. We had to pivot with
covid. We've got well, yousaw our website and we had to on
(30:49):
the fly. I developed another pageon the website so that people could order
online, and we started a wholeordering process us and I was updating the
menu every week and taking orders,which was really nice. It got our
customers trained to order ahead, whichgives us I started. Yes, my
(31:15):
wife wants to go back to it. So with COVID, I think everyone
was in the mindset for a lotof reasons. They thought it was a
novelty, They thought it was fun. They didn't want to go out,
and we started off strong, andwe kept strong for a few six months
maybe, and over time we werenot getting as many orders anymore. I
(31:37):
think for a lot of different reasons. There were other options and people were
going out and farmers' markets were back, and then I was getting frustrated baking,
so specifically to order. I wantedthe freedom to be able to make
a mistake and just go to themarket with what I have baked, right,
(31:57):
because even if if it's one mistakeor two mistakes, that's at least
four more hours depending on when youcatch it. Yes, indeed, we've
and vultures like that recently. Ohit drives me crazy because it's just also
labor intensive and time intensive, andyou want the customers to be happy.
(32:22):
And I would always make one mistakeor more. Well, you know,
in this area we have a lotof amish, and when you get amish
would work. They always try toput a little mistake somewhere. They'll put
a little or chairs that they've woventhe seats for. They'll always have a
(32:46):
little something because that's what makes itspecial. So you can look at it
as you're always making something special.Yeah, it's true, but I was
or about the customer complaining I didn'tget so and so, and then I
have no more of those. Yeah. One thing that I've learned is when
(33:09):
we're at the market and it's Saturdaymorning or Saturday afternoon and someone comes in
and says, well, you don'thave any of this left, and I
saw it on the menu for theweek. You know, it's the same
song and dance every week. I'dlove to take an order. Would you
like to order ahead? It reallyhelps us with production planning, and that
(33:31):
way I can assure you that you'llget your product next week exactly, which
is why I'm considering some kind ofsubscription. I've never tried it. I
know some people have success with it, and then it helps us plan.
Yes, there are a lot ofbakers. We belong to the Artisan Baker's
(33:52):
Guild, and there are a lotof bakeries out there doing exactly what you're
talking about. Yeah, it's veryvery helpful. There's, in fact,
there's software out there that that canhelp you plan how to do that.
And we have talked about doing somethinglike that, and we talked about it
(34:13):
during COVID and we've never quite gottenit off the ground. And some of
the bakeries out there are even doingyou know, personal delivery, and that's
what we did well, and we'venever been able to organize that, partially
because we started out with four smallchildren and now because the scale of the
(34:34):
bakery is just kind of in between. Yeah, we were able to get
through it with various drivers. Icould say we would have two drivers out
on any giving. We would justdo it on Saturdays, okay usually And
I'm telling you, at the beginning, we would get in sixty houses and
they would order you know, betweenone and three loaves. But then it
(34:58):
started to peter down. But itis it is more logistics to figure out.
You've got to figure out the routesfor the drivers. That's a big
thing, by the way. Ohwell, and it's costing a lot more
now than it did before. Wellthat's the other thing. You know,
a lot of drivers don't want toput the wear and tear on the car,
(35:19):
and then you have to pay extramoney for gas. There's a lot
that comes with all of it.There's nothing, there's no easy way.
There's no easy way. Well,and we are very fortunate that we have
built so many good relationships that wehave not had to pay drivers because we
have older retired people who love usand just volunteer too. It's a great
(35:45):
idea take things for us and that'sfun. We you know, we pay
them back with baked goods and we'vewe've just developed the most wonderful friendships over
the years. That's great. It'sbeen a privilege to get to know some
of these folks. Now. Whenyou made the jump to the full time
(36:07):
bakery and rented space, I knowyou said you were raising the kids,
homeschooling them. What about your husband. He was working in agriculture at the
time, and he had been downsizedout of jobs three times in ten years.
