E4: Wisdom, Work, and the Long Game in Baking — A Conversation with Kirk Rossberg

What does it take to not just survive—but thrive—for 50 years in the baking industry?

In this episode of The Perfect Rise, Kimberly Houston sits down with Kirk Rossberg, owner of the award-winning Torrance Bakery and a founding member of the Retail Bakers of America (RBA), to unpack the wisdom he's gained over five decades in the business.

Kirk shares his journey from candy apprentice at 13 to leading one of California’s most recognized bakeries. This episode is packed with game-changing insights for anyone looking to build a sustainable, meaningful career in baking.

In this episode, we cover:

• The day-one mistake that almost cost Kirk his entire customer base
• Why staying relevant matters more than being trendy
• The value of humility in leadership and growth
• How to build a multi-generational team that thrives together
• Why the RBA has been a cornerstone of his journey
• And what Kirk would tell his 27-year-old self today

Whether you’re just starting out or looking to reinvigorate your bakery’s mission, this episode offers the kind of hard-earned insight you can’t Google.

Listen in and learn what it really means to play the long game in baking.

Subscribe to The Perfect Rise for more real conversations with industry leaders.

Want to connect with the RBA? Learn more at
www.retailbakersofamerica.org

💬 What’s the biggest lesson YOU took away from Kirk’s journey?
Drop it in the comments—we’d love to hear your reflections, especially if you’ve made a big pivot or had to earn your way back after a misstep. Let’s learn from each other, just like bakers always do.

Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:02.644)
Okay, welcome back guys. I am so excited to introduce you guys to Kirk on today as we have this conversation about what it has been like to be a part of the baking industry for many, many years and even as a part of the RBA for the last 40. So before we jump into all the things, the first question I like to ask people is can you tell us about your journey? What inspired you to get into the baking and culinary world?

Uh, well, I love bakery goods, so that's a natural. And I have been in the bakery business since I was 16 years old and I started work, uh, actually when I was 13, I was at apprentice candy maker at, uh, at a little candy shop, uh, near my house. And it was great and I loved it. And at that point I remember thinking that at 13, I'm thinking by the time I'm 21, I'm having six candy stores.

Well, my, the owner of the shop moved and I can't drive to his new location now. So there's a bakery that was local and at 16, I got a job there and I have not stopped my love affair with the bakery business all that time. And I'm 67 now. Wow.

love it. That is man, that's so fun. I wanted to do candy and then I burned my hand in culinary school and I was like, I don't want to do candy. So I left the candy part alone, but I do love that.

So on this podcast, we like to let our audience know we're really just kind of passing down the wisdom or passing it forward, shall we say. I don't want to say passing down, passing forward wisdom to all of our listeners. So if you could tell us what is one of the biggest lessons you've learned in your career.

Speaker 1 (01:58.07)
there's so many lessons, is that, you know, and each generation, there are different lessons to learn. So I'll tell you at the beginning, when I first bought, Torrance bakery in, I'm 27 years old and I had an ego huge. I'm surprised I got through a doorway. and so the funny thing that the lesson that I learned there, I was buying an existing

bakery. It was very small. was 1200 square feet. Rent was 35 cents a square foot. But, and it was more of a panaderia type of thing. They sold the conscious and stuff like that. Anyway, long story short, I thought my stuff was the best stuff and I took everything out of that case and I just installed new stuff. Well, the next day people came in to get their whatever their conscious or their, pull apart breads or whatever it was.

And I lost all those customers on day one. And that was a painful experience. And it took me a long time to recover from that. So I think that we have to know we're not so great and we have to kind of check our ego. it really, really, and you've heard the same before, but the longer I've been in the business, the less I know there's so much to learn and so many things that happen.

that I think that that's one of the bigger takeaways.

That is massive and it even speaks to me in this moment of changing my audience and how people are not very receptive of a new message from me because I did the bakery thing and I no longer do that. And so when people look at my journey of, well, you own the bakery for 10 years and now you coach bakers, like that doesn't make any sense. And it's a completely different audience of people.

Speaker 2 (03:57.61)
And so now I'm no longer showing up and serving the people who've been following me, who've been patronizing me for many years because what I offer now is totally different. And that sounds the same. So even your lesson from many years ago speaks to me right now. And I will definitely be thinking about that for the rest of the day. And how do you, how do you bring those things together? I love that. For anyone who may be going through something like this.

whether it's, you know, we're dealing with COVID or we're dealing with the new administration and how there's now tariffs on the things people were getting in order to do their things or the cost of eggs is skyrocketing. We're not even being able to find them, right? When we're trying to navigate industry changes that are out of our control, what advice would you give someone who finds themselves in that situation?

Well, there's a saying that I actually write down on a sheet of paper pretty much daily is, and one of the sayings that I look at daily is, is to let the problem solve me as a, me to try to solve the problem. And again, the advantage of being in the business for a few years now, I have been through what I would say end of the world situations in my little world. So,

things will change and you just have to adapt to the change. The one thing that you really have to do is you have to stay relevant. And I don't mean trendy, but you need to stay relevant to what's going on. Otherwise everything will feel old and stale and people keep moving. People keep moving and you have to be able to adapt to change. With COVID, there are so many things that were a blessing

with COVID in that we learn, we change so many of our processes during COVID that we kept. And I know in talking with other bakers, they've done the same thing. So in some ways, it only made us stronger and a little bit more resilient to any of the challenges that come.

