Saving Bread
Saving Bread explores sourdough, grain, fermentation, craftsmanship, and the people keeping real bread alive. Join baker and educator Allison White for practical lessons and thoughtful conversations with bakers, millers, farmers, oven makers, and others shaping the future of bread.
Long live real bread.
Saving Bread
Interviews E09 - Jenny Berg on Wholesale, Cottage Food Laws & Knowing When Enough Is Enough
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Jenny Berg of Crumb Sourdough Microbakery joins me for a conversation about what it actually looks like to build a home-based bread business and how many different paths that can take.
Jenny started baking sourdough in 2020 and eventually turned that obsession into Crumb Sourdough Microbakery in Central Oregon. Along the way, she helped organize a grassroots effort to change Oregon’s cottage food laws, built a wholesale business supplying local grocery stores and farm stands, and worked her way up to producing 230 loaves a week on her own.
We talk about why she moved away from direct-to-consumer sales, how she found and approached wholesale accounts, wholesale pricing and payment terms, her production schedule, and why predictable income has been worth giving up some margin.
We also talk about something that doesn’t get said enough: growth doesn’t always have to be the goal. Jenny shares why she’s no longer interested in building an empire, how she thinks about quality of life and burnout, and what it means to create a business that is actually enough.
And at the end, Jenny gives a beautiful answer to the question I ask every guest: What does Saving Bread mean to you?
Find Jenny + Crumb Sourdough
Crumb Sourdough Microbakery website
Jenny on Instagram — @crumb.sourdough.microbakery
Cottage Food Resources Jenny Mentioned in the Episode
Forrager — Oregon Cottage Food Law
Hi friends, welcome back to the Saving Bread Podcast. This week on the podcast, we have Jenny Berg from Crumb Sourdough, and you are probably already following Jenny on Instagram, but if you are not, I cannot recommend her enough. She's funny, she's cool, she's down to earth, and she just is who she is. There's it's what you see is what you get. And I really enjoyed the conversation that I had with her. I think a lot of us believe that our only option for selling sourdough is maybe a porch pickup if we're doing the cottage baking thing. And Jenny shows us that there's another path. She had to jump over many hurdles, up and over and around and under and all the things in order to be able to sell bread in Oregon and help others do the same. And so she tells us all about how that journey started, um, how it ended, and if you're struggling with something in the state that you're living in, how maybe you can start to make meaningful changes. We talk about passion, we talk about our family life, we talk about all the things, and it's just a really beautiful conversation, and I know that you're really going to enjoy it and really enjoy her. So, yes, this week is an interviews episode, and next week I will be back with a lessons episode where we just start to um dive a little bit deeper in the world of sourdough microbiology. We might touch on pH a little bit, and we're definitely going to talk about incorporating more whole grains and what that looks like. But for this week, we've got our interview, and I'm glad that you're here. If you hear this episode and you think of a friend who might enjoy it, uh do us a favor and just send this episode to them so they can enjoy it right along with you. So, on that note, let's get right into the interview with Jenny Berg. I'm Allie White, and this is Saving Bread. We did it. We're here. I'm learning that the baking crew is not also the tech crew.
SPEAKER_00I'm pretty techie actually.
SPEAKER_01Are you? I believe that I do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because you have great content. I overestimated my abilities to start a podcast, to record anything, to edit anything. Like it's been uh a journey. It's been a journey.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you mentioned the other day that it's taking up all of your free time. So 100%. That's oh well. But it's fun to learn. Take care of yourself.
SPEAKER_01Take care of yourself when I'm dead.
SPEAKER_00Right. That's sort of where I am. I've got to make time, I've got to make hay while the sun shines.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. Let's get into it. We have Jenny Berg here from Crum Sourdough. Welcome, Jenny. Thank you for agreeing to be on the Saving Bread podcast.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you for having me, Allie. I'm so excited and and I'm honored at the same time, really.
SPEAKER_01Oh, you were top of the list, girl. I was so excited to reach out to you.
SPEAKER_00Oh, well, thank you so much. And I I just want to say your venture into this podcast journey is perfect because I don't know if anyone's told you this, but your voice is perfect. It's mesmerizing. I can watch you all day long on Instagram when you when you have your cookie, your long videos on Instagram. I've I'm like your audience the hundred percent of that time because you're just it's so calming when you talk and you have a lot of authority behind what you're saying. So this is a natural progression for you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. I've had this idea for many years. And I don't know if you know this about me, but I was a fitness coach for most of my career. And I'm a small person. And so I had to really learn how to command a room of 50 people and hold space and get them to sprint at 130 revolutions per minute on their bike. Like everybody look at me, listen to me, and just hold space and like command the space and take up space as a five foot two petite woman. And so I do feel like all those years of that helped me prepare for this and just say the thing, do the thing, and it feels very comfortable for me. And it's been a very nice um change from the long hours in the bakery.