It seemed like every time another childwas born, Wow, he was
(36:30):
looking for another job. And thelast time around when the twins were born,
we just looked at each other andsaid, you know, it's time
to get out there. We're gettingkicked out of the nest here of that
illusion of job security just isn't workingfor us. Okay. So part of
the decision was to take matters intoyour own hand yep and work for yourselves.
(36:52):
So it was partly a financial decision. We are opening a business to
sustain ourselves. Yes, it's somethingwe think we're good at and our customers
that they are asking for. Yes, that's exactly what it was. And
Tom had always had a vision ofus doing something together, whether it was
farming or doing something else, andso this was a real dream of his.
(37:15):
And yeah, it's been an interestingride. We've been doing this for
about twenty years almost. And yeah, I hear a lot of people talking
about retirement and I can't imagine it, but we're what I say, Yeah,
we're doing the twenty four to seventogetherness thing for a number of years
(37:37):
now, so I can understand thatsome people would be a little nervous about
it, but for us, it'sbeen wonderful. Now, if he's primarily
focused on the bread production with yoursetup, is he getting there at two
in the morning, is he doingovernights or do you have it set up
in a way where you could bakeduring the day. Well, remember that
(37:59):
we're only open Fridays and Saturdays forretail, so no, we're nine to
five on Tuesday and Wednesday and ThursdayFriday mornings. He gets in there around
four, okay, and does theartisan bread production and then throughout the day
(38:22):
he might be producing more just tokeep up with things going on the shelves.
But like the bagged whole wheat breadsthat I mentioned before, we don't
make any more of those during theweekend. What we produce on Thursdays is
what is there for the weekend.And because the breads have the kind of
(38:43):
shelf life that they do, Idon't even address questions about day old bread.
You know, our our stuff isfresh for days, so we don't
really worry about that. But yeah, so Fridays and Saturdays the day,
well, Friday, the day isearlier, but we're not that kind of
(39:04):
bakery fortunately, because that would justbe like going back to milking cows.
And if you went back into wholesale, that would change, right, some
of it would change. Yes,Right now, we are not pushing our
usage of our facility that much.We've got we've got enough bandwidth in terms
(39:27):
of baking space that we could goand produce quite a bit more without having
to really expand our hours. Itwould be helpful at that point to have
another person on the bread side,but we could still maintain without having to
come in it too. Right,as we come to the close of this,
(39:51):
I'm curious to know if it's aprofession that you would recommend to a
young person finished with college years lookingto start a career and be their own
boss. Well, we certainly loveit so, yes, I think it
really helps to love people's That's alwaysbeen a priority for me, and I
(40:15):
love the fact that I can playand experiment with different ingredients and develop new
things all the time. It's notlike a rote you know, pump this
this paperwork out the same way everyweek. There are some things that are
(40:36):
repeated every week, but there's somuch room for creativity and I really love
that part. And everyone I talkto in food really appreciates being able to
do that. Me too, That'sone of the things I love about it.
Yeah, it's fun. I reallylike to add and try some new
things. And I'm actually looking forwardto my outdoor farmer's market season, including
(41:00):
this coming weekend, so I havetime to experiment even more. Yes,
yes, one of these times,you'll have to come out to the Hershey
area. We're not that far away, you know what. Every once in
a while we do find ourselves outthat way, and I'll certainly be in
touch. That sounds great, allright, thank you? So much for
taking the time to share your storyand some anecdotes, and I think I
(41:23):
learned a few things. Well,I think I did too. Thank you
so much for having me have agreat, great time with your bread.
This episode of Bread for the Peoplewas brought to you by Side Hustle Bread,
Long Island's handcrafted, artisanal bread company. Side Hustle Bread is a family
run business that's bringing the neighborhood feelback to Long Island, one loaf at
(41:45):
a time. If you like whatyou're hearing, don't forget to head on
over ty tunes and rate and reviewthis episode. Reviewing and rating is the
most effective way to help us growour audience. This episode was produced by
Milestone TV and Film. I'm yourhost, Jim Serpico. Blessed be the
bread everyone. M hm mm hmm.
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