Speaker 2 (06:20.01)
Agreed. I love that. Thank you. That was super, super helpful. And I know people will love that advice. So we're going to do a couple of deep dive questions into like what your experience in the industry has been. So we're talking 40 years of experience within the baking industry, right? Including an award winning bakery.

Well, 50 years, you count before I the bakery, because I was 17. Yeah, when I first started working. So I've had the bakery for 40 years and then little experience going into having the bakery.

Just a tiny bit, since you were 13. Since you were 13, just a little bit of experience. So tell us, does that journey look like? Like kind of take our listeners on a journey of the exploration and growth. And I think as a business owner, as we mature as people, right, coming into this at 13, like, yeah, I'm gonna have six candy shops. And then be like, okay.

maybe not, right? We're going to do something different. And in those pivots, to be sustainable for this amount of time, I think it would be worth the listen to just kind of hear your story and like what that looks like for you for the last 50 years.

Great question. So it, like you said, Kimberly, it's a journey and there is no, there is no end and there is no, I'm going to do this for me. I'm going to do this and then things will run on automatic pilot. I've, or I'm just not bright enough. That has never happened. So there was probably a time earlier when I thought, well, I'm going to work my tail off for

Speaker 1 (08:14.574)
10 years and then I will have somebody else kind of run it and I'll just, you know, kind of cruise. Maybe I'll play a little tennis and golf, who knows what. And there was a Sammy Davis a long time ago, the entertainer Sammy Davis was interviewed one time. I don't know why I remember these stupid things, but he was, he, he came on and the interviewer was saying, Hey, you've had your ups and downs along the way.

He goes, yeah, when I take my foot off the accelerator, the audience sees it immediately. And I feel that that's true in our business as well, and probably any business. So, and I've done this, I've made this mistake numerous times over the last 40 years is that your customers will see when you take your foot off the accelerator or when you take it a little bit more easy. So, you I still work six days a week.

I work 10 plus hours a day when I work. You know, I have like my mini, sometimes a little mini pity party when I leave, but I can't wait to come into work the next day. And so until that goes away, then I think that it's a constant journey and it's constant moving forward. I also think that you just get lucky sometimes. I know I'm not

the best baker in the world and far from it. And, but I think you just get lucky and through whatever magic is out there, things just fall into place and you just have to kind of accept that grace that you get when you do get lucky. And I'll tell you a quick little story if I can. So buy the bakery two years or two months after I bought the bakery, my oven breaks.

And I'm 27 years old. I don't even have a credit card. And the, I call up the oven repair guy and I say, I got this old oven and I need it to be repaired. They go that oven is so old that there are no parts for any of that. So you have to get a new oven. And again, I just spent everything on this bakery. I have no money, no credit card, no nothing. I talked to an oven guy.

Speaker 1 (10:42.366)
And he goes, well, put an oven in for you and you just pay me when you get the money. And it's like, who does that? Who does that to a 27 year old person who has no credit? And that my career could have ended just like that. So I do think that you get lucky along the way. And there's some great bakers out there who maybe just didn't get lucky and they have to close their stores for whatever reason. So

You you can't let your ego get in the way of that. Sometimes you just get lucky.

I love that. I had no idea is where the story was going to go, but I love it. I love it so much. I agree. There definitely are moments where you're just kind of like, okay, that's not normal. Yeah, these type of things don't happen to everyone and the understanding of it, the self-awareness of it. I love so much and I coach a lot of bakers. And that's one of the things that I try to get people to see are like those little moments where like it's worked out for you even when you

didn't know how it was going to work out and it's like that will continue to happen. Like just stay the course in the passion and the things will happen in the way that they should. So I love that. Okay. Do you have any misconceptions or have heard misconceptions about the culinary industry that you don't think are real?

misconceptions. Yes. Well, I think there's rules with baking. And I think you need to know the rules of baking before you break the rules of baking. They think sometimes people jump that gun and it's similar to music, too. You have to know your music. You have to know your chords or whatever the notes and everything before you can say, I can break those rules.

Speaker 1 (12:39.34)
So Nancy Silverton, great baker.

that she broke the rules in bread baking and she's pioneer bread baker. So, but first you gotta know the rules before you break the rules. So I think those are the probably some of the misconceptions. Yeah, there's probably some things that are, has changed with everything, with shortening and all kinds of sugars and what's healthy and what's not. So there's so many rules that need to be broken, but you have to know the rules first.