SPEAKER_00I bet it is yeah, in your closet with the door closed. Yes. Yeah, it's kind of like Toastmasters, but you you didn't have to go that route. It just came to you through your your previous life. That is correct.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Okay. Okay, let's get to the goods. You have a huge online presence. I think most people in this space know who you are. They've at least heard of you, they're following you. You definitely have a presence on social media. So, congratulations on your success. And you make it look very easy. I know that it is not, but let's just back it up a little bit. Before your bakery existed, before crumb existed, what was happening in your life and what did bread awaken in you that the previous work you were doing did not?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, I don't know if many people know. I've gone into the route of in my messaging coming from my age and my generation. So I am in my late 50s. So I've had a lot of different hats in my life. I have had some little moonlighting entrepreneurial stints in the past. I have worked for other people. There's a lot of chapters in my life. There were chapters where I was a lady of leisure for a while. My husband was a very successful building contractor. When we met, we've been married 26 years now. So he was in at the peak of his career. And so when we were married, I was basically in charge of domestic responsibilities. And that that became very kind of, I mean, it sounds wonderful, but it's it's really not fulfilling. After a while, you start feeling like I'm really wasting purpose that I have. I mean, it's great to sleep in, I do miss that. But it's it's more important to be generating things for your life, for yourself, for your community. And so through the years, I've had a lot of different journeys with that. At the point when Sourdough found me, it was like so many others, it was during COVID. And at that time, I was working for an appliance store in town. I was working doing computer work in the warehouse. Very mundane, very groundhog, get up, do the same thing every day. I enjoyed the crew immensely, but it was not very creative work at all. So COVID came along and I was sent home to work. And that's really where this whole sourdough thaped. And it's funny looking back because it happened to a lot of people, unbeknownst to me at the time. I had no idea this whole bread revolution was going on behind the scenes. As much as I look like I know what I'm doing on social media, I'm not up on the trends at all, more so back then. So a friend of mine posted on Facebook a picture of her sourdough and her baked loaf. And for the longest time, though, I had always been curious about sourdough, and I was way too intimidated to pursue. It seemed very needy. It seemed like you're bringing in another living being into your family unit, all that stuff you hear, which is true in a lot of ways. So I had all this time all of a sudden, and this was my opportunity to kind of go for it. And I did. And that was in the spring of 2020. And at the same time, some other changed in our life. My husband's very longtime office manager passed away. And so I then also left my job at the appliance store and came home and filled those shoes as his office manager, which was, again, just like so abruptly switching gears that had me in tears a lot trying to run his giant construction general contracting business. So there was a lot of pressure. And I found that the baking sourdough for me during that very chaotic time was a little snippet of joy. It was playful, it was challenging. It was something that kept my brain occupied during all this other stuff going on. And that's where it started. And that period went on of just like I'm one of those people that literally became obsessed, where you go to bed thinking, okay, can I do this kind of scoring on my loaf? Can I master that, what I'm seeing on Instagram, these beautiful designs? And I quickly learned that is not my forte. So you once you figure out what you're not good at, you might want to just sort of like leave that in the dust and not make it work for you. So for me, it was like this progression of what am I good at with this? And it was just constantly challenging me. It was like I dreamt of sourdough. I woke up thinking about it. It was just bizarre. I'm not like that now. The obsession is past. It has subsided. It's business now. But back then, it was like this totally stimulating, creative outlet for me that literally just kind of took me away from a lot of pressure and stress that was going on all around. And I thank God for that because I don't know where I'd be if I wasn't brave enough in that time to kind of step into it. My life would be really different. I know I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you for sure.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank goodness you are, because this is lovely and you are lovely. And I'm very thankful for our friendship that we've had online, and now we get to chit-chat face to face. Well, you know, through the internet, but still face to face. I'm hearing a lot of different things. First of all, I would never classify you as a lady of leisure. So it it makes sense to me that that ended up not being a good fit for you. You needed purpose, a drive. You're the type of person that, like you said, you have an obsession and you think about it and you do it. But then you were sort of plopped this, let's call it an opportunity to work with your husband. And that is a purpose, that's a job, that's something to do. It's it probably kept you very busy, but it didn't align with probably who you are deep down in the things that you want to discover about yourself. And then you also learn about sourdough, and then you find yourself thinking about it, wanting to do big things with it. And it was almost serendipitous at the time that it came in of you have these two things going on, and like which one is it gonna be?
SPEAKER_00Yes, absolutely. And again, during this whole time, I mean, it was going on all around me right at that time. It was burgeoning this industry and this revival. I've heard it called a bread revival. I had no clue that was all happening at the same time.
SPEAKER_01I think that's what makes it even more special. You weren't chasing some trend or trying to be like everyone else, which is not really what I get from your page. You have your own identity, you have your own voice when it comes to baking and how you present yourself online. And I think that makes sense that you had no idea what was going on around you. You were just in your own little bubble and pursuing what spoke to you. And I think that's why you come across so genuine and authentic and a little bit raw and rough around the edges. Like, this is me, this is what it is. I'm not trying to be anything else, like here it is. Take it or leave it, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's pretty much whatever the mood is it is I'm in that day, is what you're gonna say.
SPEAKER_01And I love that. I really do. Do you remember the moment that you stopped thinking of yourself as someone who was trying to learn to bake and you were thinking, you know what? I might actually be a baker and I can sell this bread. So, how did that transition from just obsessing about the loaf itself turn into I'm going to start baking and selling my bread?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That happened toward the end of 2020 when I was baking so much bread, obviously, more than Steve and I could ever consume. It's the same story here over and over. I brought it to work, I gave it to coworkers. They loved it. And I was surprised by that. And this again, so early in this whole kind of boom, it was very rare for anybody to actually be given a gift of real bread, wild fermented, long fermented. That just wasn't available anywhere in my community at that time. So the the reception I got was really positive and encouraging. So that started the wheels turning. On my past, I did jams and jellies and had my little moonlighting business doing that for a while and was baking or making all of that in the Masonic Temple. I rented out their commercial kitchen to do that on the weekends. And so that kind of re-awakened that drive in me to maybe I'll just moonlight. And I did do that for a while. I I worked my full-time jobs Monday through Friday, and then started thinking about the business part of it and that I could work it in on my weekends. And since we don't have children and we're both older, the I didn't care if I didn't do anything on the weekends. It was, this is this was my passion, my obsession. And I just didn't have enough hours in the day to do it. And the first thing when the business bug kind of bit me, and I was thinking I could do this from home, obviously, because we're all locked down. I don't even know where I got the idea to do a porch pickup. I honestly think I think I was the first person in my community to do any of that. But I I don't know that I got the idea from anybody else. I just don't really remember, but I could sell it from home. And before I did anything moving forward, I did a ton of research on the internet about the laws in my state of what can I legally sell? I mean, when I did the jams and jellies in the past, I knew when you're giving people something to ingest, you've got to be really careful. You don't want to open yourself up to liability. So it was really important that I understood what I was legally allowed to do. And then that opened the whole well, Oregon really sucks with their cottage food law. I didn't even know it was called cottage food at that time. So I was learning so much. And then like really slowly transitioning into this idea of selling the bread from my front porch.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Without having to interact with anybody, which was a dream for me because I'm an introvert, which is why I love social media, and I don't have to really interact with anybody that I can like show up and leave. Um I was just having this conversation.
