But This Bay Area Baker is Red Hot By Nancy Ross Ryan
|
Semifreddi Means "Half Cold" But This Bay Area Baker is Red Hot By Nancy Ross Ryan |
|
|
Semifreddi's opened in 1984 as a 450-square-foot bakery in Kensington, Calif. The original owners named their bakery after a word they first spotted in a shop window in Italy, mistaking it for the shop's name. "Semifreddi" means half-cold and refers to partially frozen desserts. Never mind. They loved the word, and customers loved their four hand shaped sourdough breads. But the lovefest ended when backbreaking work and endless hours took over. So in 1987 they sold the bakery for $80,000 to Barbara and Michael Rose. Barbara was a UC Berkeley graduate who had also earned a culinary arts degree and worked at Semifreddi's as a baker, and her husband Michael was a UC Berkeley economics graduate. In 1988 they were joined by Barbara's brother, Tom Frainier, a UC Berkeley MBA, who left the corporate world after seven successful years in management. Today, Semifreddi's has two retail bake shops (in Kensington, the original location, and in Berkeley, a 12,000-square-foot bread bakery, and a 5,000-square-foot biscotti, breadstick and dessert bread bakery, both in Emeryville. They employ 93 full-time and six part-time employees, bake 115,000 pounds of bread each week, seven days a week, 359 days a year. Fourteen company vans deliver fresh bread daily. Semifreddi's original four-bread selection has expanded to 35 different products, and the company projects $6.5 million in sales in fiscal 1997 Their success grows out of their mission: "Make the best baked goods in the universe, offer them at reasonable prices, spoil our customers with service, take care of our employees and give something back to the community." Sourdough breads are the backbone of their business. The breads are hand shaped; long and slow rises develop full complex flavors and distinctive structure. For these signature breads, Semifreddi's uses only water, salt, natural sourdough starter (in a few cases, yeast) and the finest flours. Of the 80,000 pounds of flour that Semifreddi's bakers use each week, 60,000 of that is Progressive Baker Bread Flour and 4,000 is whole wheat. There are no added fats or sugars in the sourdough breads or sweet baguettes and batards. But, Michael Rose readily admits, making great bread is fair from easy, as the Bay Area is subject to three or four climates in a day -- from foggy, cool mornings to blazing hot afternoons. "Baking bread requires attention to detail, an intuitive sense and an ability to manage multiple tasks, "says Michael, who is the company's "mad scientist," constantly tweaking and adjusting formulas. "The wonderful thing about baking is never being satisfied," he says. To ensure quality, the partners and managers randomly taste test every type of bread every day for crust, crumb, cell development, flavor, moisture and overall appearance. And they wait until 3 a.m. to begin baking baguettes, so they'll be fresh at 6 p.m. -- when most people will eat them. Says Michael, "To do that you need more ovens. We bake baguettes in eight ovens from 3 a.m. til 8 a.m. And we bake extra bread every day so we can deliver only those breads that meet our tough standards." The extra fresh breads are donated daily to local charities. And unsold bread is removed from store shelves every morning and donated to food banks. If Michael is the mad scientist, constantly adjusting formulas, Frainier is the far-out manager, intent on "reinventing capitalism". And Barbara Rose, who styles herself the "Queen of Tarts," has just taken a sabbatical to embark on a new job that is even more demanding than baking: motherhood. In Semifreddi's future is expansion. "Our next logical goal in a few years is to be a $10-million-a-year company, by adding more retail stores and new products to pique people's interest and tap into demand, "says Frainier. However, the company has no plans to go public and has turned down offers in the past. "We're driven to be the best, not the biggest, "says Michael. "And we have a long-term business strategy, because we want to be doing this for a long time, "says Frainier. |
BACK TO INDEX
To access this article on the Progressive Baker website click here:
Pass-it-on! Software Supplied by:
Semifreddi's Means "Half Cold"
