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BreadworkS
The Goodness of Grains
Less is more when it comes to bread. To a purist, only four ingredients are essential to a great loaf - ?our, water, yeast or natural starter, and salt. Oh, but what variety the talented baker can achieve with such humble beginnings!
BreadWorkS, a Pittsburgh specialty bakery located on the city's North Side, creates more than 60 varieties of artisan bread each day - some 70 percent made from just those basic four ingredients. Yet BreadWorkS bread is famous throughout Pittsburgh for its unique flavor and variety. Don Walsh, lead baker and one of four operating partners at BreadWorkS, relies on old-world baking techniques and the natural flavor of different flours and grains to create the broad assortment of delectable breads that have earned BreadWorkS a renowned following.
Sustenance with substance
As the basic building block of flour, grain not only adds interesting flavor to bread, it also packs it with nutritional value you can leverage to promote sales. Grain is at the very core of good bread; the key to its basic sustenance - simple but substantial - vital to our daily needs. Grains are low in fat, high in nutrients, and full of energy-boosting carbohydrates that satisfy appetite, curb hunger and calm nerves. And grains are like an artist's tools in the hands of a progressive scratch baker.
Walsh uses grains for a lot of reasons. "Grains add a depth and character to our breads that people like," he said. He might add a speci?c grain like cracked wheat to enhance the nutty texture and robust character of a whole wheat product. "When you bite into a whole wheat roll I develop, I want you to know you're eating whole wheat. I want people to be able to tell they're getting the ?ber and other bene?ts, because they can taste it."
Sometimes, Walsh selects grains to add a more subtle distinction. When developing a classic dinner roll for a restaurant, he might add just a touch of whole wheat or rye ?our to give the bread an extra dimension. "It gives it a different feel while you're eating it - more of a heartiness that's appealing."
Hearty grains also allow Walsh to develop breads tied to the ethnic dining themes of his wholesale customers. BreadWorkS delivers bread to more than 400 wholesale accounts, among them many of Pittsburgh's finest restaurants, hotels and specialty food stores. "With all the different ethnic backgrounds in Pittsburgh, we get a lot of requests for specifc types of bread - like dark German ryes and authentic Italian breads," he said. "I'm a firm believer that the bread should complement the meal, not take it over. Restaurants come to us for breads to enhance their menus and we try to give them what they need."
A bread for every need
BreadWorkS opened its doors in 1979, delivering fresh, old-world European style bread to 13 initial wholesale accounts. Today, the bakery still focuses exclusively on breads and rolls, and Walsh takes pride in the bakery's total scratch operation. BreadWorkS bread emphasizes top quality, peak freshness and traditional European recipes and baking techniques. The rustic breads take 24 hours to make, relying on long fermentation, low yeast and the bakery's own signature starters for their unique flavor profiles. Baking the bread in an old-country, stone deck hearth oven gives it the thick, tasty crust BreadWorkS has become famous for.
To produce breads in the authentic European baking tradition, Walsh spends considerable time traveling abroad, eating bread, gathering new techniques and ideas, and determining what European methods will translate to an American customer base. He often brings other employees along to involve them in the learning process, helping them gain valuable knowledge they can draw on to develop new breads. "To our customers, we want to be their total bread baker, so they don't need to buy bread from anyone else," Walsh said.
Delivering freshness
BreadWorkS delivers twice a day to many eating establishments, because Walsh wants chefs to serve his bread at its freshest. "All our breads are developed to be eaten the same day they're baked. Our focus is on freshness; we don't use any preservatives and we don't freeze or ship anything. It's another extension of the European bread philosophy - the idea of bringing our customers the bread as they need it." BreadWorkS employees expect to deliver a great product, day in and day out. And their prices reflect it, according to Walsh. "Our prices are reasonable, but higher than many Pittsburgh bakeries because our quality demands it," he said. "We want to be setting the standard for bread, and to an extent that means we'll be setting the price, too." Walsh believes a differentiating product line is the best way for the scratch baker to compete with instore bakeries. "If your bread is no different than what a grocery store offers, then convenience becomes the factor that motivates people to buy."
On the other hand, scratch bakers who offer a distinct product will find customers seeking them out. That certainly happened for BreadWorkS, which launched a thriving retail business driven by the success of its wholesale breads. Consumers - who discovered and got hooked on the bread after first tasting it in restaurants - began asking restaurants about purchasing the bread to eat at home. BreadWorkS responded by selling the chewy loaves direct from the bakery. One year, customers lined up around the block on the day before Thanksgiving to make sure they'd have their bread for the holiday. Retail sales now account for about 15 percent of BreadWorkS' business.
Balancing old-world, artisan techniques with efficient production methods can be a challenge in a modern baking operation. Walsh says BreadWorkS handles the challenge "by being very critical of ourselves. We develop all our own formulas and we hold ourselves to high standards. And we test our product against those standards every day. We don't wait for someone else to tell us whether our bread is good or not. If the quality isn't what it should be, we won't send it out. We don't want complaints; and if we do get one, it's the first thing we're going to deal with. The last thing we want to have happen is to get the same complaint two days in a row. There's just no reason for that."
By building a market for it's artisan breads, BreadWorkS has earned a reputation as home to the best bread in Pittsburgh. It just goes to show that with creativity, quality and hard work, progressive bakers can achieve amazing things with just a few simple ingredients.
"All our breads are developed to be eaten the same day they're baked. Our focus is on freshness; we don't use any preservatives and we don't freeze or ship anything. It's another extension of the European bread philosophy - the idea of bringing our customers the bread as they need it." BreadWorkS focuses on basic ingredients, relying on different flours and grains to add depth and character to its breads.