SPEAKER_01I was just having this conversation with Balin yesterday. I am an extreme introvert. And I think most bakers are. I really do. And so this idea of just popping it out on the front porch and I don't really have to talk to anyone, not because I don't want to. It's just like I'm awkward sometimes. And so it's nice. Like, go get it. And I love you. I love you so much. But just like get your bread and like bye-bye. I love you. Um, so it's nice. I can totally relate to that. Continue. So you're you're having these ideas, you want to sell your bread. You're very responsible, good job. You're thinking, I need to make sure that this is legal. So you're researching the Oregon cottage food laws, you're finding out that they're less than ideal. What happens next?
SPEAKER_00So that was a that really deflated my excitement because at that time, the cottage food law in Oregon or the food exemption, home cooking exemption law, I think is what it was, was introduced in 2016. And it was really just to let like hobby bakers kind of do a little something here and there. So it really wasn't supporting any kind of like realistic business. Just for instance, the the gross sales cap was $20,000. That's gross annual sales. After expenses, let's say you get to take home 30% of that. And I'm thinking, well, that's just not even worth effort to, you know, for being a realistic business. So my question was, how does a bill become a law? I want to like make a change. And so I don't know if you're familiar with David Craybill with forager.com. He's one of the websites that I came across in my investigative internet research. And he, I have to say, forager.com is probably the foremost cottage food website still to this day, where you can go in and find out what's happening in every state across the country with cottage food law and what you're allowed to do and not allowed to do. And I started subscribing to his newsletter, and he was responsible for helping get California update their law. So he was the first person I reached out to. Sent him an email, and he was not able to help me with Oregon. He was preoccupied with some other projects, but he directed me to the Institute for Justice, which is a nonprofit legal and advocacy group in Washington, DC. I did not do any of this alone. I built a team of people to help me, and thankfully had people who were willing to talk to me and walk me through the whole process. But I had to do the heavy lifting. None of this was done for us. I reached out to the Institute for Justice, told them how our law was and gave them the specifics of that. And they're big advocates for the cottage food industry. And so they took on Oregon and they basically said, all right, get a group of people together, other bakers that want to participate in this very grassroots effort, and we will guide you along the way. And I started a closed Facebook group. I think it was called Reform for Oregon Cottage Food Law. And I went to other cottage food groups I found on Facebook and I started promoting that I had this group. And did anybody want to come aboard and help change the legislation? And pretty soon we had a few hundred people in this group, and we were the pioneers of getting this going. We had to send emails constantly to all the legislators in our state. It was a really cool group of home bakers. So we pretty much just sent the emails. Here's what the law is, here's why Oregon is one of the worst in the country presently, comparatively. And this is what we want to change it to. And we had to get a senator or somebody from the Senate to sponsor the bill. And we we did. We finally got Senator Tim Canope to step up and sponsor the bill. And then it just went from there. It went to the Senate first, it had to go through all these committees, then it had to go to the House second. Anyway, this is probably like more nuts and bolts you want to know.
SPEAKER_01No, I think that if people want to make change, they need to know that there's a lot of work and people involved. And it's it's really interesting to hear the process because my only knowledge of turning a bill into a law is what I learned from school of rock, the cartoon when I was in middle school. So I'm learning a lot. I'm taking notes. There's a song or something about it. It's like the bill becomes a law. I don't know. It's like I'm just imagining these little cartoons dancing around in my head, but I'm like, oh, you can actually do this. And then what happened?
SPEAKER_00So before it gets voted on in either chamber, you have to go through all these committees and you have to show up and give verbal testimonies. So many of us did that. Many of us testified many times during this whole process. So the bill passed in 2023. Then we had to get the governor to sign it. The governor could have just squashed the whole thing. So the governor signed it and then brought him a bunch of bread beforehand.
SPEAKER_01I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I would have if I had been locally. Yeah. Um yeah, right. Pay him off under the table with a loaf of bread. Here's some focaccia. Yeah, really, really. So then the law, the bill was written up actually to backtrack a little bit. The Institute for Justice took the language and all of the things we wanted as home bakers, the changes we wanted, and they wrote it into the bill format. So the bill was signed into law, and then after it goes into effect, the Oregon Department of Agriculture then gets hold of it. And they get to write up all the rules on their end that they want, which can be totally different than what we just had passed. And some of it was, and we had to go to battle a little bit with them and say, look, no, this is what the law says, and this rule you're coming up with really contradicts that. So we had to work with them. So we weren't able to really start doing things legally by the new law until June of 2024. So full six months into the the following year that we were able to then wholesale and our sales limit went up, and we were able to engage in e commerce and ship our products. Those were the new wow, those were the changes.
