The Guild's Mission and Goals

The mission of The Bread Bakers Guild of America is to shape the knowledge and skills of the artisan baking community through education.

• Founded in 1993, The Bread Bakers Guild of America is a non-profit alliance of professional bakers, farmers, millers, suppliers, educators, students, home bakers, technical experts, and bakery owners and managers.

• With fifteen years of steady growth, The Guild is today a community of more than 1,300 members from across the United States and around the world. The Guild counts among its membership both a veritable “Who’s Who” of celebrated artisan bakers, as well as the next generation of bakers.

• The Bread Bakers Guild of America has dedicated itself to advancing the artisan baking profession. The Guild is well known in the baking community as the go-to educational resource for substantive, accurate information on the craft of making bread. If you want to know how to make incomparable bread—mix it, ferment it, shape it, bake it and sell it, you've come to the right place. The materials and activities generated by The Guild are available nowhere else! They represent the cutting edge in providing the tools needed to produce the highest quality
bread products.

In support of this mission, The Guild is committed to:

• Provide educational resources to artisan bakers. We are the definitive resource for information on all aspects of artisan baking in America.

• Support and foster the growth of the artisan baking community. We are an independent and creative group of professional bakers, farmers, millers, suppliers, educators, students, home bakers, technical experts, and bakery owners and managers.

• Define and uphold the highest professional standards. We respect bakers as highly skilled artisans who vigilantly strive for quality.

• Celebrate the craft and the passion of the artisan baker.

Defining Our Community:

An Artisan is a worker in a skilled trade that involves making things by hand; a skilled worker or craftsperson.

Artisan Bakers utilize knowledge of traditional methodologies, a mastery of hand skills, and an appreciation for the best quality raw materials and ingredients, to produce baked goods that meet the highest possible standards of taste, appearance, aroma and texture.

The Artisan Baking Community is a community of professional bakers, farmers, millers, suppliers, educators, students, home bakers, technical experts, and bakery owners and managers who work together to support the principle and the practice of producing the highest quality baked goods. Our members are a funky, iconoclastic, independent, creative and colorful group who value and promote baking education and thrive on the lively exchange of ideas.

Fulfilling Our Mission and Goals

International
The Guild performs on an international stage with the regular participation of Bread Bakers Guild Team USA in the arena of the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie (World Cup of Bread Baking). Facing off in Paris, France every three years against the top 12 countries in the world, Team USA captured the Gold medal in 1999 and 2005 and Silver in 2002. Through Team USA we raise the professional standards for artisan bread bakers and help them to receive the recognition that they have earned. Team USA members go on to become a core group of instructors for The Guild’s educational classes.

Bread Bakers Guild Team USA 2008 will compete at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie in March 2008. More than 200 Guild members will travel to the City of Lights to experience the Coupe and Europain, one of the largest baking industry trade shows in the world. The Guild also organizes Parisian bakery tours that give our members unparalleled access to the back rooms and basement workspaces of Paris' finest boulangeries and patisseries. The Guild caps off these three days of events with a joyous Celebration Dinner to recognize the efforts of all involved in making Bread Bakers Guild Team USA possible.

The Guild has also sponsored week-long educational classes with associated bakery tour opportunities in France, Germany and Italy.

National
The Guild's signature national event, Camp Bread, is a three-day interactive technical conference offering continuing education and professional development for the artisan baking community. Camp Bread was last held in May, 2007 at the San Francisco Baking Institute. It featured hands-on labs, demonstrations, lecture classes, off-site tours, and a science fair that encouraged an exciting cross-pollination of ideas between bakers, millers and other industry suppliers. Camp Bread provides time for members to enjoy each other's company as they experience the fellowship of the artisan baking community. Bread Bakers Guild Team USA 2008 Nationals were held at Camp Bread in 2007 and were featured as a part of the daily educational menu.

The Guild also provides educational opportunities at national American Baking Industry Trade Shows and conferences to share our vision of the highest possible standards of bread baking with the industry.

Regional
The Guild’s focus on artisan baking education comes to life in our regional programming. For members who might not be able to take the time away to attend international and national events, The Guild hosts a dozen or more regional events each year developed to bring artisan-baking education directly to them. Master Classes with some of the country's best bakers, Bread Festivals that bring a community of bakers together, Wheat Field and Mill Tours, as well as Guildhall Gatherings that serve as social and networking opportunities, are all in the mix each year.

In 2008, The Guild is proud to present Women of the Guild North American Tour 2008, bringing together many of the superstar women artisan bakers from across the nation to provide a series of 12 educational Master Classes.

In Cyberspace & Member Mailboxes
Many times what a baker needs most is timely and accurate information right inside their own bakeshop to solve problems fast! Through the power of the internet The Guild maintains a lively presence right where our members work, bake and teach. Our Website contains a trove of award winning formulas from all six Bread Bakers Guild Teams USA, as well as other forms of technical support and networking opportunities for the entire baking community. The Guild also sponsors an active E-group which provides an open forum for dynamic discussions about all things artisan baking as it promotes and facilitates the exchange of information between artisan bakers, their suppliers, and specialists in the science of baking and baking ingredients.

The Guild is proud of its current collection of instructional audio/visual materials and educational resources available for purchase. The Guild publishes Bread Lines, a quarterly newsletter that includes technical articles, formulas and member news in every issue. Members utilize the fifteen year collection as a veritable encyclopedia of artisan baking.