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Bakehouse Bread & Cookie Company

Miami County HomeGrownStories – Margaret Begg

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Margaret Begg loves the science and beauty of artisan bread baking, especially sourdough bread. For the past twenty years, her bakery, Bakehouse Bread & Cookie Company, has provided delicious bread, baguettes, challahs, ciabattas, focaccias, cookies and pastries of every flavor in their downtown Troy bakery. Margaret focuses on high quality and nutritious ingredients as well as taste. In addition to baking a variety of bread and pastries, the Bakehouse also has an extensive menu of soups, salads, and sandwiches. Margaret is one-third of the local cooperative, The Farmer, The Miller, The Baker that grows, mills and bakes spelt in the southwestern region of Ohio. Margaret was recently interviewed for our #HomeGrownStories campaign.

On living in Miami County:
I have lived in Miami County for 34 years. I’m originally from California. My mother met my father when she was on a trip to San Diego; he was in the Navy then. We moved back to Ohio because my mother was from Lima and still had family in the area.

 

On working with sourdough and starting the Bakehouse Bread & Cookie Company:
My sister lived in Sacramento, California and she introduced me to sourdough bread. I fell in love with it! I knew I had to try and make it at home. I tried baking sourdough at home, but with babies and everyday life, it was difficult. I had little success for a long time. My husband and I opened Taggart’s On The Square in Troy in 1984 and I continued my pursuit of sourdough in the restaurant kitchen. In 1988 I took a two-week intensive artisan bread course at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. I also apprenticed under a French Master Baker at the National Baking Institute in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was able to come home and bake better bread. I started selling it to the restaurant and eventually, I was loading up my car and driving around to farm stands and selling it. About 20 years ago we opened a bakery next to Taggart’s. I think it’s the location for Raise Your Brush today. In three years we were bursting out of the seams so we moved to our current location here on the Square.

On her part in the local collaboration: The Farmer, The Miller, The Baker:
About ten years or so ago, Troy started up a food cooperative. We hosted a night of potential farm vendors, which is how I met Dan Kremer from E.A.T. Food For Life Farm. He grows spelt grain, which he was selling to a company that sold them in grocery stores nationally, but he wanted to sell it locally. That’s when I got some of his spelt flour and starting testing it in bread and cookies. I was personally surprised they turned out so well, just because of the nature of spelt flour. It’s naturally a little sweet so you need very little honey to offset the bitterness. Then we contacted Bear’s Mill to grind the flour for us. They buy the grain from Dan and grind it into flour. Then we buy the flour and make the bread and cookies. We sell the bread and cookies back to Dan and Bear’s Mill and we sell them here.

 


 

What she loves about Miami County:
I love the sense of community. It’s very important to most residents of the county, which you can see by the folks that come downtown to support small businesses. We have wonderful events at the Troy-Hayner Cultural Center and we always come downtown for the concerts and symphonies in Troy. In downtown, you can move about so freely, anywhere you need to go you can get there. The bike path has always been one of my personal favorites. Watching the bike path grow has been amazing, especially for a town of this size. We go to Hobart Urban Nature Preserve at least three times a week for a walk. Garbry Big Woods Reserve is one of our other favorites, but we tend to pick a different park to walk at on the weekends.

The best selling item at Bakehouse and her personal favorite:
The Bakehouse Seven Grain Bread is our most popular bread. It’s very healthy with all the grains [whole wheat flour, millet, cracked wheat, cracked rye, flaxseeds, sunflower seeds, oats, buckwheat and cracked corn] and very nutritious. We don’t use emulsifiers, preservatives or other “shortcut” additives in our bread. My favorite, of course, is our sourdough bread.

Bakehouse Bread & Cookie Company
317 Public Square Troy, OH
Facebook: @bakehousebread
Twitter: @bakehousebread

This story first appeared on the Miami County Convention and Visitors Bureau website.  Follow author,  storyteller and interviewer, Courtney Denning, at ThisOhioLife.com.

 

Local Small Business Fights Back Against Big Chain: Plans Strategic Expansion to National Market Through Online Sales

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bakehouse_toplogoAfter 17 years in business, Bakehouse Bread & Cookie Company is planning to expand beyond their current Miami County market with the addition of online sales as their lead component for growth.

A small, mom & pop artisan bakery located in the small rural town of Troy Ohio, Bakehouse Bread & Cookie Company has enjoyed years of consistent growth and local success. Established in 1997, the company moved to their current location in 2000 which boasts 3,800 square feet of bakery space in which they produce artisan breads, pastries and gourmet cookies for sale in their storefront café as well as to wholesale customers.

“Despite our success,” says Steve McLain, co-owner, “like many small businesses, we‘ve definitely felt the pressure of the large chain restaurants and bakeries popping up around us.  As a small, artisan producer, we knew we had to be strategic about our continued growth and find a way to expand beyond our current market in order to ensure longevity. The addition of online sales to our current revenue was the obvious first step. “

Bakehouse recently engaged a professional firm to help elevate the company’s brand presence to ensure it would not only be well received by a national market, but would stand strong when placed beside large chain competitors.

“Very often, small businesses reach a plateau after a number of years. They want to grow, but are afraid to invest in the tools that will help them reach that next level,” says McLain. “We knew that in order to continue to compete, we couldn’t stand in the shadows of the big chains. We had to refresh and not only come out swinging, but shining brightly as well.”

Bakehouse Bread & Cookie Company invested in a complete redesign of their brand and web presence to feature high-impact photography of their artisan products and the ability to order products online. “The ultimate goal was to show customers outside of the local area who might not frequent our brick and mortar location the quality of our products and give them the ability to order online,” says Margaret Begg, co-owner and master baker.“This allows us to share the craft of artisan baking with folks all around the country and bolster our growth at the same time.”

Bakehouse Bread & Cookie Company is now a small business poised for growth and expansion. Their new web presence features six of their most popular artisan bread staples:  Sourdough, Cranberry Poppyseed, Raisin Walnut, New York Rye, Seven Grain and a special collaboration with a local famer and miller, Organic Spelt. They also offer seasonal products and gift boxes online, as well as their famous Bakehouse gourmet cookies.

All of Bakehouse Bread & Cookie Company’s products are created by hand using all natural ingredients in their Troy Ohio bakery. No emulsifiers, artificial fillers, preservatives or other “shortcut” additives are ever used. Every ingredient that goes into creating Bakehouse products are completely natural and whenever possible, locally sourced.

“Yes, there might be a faster way or cheaper way to create a loaf of bread,” says Begg,  “but the nourishment of a nation is no place to cut corners. We believe it is our responsibility as food producers to keep the health of our community at the forefront of every decision. So every ingredient we use in the creation of our products or the delicious food in the Bakehouse café is selected with this in mind.”

Bakehouse Bread & Cookie Company’s artisan breads and gourmet cookies are now available to the public via their online storefront at www.bakehousebread.com. Shipping is available within 2 days to anywhere within the continental United States.

Bakehouse Bread & Cookie Company creates handmade artisan breads and gourmet cookies for lovers of great food around the world. For additional information about Bakehouse Bread & Cookie Company, contact them at937-339-8100 or [email protected]. For the most up to date information about Bakehouse Bread & Cookie Company s products, follow them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bakehousebread.