SPEAKER_01You are really a determined person because that was a very long journey and you did not give up and you stuck with it and you rallied people in the community and you saw it through to the end and made real significant change happen. And I bet you a lot of people who bake in Oregon or have a cottage bakery in Oregon might not even realize what had to happen for them to be able to get their certification.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, that's true. That's evident. I could have named it Jenny's bill, but you know.
SPEAKER_01I haven't I would have been like, this is the Alley White Cottage Baking Law Bill.
SPEAKER_00I don't really, I mean, it's I don't I don't know. I it's a big deal, but I don't promote it a lot. And people have asked me if I would be willing to kind of coach them on how you go about this. And I've just never had an interest in that. I I direct them to the Institute for Justice or Forager.com. Go find what's happening in your state right now and join them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's an incredible story and one that I was not aware of. I knew a little bit about it because of some things that you've mentioned on social media, but I don't think I was aware as to the depth and length of time that took. So congratulations on that win because that's a really big deal.
SPEAKER_00I'm not a cottage food baker anymore. I actually got inspected and licensed as a domestic kitchen. So I'm no longer encumbered by the cottage food laws. I can bake food that requires refrigeration now. It doesn't have to just be shelf stable and not limited by sales caps anymore.
SPEAKER_01Yes, we have something similar in California, although I don't think sourdough is allowed on it. There's a Miko, which is everything has to be made within 24 hours. And I was like, well, that's not gonna work. Sourdough takes 48 hours. So it's important for listeners to know that every state has different laws, names, abbreviations, and things. And it's really important to do the research, find out these income caps of gross sales, just so that you're picking the right thing, especially based off of which one allows you to make which kind of foods, right?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yeah, exactly. So for me, it was mostly the income, the sales cap per year. My husband retired. So my income from the bakery is our main source, it's not the only source. And so 50,000 wasn't gonna cut it still as a cottage baker. So in Oregon, it's nice that we have that ability to become a licensed domestic kitchen, but you have to have certain things going on in your space that allow for that. And the other important thing, too, was having pets in the home. That was something that we asked for and got. Most people have a pet in the home. And back when I started, you couldn't even be a cottage maker if you had a dog or a cat or even a fish. I mean, you have to disclose on our labeling what kind of pet you have, even if it's um a lizard. I'm not kidding. You have to have that on the label. Yikes. But they're not allowed in the kitchen when you're preparing food. So it's just common sense.
SPEAKER_01I have worked a lot of places in my almost 40 years of life, and the things going on in the kitchens where I worked were scary. Oh, yeah. Compared to how clean my house is and how clean other cottage baking houses and kitchens I've been to, they're immaculate. And I'm like, man, these rules are real strict. Where were you when I was working at? I won't say where, but it's pretty crazy. Um it's interesting. Well, that is a wonderful story, and it's only part of your story. I mean, that's a huge deal, but besides that, you also are making an incredible amount of bread every single week. And on top of that, you are posting on social media quite frequently, which I'm learning is basically a part-time job, if not a full-time job. How many loaves are you baking per week?
SPEAKER_00Right now in my busy season, it's 230. And that's a set number because I am strictly wholesale now. I eliminated all customer, direct customer, and any kind of pickups here at the house, or I had another pickup location that was just so 230 a week. So split into two days or four days basically, but let's talk about this.
SPEAKER_01So you are doing wholesale sales, which in case someone doesn't know, that means you are selling to, for example, a grocery store. They're buying it from you for a certain amount, and then they are buying them all at once, I'm assuming, and then reselling them to their customers, probably for a small profit. That is what wholesale is. And so you're doing 230 loaves a week wholesale to how many different stores? Five.
SPEAKER_00Great. I only have five. So three of them are farm stands, two of them are seasonal farm stands that will be shutting down in October. I have two grocery stores and one year-round farm stand. So come winter time is stressful. Winter is slower anyway for most bakers. This year, because this is the first year I've gone totally 100% wholesale. I don't have the customer orders to carry me through winter anymore. So I'm planning how I'm gonna replace the farm stands that close in October, have something in through the winter, but then I still want to honor the farm stands in May. So I'm trying to be creative in how that's gonna all work out for me this winter.
SPEAKER_01Well, hopefully someone who's listening is in your area and they will have an idea and they will be very excited to have you in their space. I'm going to believe that and manifest that for you. And if you've shown us anything, it's that you will figure it out. You absolutely will. That's an interesting pivot. What do you think the benefits are of doing wholesale versus D2C direct to consumer?
SPEAKER_00I found wholesale for me is more predictable income. I take a cut. There's obviously I'm selling to those people at a reduced price so they can market up. And I get asked this a lot, and I'm transparent about it. And every store is going to be a little different. You want to have your conversation with the manager, but I sell at 70% of my retail, and so they have a 30% markup. And that's about as slim as they want to go. Most, I've been hearing most stores are more favorable towards a 35, 65% split. So it's more work to maintain the income that I'm used to with direct customers, but customers are fickle. I love my customers. And from week to week, I always felt like I was chasing them so I can know that I'm gonna have this much money coming in because I know I've got these kinds of bills coming up. And it was stressful for me. So while I'm taking a cut, it's more calming for me to have that predictable. I know what I'm getting every month through the wholesale accounts through through this season, through this period. That's the benefit for me.
