Scaling Out or Scaling Back?

The Summer has been a whirlwind. We’ve been able to bring and bake more goods to market than ever before to keep up with demand, and still we go home with an empty van, which is comforting

I talked a little about burnout and the challenges facing small farms and food producers last week.

From farmers and other bakers we know and follow, the “b” word has been a reoccurring theme bubbling just under the surface this Summer.

Feed, ingredients and raw materials have risen in cost, coupled with staffing issues and ever increasing demand for local foods.

The demand (and your support) is a wonderful asset to have.

So it’s a matter of scaling out to solve this OR simply scaling back to only what we can do as a small team of two.

Scaling out is possibly a wonderful proposition. If we look at it deeper from a wheat perspective, it means more whole grain baked goods which equals more freshly milled flours which means sourcing more organic wheat from local farms.

We can meet the demand for baked goods by directly supporting more local organic farmers. Plus this means more local jobs because we would be hiring more full-time bakers.

The tricky part is space. You need space to scale out and right now, we don’t have it. We had had some encouraging discussion very recently with the Hub on the Hill though.

Scaling back is equally appealing. Let’s look at it from a work-life balance model. We focus more on the farm and keeping everything here. We focus on the operations that work well and cut out what isn’t currently working well in terms of labor, time and resources, like wholesale.

We wouldn’t be buying more organic wheat for example, but we would be increasing agritourism and other education opportunities on farm, which also fulfills our mission.

These are the ideas Kimmy and I have been wrestling with more and more.

At some point, we’ll have an answer. Until then, stay cool!

Upcoming Events and Menu Updates

In both August and September this year we have a fairly hectic event schedule which will translate into some slight menu changes during these weeks.

What does this mean for you?

This may mean more buns, cookies and loaves that we can bake in a shorter period of time.

What events?

We are excited to be attending the International Workshop on Agritourism in Burlington at the end of August.

Our friends at the Artisan Bread School will be here for two weeks of wood-fired bliss in September.

Also one date to keep in mind is that we will not be baking OR be at markets on 8/20 for a family reunion party at the farm.

That’s all for now!