About My Fresh Bread Company

How about a little background?

The name.  It is My Fresh Bread Company because when people ask you where they get such great bread, that's what I want you to say.  You will say, "it's from MY Fresh Bread Company" - as if it was from your own bakery.

I discovered the joy of fresh bread in the last decade.  It's not like the grocery store bread that I grew up with.  It is tasty.  It is good all by itself.  It makes fantastic toast.  When the right bread and meats and cheeses are combined, the sandwich is outstanding.  And, when you make it yourself, you know what's in it.  You can make it uber tasty or uber healthy - or find that in between mix.

Great bread is a simple pleasure almost unknown to us Americans, but probably taken for granted by most Europeans - until they get to this country.  It is sought by adults who grew up in Europe because it's hard to find the 'daily bread' they knew when they were growing up.

The goal of My Fresh Bread Company is to share the experience of great fresh bread with my neighbors and friends.  When I say fresh, it has been delivered still warm since the first of the year.

Why just neighbors?  Because I want to bake bread and share it with people - and not sit in a booth in the beautiful San Diego weather waiting for people to come by - and then dump the leftovers.  Nor, do I want to raise the price high enough to cover the 'sitting time' plus the fee to the Farmer's Market  manager (yes, there is a fee to sellers - which ultimately is born by the buyers).  And, while fresh (under 4 hours old) is good, I don't know how to deliver warm from the oven bread at a Farmer Market.

Some details:
I am a CFO (Cottage Food Operation) in San Diego County, regulated by the County Dept of Health. The permit I have says I don't need to have my kitchen inspected, but I can only sell to a consumer (i.e., not to a middle man or store who then sells to the consumer.
I have to put all kinds of info on the label including "Made in a Home Kitchen" so YOU know that this didn't come from a factory.  I think that if you look at it and taste it, you will know that.
I Bake two days a week (Mondays and Thursdays) and generally make two varieties on each of those days - although sometimes only one.
Twice a month, I make square white bread from which I make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a 'community feed' in a park.  The sandwiches are take home food. It is 'in support' of a friend who makes a hot meal to be eaten on site.  She serves about 20+ people each night.


That's basically it.



And, if you want more ...

First - Why??  I really enjoy baking bread.  The idea of taking some white powder (or even cleaned wheat berries ground earlier that week), adding a little yeast and salt and water, and then 24-72 hours later, it's bread --- almost magical.  Although people have been making bread for thousands of years, the transformation from a wet mass to a moldable dough is still a wonder to behold.

Yes, time is a big component.  Time for the initial mix to let natural processes bring flavors out of the grain.   What's in that mix?  Mostly grain flour - course or fine - mixed with water and a little commercial yeast.  Salt may be added later - or at the initial mix stage, but salt can have the effect of impeding the effects of yeast.  I am continually amazed that identical components can yield such different results simply by changing the time and the process.

Second - I like to eat bread.  Yes, I eat bread.  I have probably made 30 types of yeast breads (and counting) - of which I would be happy to make about 25 of them again.  Few are not worth repeating - or eating.  But, I like best the 'fresh fresh bread'.  By that, I mean that the bread is within four hours out of the oven.  And, in the past few months, my customers have been getting it within 2 hours and lately, hot from the oven.

I also like variety.  The Rosemary/Thyme bread is my favorite - it is wonderful as toast or in a turkey or chicken sandwich.  But, I don't want RT bread every day - and evening.  Recently, I made a long fermented whole wheat bread.  It has a harder outer crust and wonderful sweet flavor (yes, only wheat flour, water, salt and a touch of yeast), but I don't want it all the time - tho this is probably one of the best tasting and most healthy mixes I have made. Pepper cheese bread is a nice occasional bread (with fresh serrano pepper slices to insure that it IS SPICY).  Apple Cinnamon bread is good on occasion - but not every day.

While some last longer on the shelf, ALL are best when really fresh.  If I could give up my 'day job', I would bake daily.  But, for now, it is twice a week.  I find that a husband and wife are doing good to eat a 1# loaf twice a week. A neighbor with 3 young kids eats it up the night it is delivered - but they only want it once a week.

Third - Making more bread (quantity and frequency - ie, practice, practice, practice - with some experimentation) is a key to keeping quality of the end product high.  So, simply making bread for our home would not allow the volume that is needed to produce high quality bread.  And, based on the first two factors, my goal is to make high quality bread - thus I need an outlet for the higher volume of baked loaves.

Making more bread also allows for testing different methods (pre soaking, longer or shorter time frames, using the electric mixer vs. mixing by hand, adding ingredients and various stages of preparation, temperature for baking to get harder or softer crusts, etc.)

After baking bread for a couple of years,  I thought I would investigate making bread from my home for sale to my neighbors.  Yes, I would have limited production capabilities and, with my day job, I have limited time, but if I could blend my love of baking bread with a small business, maybe this would be something more than a hobby.

It wasn't that long ago, that an you could coach your child into selling lemonade on the street corner in order to fund the purchase of a new bicycle or other purchase.  It was great experience from a production and sales standpoint.  Whether it ever really met the goal of funding the bicycle, I am not sure, but it surely taught them lessons they would retain for the rest of their lives.

But, it turns out that you can no longer sell lemonade on the corner without a permit - nor can you sell bread from your home kitchen (on the street corner, in a farmers market, to the neighbor or elsewhere) without being registered with the County Health Dept.  You can give it away - but not sell it.  I found that registration involves review of the label that will go on each product for sale (with ALL ingredients listed in descending order by weight and other prescribed information) and a fee.  This meant that all recipes had to pretty much be settled prior to application for registration.  I can add varieties and go through this process again which seems to take 2-3 weeks - and a fee.  The stated objective is to keep 'dangerous foods' from being sold to the public.  Dangerous foods include cream frostings, anything with meat in it, and almost anything requiring refrigeration (including fresh herbs and vegetables, it seems) - they approve dried rosemary, but not fresh, for inclusion in my breads. These 'dangerous foods'  can be sold in a farmers market if they are produced in a normal commercial food facility.

No - bread is NOT a dangerous food.  Even long fermented bread is not in this category - because of the baking.  I am not sure that I could sell uncooked dough, even though none of my varieties includes eggs or cream.  I am permitted to sell a pepper/cheese bread that includes cheddar cheese - it did not seem to be a problem to the Health Dept.

After a year of investigation, giving away over 100 loaves of bread to neighbors, church friends and others, and getting feedback to narrow down my 'offerings' and coming up with labels and packaging, I applied and received the registration in Mid December 2015.

Delivery of the finished product has been addressed in two ways:
First, by only offering bread to people within walking distance of my oven.  I put the packaged bread into my hand woven basket and walk to the buyers home.  I didn't realize up front how nice it would be to get to know some of these people much better.  This also allows me to try some experimental varieties on willing to test families - as well as to make 'kid sized loaves' for the little ones.

Second, on occasion, I have parked at a local park with the pre ordered bread - for pickup by the customer.  This escapes traffic on my residential street.  With a 30 minute pick up window - people know where and when they can pick up the bread.  It's pre paid - so generally the customer is motivated to be there.

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