SPEAKER_01I would like to talk about this a little bit more because I thankfully my customers, I know them really well. They're quite predictable. They're used to my pattern of baking now. I'm the opposite of you. I bake heavily in the late summer, fall, and winter, and then I take late spring and summer off because my kids are out of school. But I will agree with you that sometimes I don't remember that it's like spring break and everyone's gone, and I thought I was going to make X amount of dollars, and now I'm making X amount of dollars and I have bills coming up or whatever, and I get a little bit stressed out. What you're describing is moving to a different model where you have a set number of loaves that has already been agreed upon by the wholesale account, what they're buying, what they're paying, and you just basically deliver it. And how many days a week are you doing that? Twice a week. Twice a week.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I have prep days on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then my bake and delivery days are Wednesdays and Fridays. Great.
SPEAKER_01I think that this is a very reasonable alternative for someone who doesn't like the uh unpredictability of customer weekly orders because you know what you're getting with this situation, even though the dollars are less, they're consistent, right? Right. So, how did you find those accounts? What was it like to be able to secure those accounts? Did it involve a contract? If someone's listening to this and they're like, man, these these weekly bakes, I'm I need something different. I need to know how many dollars I'm making. I can't be susceptible to vacation times and this and that off people traveling, whatever. And I want to have wholesale accounts, where would they start? Would they just walk into a grocery store and be like, what's up? I make sourdough, you want to try some? Like, how does that work?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a good question. Because when I kind of went this direction, I had those same questions. Yeah. I picked up the phone. So rather than just walking in, I picked up the phone. And you remember phones, we're all used to texting. I always tell people to call, just pick up the phone, call, talk to the store manager, make an appointment to come in, to introduce yourself, tell them what you're doing, um, and make the appointment come in. I would always bring a loaf of bread to give, yeah, and we'd sit down and chat. And the same thing, the the conversation on the phone is very short. It's set the time, okay, come on in. I mean, if they want to meet with you and explore this, and it's bring your wholesale sheet, bring your items on your menu. So you want to have that prepared. I have that. It's just a very simple Excel spreadsheet. I have my loaves, what the wholesale is, and suggested retail. Okay. Um, that's what I do. And I also just recently added per delivery $5 delivery fee. This is a very new fee just because of the way gas prices are right now. And I'm driving, it's about 150 miles a week. So that's a lot of wear and tear on your car, in addition to fuel. And I think $5 rather than raising prices, which I haven't done in a couple of years, I've tried to really keep that stable. I'm like at the top end in my community, and I don't want to go higher. So the $5 fee, that's gonna bring in probably another, maybe another $180 a month, which is great. That's gonna cover my fuel. You go in, you meet with the manager, and there's no contract. That's the other thing I thought. I had this whole thing template I found to protect me, and I emailed it to the first grocery store I was in, and he was like, What is this? He goes, I don't have this with any other vendor in the entire store. So you don't have to worry about that. It's just very much like handshake and communication with the bakery manager and the store manager.
SPEAKER_01Are they flexible if you're like, hey friend, I need a week off and I'm not gonna be there? They're just like, that's cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they say just bring a sign in and they will post it in like the rack space that I'm normally in.
SPEAKER_01Jenny is a K.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and I make announcements on social media and everything. So hopefully people hear about it that I'm gone.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. And that's great. I think that this really encourages people to what I'm what I've been saying in a lot of the interviews that we're having, and what a lot of bakers have been saying is make connections with people in real life. Call them on the phone, use your vocal cords to have a conversation with them, set up a date and time, bring them a loaf of bread, sit down at a table, be prepared with your pricing, and have it be a handshake deal and really good communication. I think not, I don't know necessarily people our age, but people younger than us, sometimes they think they're a little bit fearful of those in-person, I'm not really sure what that's about, but the in-person conversations and the chit chat. Um and not and even just older people too. I think that COVID kind of tucked us all away. And so we're still kind of coming out and and redeveloping and rehealing those relationships in person. And you're just saying know the people in your community, show them your face, be kind, bring them a loaf, and develop that relationship so that you have these opportunities to be able to have wholesale accounts because really they're not just buying your bread, they're they have a relationship with you and they like you and they respect you, and you show them the same respect and communication and care, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And it's if people want to start out with a locally owned grocery store, it's a lot less intimidating than like going to like maybe Whole Foods, which I would probably never. I it just seems so big corporate and a lot of I don't know headache involved with that. A lot of most of the other grocery stores and I'm in are family owned, locally owned, have been here for a long time.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Whole Foods used to be like that. I worked there for a while, uh long time ago, 2007, before they were owned by someone else, and it was all really like local kinds of things. But you're right now, it's it's changed. It's very it feels more corporate, maybe. Um, and you're right, the local grocery stores, it makes a lot of sense, especially if you're using any local ingredients and supporting local grain. It kind of all tells the same story. And it's it's very laid back.
SPEAKER_00And they appoint all the appointments I've had have not been these intense interviews or anything like that. So if you're feeling intimidated, just know, yeah, these local stores, they really want to be a part of the community. They want to support the makers in the community. So that's a great place to start. You'll get good reception. The other thing I wanted to just tie into that too is payment terms. Really advocate for yourself. I let the manager know my payment terms are either net seven or net 15. Cash flow for me is really important. I'm very small and I'm buying ingredients weekly. For me to wait a month for payment would be more pressure than I'm comfortable with.
