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Il Fornaio
A brand in the baking
Il Fornaio knows what it means to make a name for itself. Using its moniker (which means "the baker") as a brand builder, it has propelled its image to the top echelon of culinary circles-transforming what began as a single bread shop in 1981 into what today is a $100 million and growing company.
How has it elevated its identity from specialty bread baker to full-fledged brand? By focusing on the baking traditions on which it was founded. "Our heritage in artisan baking has determined how we've evolved as a business," said Michael Mindel, vice president of marketing.
Today, Il Fornaio is revered in California and across the nation for providing the most authentic Italian experience outside of Italy. It attaches its name to some 23 restaurants and panetterias (retail bakeries) in seven states from California to Georgia. Plus it operates three wholesale operations in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento, and markets gourmet Italian foods under the Il Fornaio name. Its image is synonymous with authentic Italian foods, made from simple, fresh ingredients with the utmost attention to quality. And artisan baked goods are central to everything it does.
Williams-Sonoma first brought Il Fornaio to California in 1981 as a neighborhood bakery patterned after the Barlassina, Italy baking school bearing the same name. The Barlassina school focused on European bread making techniques using centuries-old hand production methods. Il Fornaio sought to replicate those same Old World traditions in an American setting. But while the original retail store succeeded in introducing the nation to authentic Italian baked goods, Il Fornaio's growth was slow in a country still unfamiliar with artisan quality and value.
Then Larry Mindel entered the picture. Acquiring Il Fornaio in 1987, Mindel saw opportunity to expand the equity of the bakery's recognized artisan image into foodservice. He opened the company's first restaurant with adjoining panetteria that year. More soon followed-each restaurant reflecting its own unique culinary character, and each panetteria offering signature breads, cakes, cookies and pastries-while serving as a prime billboard for the blossoming brand.
Mindel's proven prowess as a restaurateur enabled him to lure some of the top talent in the world. He hired the best chefs he could find, most of them raised and trained in Italy. On the bakery side, he brought in skilled artisan bakers like Jan Schat, Il Fornaio's head baker and member of the champion 1999 Coupe du Monde (World Cup) Baking Team USA. "Il Fornaio was a one of the first bakeries to do hearth and artisan breads here in the Bay Area," Schat said. "It already had a good reputation as a bakery. And Larry had a reputation as a well-financed businessman who built beautiful places. I saw the job as a tremendous opportunity for me to grow my skills as a baker."
Bread presentation is a key point of differentiation for Il Fornaio restaurants. When patrons sit down, they're greeted with a full basket of fresh choices, the first sign they're about to embark on a very special dining experience. The adjoining panetterias recreate the Italian spirit of the neighborhood bakery café. Each retail storefront varies in size depending on the space and product needs of the restaurant. Some are full service, producing all the baked goods for both restaurant and retail sales. Others are simply display cases-the "jewel boxes" that show off the tempting baked goods featured on the restaurant menus.
Il Fornaio's wholesale bakeries produce the baked goods for locations that don't bake on premise. As director of baking, Schat oversees production at the wholesale plants, and works with the head bakers and chefs at each location to plan their baked goods needs and develop products suited to their menus.
Synergy between the bakery and foodservice sides supports the success of both. The popularity of the restaurants brings more customers into the bakery. Likewise, the wholesale bakeries supply products to hotels, gourmet grocers, coffee stores and supermarkets-many of whom cash in on Il Fornaio's brand equity by promoting the Il Fornaio name to their own customers. Consumers see the baked goods in more locations, which in turn generates name recognition that draws new patrons into the restaurants.
Collaboration between bakers and chefs also results in a cross-pollination of ideas that drives new product ideas. Each month, as part of its Regional Menu Program, the restaurants feature cuisine highlighting cooking traditions from a different area of Italy. The bakeries develop a new signature bread for each new regional focus. "It's an exciting thing for us," Schat said. "There are so many cooking traditions from each region. The chef comes up with an idea, and perhaps a recipe. Then the bakery adapts it for production."
If those regional breads prove successful, the bakeries will incorporate them into the retail line. One such example is a foccaccia topped with red peppers, olives and sauteed onions. Originally baked in a sheet as a regional tours bread, the foccaccia is now shaped into single-serve rounds that have become a popular lunch item at the bakery.
All of Il Fornaio's 50 different breads and 20 pastries are still shaped by hand-no small task for an operation that annually consumes 5 million pounds of flour to kick out enough products to meet demand. "As a $100 million company, there's the impression that it's very corporate," Schat said. "One of the things that makes us unique is that as a company, we have committed ourselves to the artisan baking world. For a baking operation of our size, we're less automated than most-and the aspects of the process that are automated are only those that don't compromise the Old-World character of our products."
Il Fornaio mixes with machines, and bakes with modern ovens. It uses dough hoists to help bakers remove large batches from the mixing bowls, and automatic oven loaders move products in and out of the oven more efficiently. But there is no substitute for doing some things by hand. "We've made the investment to maintain high quality and provide a place for aspiring artisan bakers to work," Schat said. "That has and always will be an important part of our identity."