I I love that. And I think we definitely will have a conversation coming up with an educator from CIA and we get into students need to learn the basics. Like you need to know the fundamentals before you can like go off and do all the things you see on TikTok or do all the things you see on Pinterest because we can look at those things having been to culinary school or been in the industry for years and go, well,

That's that technique and that's this technique and that's this technique, but I can't just teach you here. Go do this one thing. You need to understand all those different techniques in order to be able to pull it together. So yes, learning, learning the basics and then you can go have fun and break it. I did that a lot when I was running my business. I absolutely did. Okay. So since you have been doing this for so long, I'm interested if you have any

Rituals, habits, practices that fuel your creativity. Like how have you stayed creatively inspired for the last 50 years in the industry?

Speaker 1 (14:25.398)
Well, we have a great crew. So I definitely rely on them. it's nice to have them. Our demographics are all over the place. So it's nice to have the youthful enthusiasm that comes with that. And we also have some bakers here who have been here for 30 plus years at the bakery. So it's nice to have that. It's like a really good baseball team.

in that you have your veterans and then you have your rookies and a team of all veterans is not going to win anything. The team of all rookies is not going to win anything, but together.

magic. Oh I love that. I love it so much. Okay if you could go back until your younger self, take a time, 13, 27, 35, whatever. If you could tell your younger self one piece of advice from when you were first starting out, what would it be?

one piece of advice. One, to relax a little bit and not feel like you got to rush into it. My only one and only midlife crisis was when I was 25 and I thought I was so far behind with my life. So I would say to relax a little bit and to like you had said, Kimberly, that it's a journey and it's not you know, it's never about the money.

Two, so don't chase the money because if you're looking to get into this business to be rich, one, you're in the wrong business. Two, you gotta do something that's your passion. You have to follow your passion because if you don't, your life is just gonna be miserable. So I think that that would be my little advice. Just kind of relax and just stay the course and it's the journey.

Speaker 2 (16:21.346)
that. I think I would tell my younger self that I have definitely felt that way that I was behind and my mother is like what? You're not, promise you're not behind. You definitely accomplished a lot. You're like okay so we are gonna prepare to bring this to a close but before we do what's your favorite recipe?

my favorite recipe. I think I like we make a fudge to recipe, which is egg white cookie. And it's not as made without flour. And it's my favorite because we sell a lot of it. But it's also my favorite in that. It was one of those things that happened before. Gluten became like an issue with a lot of people.

So it was a good cookie before that. And then it became a good cookie even more so after that and became a little bit more of a, again, a signature thing for me on that. So I think that that would be my favorite recipe just because of the history of the cookie and stuff like that. And I think a lot of bakers make a similar type of recipe, but I would say that would be my favorite.

My favorite to eat is a chocolate chip cookie though. I still go old school with the chocolate. A good chocolate chip cookie is like,

Yes, me too. That is definitely my favorite. People are like, you're a pastry chef. You want a chocolate chip cookie? Yes. Yes, I can make the fluff, but like, just give me a chocolate chip cookie and send me on my way. And I am good. So I totally, totally agree and totally get that Kirk. This has been incredible. Thank you so much for blessing us with this conversation. I know our audience is going to love it.

Speaker 2 (18:13.358)
And thank you for being a member since we first started the RBA. I love that so much. You know what, before we end this, I am going to ask you this question. So for people who are listening, a lot of people are unfamiliar with the RBA and maybe like how it can be of service to them specifically in their business.

As parting words, could you speak to those people who may be listening? They're like, yeah, I've heard of the RBA, but I'm not sure how that works for me. As someone who's been here since the beginning, can you let us know what that journey looks like within the RBA and how has that helped you?

Well, a couple of things on that. So I've made so many great friends in the RBA. And it's, as with any organization, what you put into it is what you're going to get out of it. So if it's always take, take, take, that's not going to work. The one thing that's beautiful about our industry in general is that it is a very sharing, giving community.

I don't think the restaurant industry is the same with that from what I've heard from some of my restaurant people. But if you ask any baker, like, Hey, can I have this recipe or I really liked how you did this? How did you do it? 95 % of the time they will share exactly what they did. So, it's those people who have like very little information.

Want to hoard and protect that little information that they have but when you talk to most people And and you you know, they've been down that road too So you're able to share things with them and they'll say yeah I did that and this is what I did and this is how I solved it and I've had so many problems or issues solved by just picking up the phone and talking to you know, Scott Calvert or or

Speaker 1 (20:16.578)
the many other bakers that have been around over the years. I'm inspired by the other bakers too. So this is just a matter of showing up, showing up to going to Vegas when the RBA is there or just going to the small sort of workshops that happen here. We used to have a California retail bakers associates, the CRBA, and then that broke up. But that was great and just neighbors sharing ideas with other neighbors.

I think it's a great sharing community and we're very lucky to be in such an industry that's so willing to share.

Agreed. We just had a whole conversation on that yesterday in one of our meetings. So I totally, totally agree with that. We definitely still share resources inside of the RBA community. There's a whole section for that. If you're looking for recipes or formulas, like those things exist. But I definitely wanted people to be able to hear that from someone who has been a part of the RBA and can speak to that. So thank you so much. This has been super incredible.

And I wish you 40 more years of success in the baking industry. And I thank you so much for taking time to speak with me today.

Thank you, Kimberly. It's been a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (21:35.447)