SPEAKER_01I think that net seven, net 15 is more than fair. What Jenny is describing is you get your check, your cut, your payment within seven to 15 days of delivery. Right. And so you want to be very clear because I have found myself in this pickle before where I dropped something off and I was like, my dollars, like, pay me my money. And I did not get that money for over a month. And I, that was my bad, right? I didn't, I didn't know to say I need to be paid at this time for this relationship to work. So that was just a learning experience. But you already went through this and you're telling everyone kind of the tips to get these things going. This is actually not where I thought our conversation was going to go today, but I'm really glad that it is because these are things that I didn't know and things that I actually don't see talked about very frequently in the cottage baking space. And they're really important conversations because what's shown on Instagram is a lot of people uh baking at home and putting it on the porch, which is what I do. But there are a lot of other opportunities and avenues to bake and put to a grocery store or a supply to a sandwich shop or whatever. And these are important things to be thinking about if you're going to go down a different avenue for incoming.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So thank you for thank you for bringing this new and fresh perspective because this is not a conversation that I've had before. Oh, good. Well, I'm glad to do it. Yeah, this has been great. Can we talk a little bit about your time management as far as? So if you're making, you said 230 loaves a week, that's 115 loaves each baked day, right? Because you're baking twice a week. That's a lot of bread. Can you just briefly walk us through your schedule from waking up and opening your beautiful eyes in the morning to delivering your packaged loaves at the grocery store? Sure. It doesn't need to be like every detail, but just give us like a flow.
SPEAKER_00Sure. So what I found it works for me is on my dough prep days, getting up at five.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00It could be later, because I'm usually done by about two.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00But I'd rather I'd rather be done early and go sit outside, you know, kick my kick my feet up or whatever, go take a bath or something. But um, so five o'clock and that's my prep day. Then bake day though is kind of more grueling um three o'clock a.m. I had started at 2 30 when I first started doing, you know, amped up the production quantity just to make sure I wasn't going to be running late. But three o'clock works for me. So I'm in this rhythm now. I load the car, I'm out the door by about 9 30 a.m. to do deliveries. So from three to about eight, things are baking still. So maybe five, five hours. Is that right? Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yep, that's about what I am at to five hours. That sounds correct.
SPEAKER_00Two uh two ovens running. Um, and they start preheating at like one in the morning or something. I put them on an appliance timer. So out the door delivering, do all my deliveries, and then I'm home by 12:30 or 1:30. Just depending. I do my errands when I'm in town. We're like 25 miles south of town. So again, the delivery fee for me made sense. It's a 25-mile drive just to get into Bend where my stores are.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So that's actually, I mean, three o'clock, that's early. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it for anybody. That's pretty early. But you are done, done and dusted by 12 30, and you've run all your errands, and I'm assuming you probably need to go to bed earlier that night. Or I don't know. Sometimes I get really uh weirdly energized when I've had less sleep on bake days, and I then I end up staying up too late, and then it's just like this cycle. But um that's it's a great schedule. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Eight o'clock bedtime. Eight o'clock bedtime every night.
SPEAKER_01You're describing my my dream. Yeah. My kids go to bed around that time, and sometimes I just crawl in bed with them, and I'm like, night night. Um, I do really love to go to bed early. So you have been able to make enough income by having that schedule and doing twice a week deliveries. That's really inspiring.
SPEAKER_00230 is my max capacity. That's refrigerator capacity, that's wear and tear on my body capacity, that's what I can fit in my car. I have an SUV capacity. I really couldn't go more if I wanted to without hiring help, which as a domestic kitchen, I think I'm prohibited from that. It would have to be a family member that helps me.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Um that was going to be my next question. Do you have any help?
SPEAKER_00No, I don't. I do everything. And I know one of the things maybe we wanted to talk about was sustainable growth and how do we grow? And I'm actually not interested in growing. I'm really my focus is quality of life, and I'm earning enough to live, live here, pay my bills, have a vacation once in a while. I'm not built, I'm not trying to build an empire at my age. If I were younger, maybe, but I'm looking to retire soon and maybe sell my business or transition into teaching classes. I mean, my body will only give me so many years. So I'm not going to kill myself between now and then. I'm really looking to not burn out, to bring in an income that uh we can live on. And that's pretty much it. I that wasn't it at the beginning for me. I was wanting an empire. But then I really, when you get into the actual doing of it and realizing the demands, the physical, the emotional, the mental, the sleep, then you go, hmm, is an empire what I really want?
SPEAKER_01I have a lot of respect for what you're saying because I get the same questions. And I think it's a normal question to ask a person. It's low-hanging fruit. What are your goals for your business? Do you ever see yourself opening a brick and mortar? Do you want to write a book? These kinds of questions are normal, but I really have a lot of respect for the person who says, I'm actually very happy with how things are. I'm very happy with my twice a week schedule, something that is healthy for my body. It's good for my mental health, and it helps me pay my bills, and it's the exact lifestyle that I want to live. It's okay to just be happy with what you have. You don't always need to be wanting more, chasing more, getting less sleep, going big. Hustle culture. It doesn't have to be that way. It's okay to say I want to live a more simple life. Exactly. And just be happy.
SPEAKER_00I I was thinking too, my worst day in the bakery is still a better day than commuting to work somewhere and working for somebody else. Yeah. So I when I when I am having those days, I have to think, well, you know, it could be different. It could be a lot different.
SPEAKER_01It's healthy to know what you want, who you are, and where your boundaries are. I think that is the true testament of strength and just really knowing yourself. And this will kind of take me to my last topic, and then we'll go to my last question that I always ask everyone. But your social media account is booming. And I would like to know was that always your intention? Were you expecting to have such a big presence on social media, or was that kind of a surprise to you?
SPEAKER_00It was a surprise. Um when I started, I wasn't on Instagram. I remember my very first account was called Zelda Rising, which is the name of my starter, Zelda. And I just started posting pictures and I started following other bakers on Instagram as part of my learning. But yeah, no, I wasn't expecting it. It's grown really slow. It's grown organically. I mean, there's there are bakers who came after me who are 200,000 plus.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You don't see too many women in their 50s approaching retirement, no children. So I think part of my slower growth has been attributed to that. I just don't, there's just not the audience for that. They don't really get when I talk about that I have no hormones. So I'm going to say it like I'm like they're like, what? I don't get that. But um, you know, it's but yeah, it it goes in waves the social media growth. And it's finally getting to the point where I'm getting approached to collab and I'm starting to learn more about how that works. You do get pretty good income from certain partnerships. Sure. Um, but then again, you don't want to turn into a total commercial. That's the other thing is I don't people get turned off by that.
SPEAKER_01I I couldn't agree with you more. And I have like six followers, so I'm not one to be like, oh, this is a problem that I have right now because it's sh it's not. Uh but I wonder because of like you, I think I have a little bit of a different voice than what's typically seen in the cottage baking space. Um I am an alternative girly, like uh working with a lot of whole grains. I'm teaching professionally, I'm not making these fast cut videos with like trending audio. You're also not doing that, and you're you're representing a different community of women who are baking, they're not stay-at-home moms, like we're we're in our lanes, right? And I wonder, and I don't know if I'll keep this in or cut this out, but I wonder sometimes if I dip into what you're describing, which is monetizing through collaborations or monetizing through um affiliate links, will I lose the respect that I've worked very, very hard to get from my six followers of you know more than that. I didn't, I didn't, and this I am not casting shade on anyone. Like, get your money, girl. However, you're getting it, get paid. But what I'm saying is I I worry that I would lose my identity a bit if I relied on affiliate links and kind of got paid that way. I just don't know how those two things mesh. And I spend a lot of time thinking about it because it would be cool. It'd be really cool to have a lot more followers and get paid through collaborations and other things. But like you said, sometimes it can be a little bit people don't always like it. Um and we want to bring joy to people because we make bread. So that's something that I really struggle with. So when you when you end up going over that hurdle and kind of figuring it out, which I know you will, you'll have to tell me how that feels, uh, what relationships felt organic and others felt forced or what that journey is like, because I'm very curious. And I think there's people who are doing it well, but I don't know how to do it, is I guess what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think if you find a partnership, so I have a couple of them. It's like what I'm already doing in the bakery anyway. Like Avery Labels, for instance. Um I have a little collab with them. And it's I use them anyway, and people are always looking for packaging tips, or I get DMs a lot about my bags or okay, my label, who creates your labels and that kind of thing. So if it feels like it's a natural extension of what you're already doing, you can make a reel that's entertaining with the educational points in it, maybe just 60 seconds long. And so far, I haven't gotten any kind of blowback from it.
SPEAKER_01That is a really good point because you're already using it. You've already stood behind this product. It's not like suddenly you're promoting some new thing that you haven't it hasn't stood the test of time with you. It's something that you love and are organically using. So it makes sense for that. That's that's actually a very good tip and a very good point.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And it's kind of fun because sometimes you struggle with content, like what am I gonna make that somebody's might gonna find interesting? And sure. So for me, it's nice because I'm kind of given the topic, yeah, you know, or the product, then I can put something out there that can be of benefit to another baker. That's right.
SPEAKER_01And help them sift through the noise because there's a lot of choices out there when it comes to an oven, a label, a bread bag. And so if they see someone that they know and trust like you, they can say I know that Jenny's been using these labels for three years and she loves them, so I'm gonna buy them too. Yeah, that's a really nice way to look at it. Hold on just one second. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Hold on just one second. Hey, holding. Steve, would you would you put my LeBan in the fridge? Thanks. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Zelda needs tending.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, she needs to go in the fridge now overnight. She's a needy gal. That's Zelda. Yeah, she's dramatic.
SPEAKER_01When I'm gone and and my husband has to take care of my starter, he's he's like, I gotta take notes. I don't want to mess it up. And I'm like, no, you really don't. You really don't want to mess it up. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Oh no, man. When I went to Italy, I had to teach Steve how to feed her twice a day. Oh my gosh, he was so nervous. Yeah. So he wasn't getting it. And I think I got on him. I was kind of I was kind of like mean to him about it, and he was like, never forgot it after that.
SPEAKER_01I've had this chat on the pod too. The most mean I've ever been to my husband. I'm so sorry, Mike, is when I'm working, or I I think I had like accidentally deleted a bunch of spreadsheets I really needed, and I just lost it. And I was like, this isn't your fault, but you're here, so I'm just I'm yelling at you. But it was just like, he's like, You're a crazy person. Um yeah. Okay. Glad we're not alone. Thank God, right? We've had a wonderful, lovely chat, and it wasn't where I thought it was gonna go, which is my favorite part about doing this podcast, is that I have all of these little ideas, and then I I I see someone get excited about something, and I'm like, let's go, let's go down that and something new that hasn't already been said on the podcast. So thank you so much. This podcast is called Saving Bread. And that can mean a lot of different things to whoever hears it, right? Based off of their life experiences. And when you hear saving bread or when you think about the work that you're doing, what do you think needs protecting, preserving, or amplification? Like, what does saving bread mean to you in the time and space that you're in right now?
SPEAKER_00I love that you named your podcast that. It encapsulates the whole idea of bread being a part of humanity for centuries. And when you think of saving bread, I think of we're living in an era of so much advancing technology, and things are moving farther and farther away from things that keep humanity connected. And bread is one of those things, you can look back through thousands and thousands of years, how often bread is mentioned in the Bible, for instance, or how much bread sustained a civilization or kept people alive at sea. The whole act of baking real bread, I think it's in everyone's DNA. I think everyone has the ability and the drive to want that. It's just part of who we are as people. And I love the bread revolution that we've been experiencing lately. People are coming back to that, moving away from what we call fake bread or chemical-filled bread or bread that's not long fermented, getting back to the root of something that is so simple, which is real bread, flour, water, wild yeast, and salt. So simple, but it's so complex and it's so intertwined with humans. And it's so humbling, too. I've never been more humbled by this experience with bread. I mean, I'm a pretty defensive person, and it takes a lot for me to admit wrongdoing or error. So bread has that's been a gift that's bread that bread has given me. So saving bread to me really means growth in my own character. It really means connecting with humans. My life has changed so dramatically because of it, because I chose to save bread. I chose to make it, I chose to feed it to my family first before selling it. I think that's just for me, it's just when you look at different things. I think if when I go to the grocery store and I pull things out of the bag, can I look at that product and go, this is a miracle of nature? You know, like honey. Honey is one of those things where like that is a real miracle of nature. How many things can you pull out of your bag from the market and say that about? I think we we're losing touch with a lot of that with our food and connection with the land and connection with farmers. And there's just so much that goes into this very basic, this very humble loaf of bread. And for a long time it had been forgotten in our communities 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, you didn't see artisan bread. I mean, maybe in Europe you did, but not in the United States. We really moved away from that. I think it made a lot of people sick. A lot of people can't handle the digestibility of fake bread. So saving bread, I think it's just bringing back health of humanity, really. I mean, it's just so basic and simple as that and important.
SPEAKER_01That is a beautiful answer and made me feel very emotional because I agree with you. I think it deserves attention, it deserves care, it deserves preservation, and it takes a lot of people to make that happen. I mean, look at the work that you had to do to change the law where you live so that you could sell this type of bread to your community. That's how important it was to you. And there are a lot of wonderful people doing incredible work, building grain mills, right? Farming the wheat, teaching other people how to bake. And it takes an incredible village of people who want to preserve it. And thank you for doing the work that you've done and the work that I know you'll continue to do with your your tenacity that you have just bubbling within you. How can our listeners support you? Is following you on Instagram the best way? Affiliate links, buying, buying your bread at the market, where can we find you? How can we follow you? Tell us all the things.
SPEAKER_00Sure. I think if people wanted to follow me on Instagram, that's my main platform, they can do that. I'm sure you'll have maybe the handle somewhere. Let's tell them. Let's tell them the handle. Sure. Yeah. It's at crumb.sourdough.microbakery. Yes. So two dots in there. And then um face Facebook, I'm on there as well. I think that's just at crumb sourdough microbakery, no dots. But yeah, you can support me by buying my bread and my retail partners. I locally I'm at Local Acres Marketplace, Newport Avenue Market, the Vegetable Man Produce, which is May through October, Tumalo Farm Stand, which is year-round, and newly I'm at Jordan's Fruit Stand, which is in Redmond, and they're seasonal too. They're October through May. I do have something secured to replace that Redmond location when the Jordan's shuts down. I've been communicating with a uh very popular small locally owned grocery store market there. So great. You'll probably see me there. If you see me doing a real promoting, whether it's labels or a bread bag or anything related to the bakery, if you kind of sense like, yeah, that may be a collaboration, yeah, maybe support that that company because I won't take on that partnership unless I myself use it and find it to be really helpful in what I do.
SPEAKER_01So that's fantastic. Those are uh uh at least three ways people can come and follow you and enjoy the content that you make because I certainly do. And I'm thankful that, you know, there's a lot of there's some things about social media that aren't so great, but there's a lot of things that are really great because it allows people who would have never met in the real world because they live far or whatever, to meet and become friends. So I'm thankful that it brought us together. And I feel like even more recently we've been able to connect a little bit more. You're just doing great things, and I I really admire the work that you're doing and the voice that you provide to our community.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you so much. And I'm so glad we've connected. I don't even remember how we actually did. It must have been over pH probably later. I don't want to I don't want to teach about that. So I'm happy to have done that for you. And this podcast is wonderful. I've enjoyed listening to the your episodes that you've done so far. And congratulations on all your success with it, too.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Thank you. All right, well, I'll end the recording for us and then we can keep chatting while it downloads. Okay. Okay, cool. Thank you again, Jenny, for chatting with us today and opening your heart to us and sharing all of the hard work that you've done for your community. It's really impressive and really inspiring, and I just loved where that conversation went. There were so many things that stuck with me, but I think one of the biggest was when Jenny was talking about knowing what enough looks like. She fought to change a lot. She built a bakery that supports her. She's baking 230 loaves a week and has created a completely different model through wholesale. And at the same time, she's able to say, I don't need to build an empire. I want to make good bread, make a living, have a life, and not destroy myself while doing that. And I think that's a really important conversation to have in a culture that constantly tells us that growth is the only goal. And then her answer to what saving bread means to her, that connection between bread and people and land is something that we've been doing for thousands of years. And I thought that was just I thought that was a beautiful place to end. I'll put all of Jenny's information into the show notes so you can find her and follow the work that she is doing. And next week, we're back with a lessons episode. We're going to get nerdy again, talk about sourdough microbiology, pH, and start getting into how we can work more whole grain into our bread without feeling like we have to throw everything we already know out of the window. So thank you for being here this week. Thank you for supporting the Saving Bread Podcast, and I will talk to you all next week. Thank you for listening to the Saving Bread Podcast. Music by Joshua from Dope. And as always, happy baking and long live real bread.