January 13 / 4-5pm ET

The Bakery Leadership Circle is a program designed to support bakery owners and operators in tackling some of their stickiest business challenges through education and peer consulting activities.

If you would like to learn more about the Bakery Leadership Circle, join us for this information session via zoom.

The tools I learned in the BLC will take me through many journeys ahead.  This program far exceeded any expectations that I had. I felt the value of the program was far beyond the monetary investment and I would highly recommend this program to anyone who is looking for a leadership course in the bakery world.  

-Kevin Masse, Small State Provisions

In this cohort-based program, we will meet via Zoom every week from March 5 to June 16 with work and assignments between sessions.  Each session will include a facilitated exercise where members will identify real-life bakery challenges and the group will share insights to spark new ideas and solutions.

Outside of the Zoom sessions, Circle members will have access to a private discussion forum, where they can share ideas, dig deeper into challenges and receive feedback.

By the end of the program, you will develop one or more actionable goals to implement at your bakery. 

Who should participate?

The Circle is for owners and senior-level operators of all types of bakeries that have been in business for at least 3 years and that employ teams of 5 or more employees.

What will you gain from this program?

• Improved business operations and performance
• Leadership skills
• Effective approaches to team management
• Improved job quality
• A supportive peer group
• Clear business goals and a path to achieve them
• Clarity and confidence

Craft • Culture • Careers • Community

January 14 / 4 - 5:30pm ET

Successful cottage businesses and micro-bakeries create unexpected variables that require creative solutions. This smaller business model leaves room for entrepreneurial agility, but understanding regional laws is critical and can be confusing. Aspiring brick-and-mortar owners have advanced opportunity to establish a customer based, fewer fixed costs and up-front investment than a traditional brick-and-mortar establishment. These businesses can be structured in diverse ways but have unique quirks and characteristics. 

By the end of this class, students will: 

• Understand legal differences and restrictions between states 

• Learn some of the sanitation, labeling, insurance requirements, and other forms of business compliance 

• Explore different models to establish a cottage bakery and to plan for growth
  

Maggie Longo is a highly experienced professional in the hospitality industry with a remarkable career spanning over 30 years. Throughout her extensive tenure, she has consistently delivered outstanding revenue generation and profitability results within prestigious, forward-thinking establishments. Her exceptional skills and expertise have earned her various accolades and recognition within the field. 

Longo, a home-based food producer since 1982, has been a member of a collectively-run community-based bakery in Washington, DC; the pastry chef for numerous restaurants in the RI market while in culinary school at RISD; the Director of Operations of a commercial, scratch bakery, servicing hotels, restaurants, and the general public; and business-owner of RI's first Roman-style pizzeria, which lead Longo to launch a consulting practice, working with local, regional, and national brands. 

In 2020, Longo joined the RI Small Business Development Center, bringing her wealth of experience to help businesses navigate the unique challenges presented by the pandemic. Her role involves providing valuable support and guidance to companies as they strive to overcome obstacles, expand their operations, and pursue growth opportunities. Her areas of specialization include strategic planning, the development of operational systems, and facilitating next-stage growth plans and project management. By leveraging her comprehensive industry knowledge and insights, she has consistently assisted her clients in achieving their organizational objectives. One area where she has focused her attention is the first-stage food maker/manufacturer sector, where she plays a vital role in assisting companies with strategic planning, operational system development, and overseeing project management for their next-stage initiatives. Maggie has recently joined the advisory board for the re-launch of RI's food strategy, Relish Rhody 2.0. 

Longo's career is characterized by her deep understanding of the hospitality industry, her proven track record of success, and her ability to provide invaluable guidance to businesses in times of uncertainty and growth. Through her involvement with the RI Small Business Development Center, she has consistently impacted the success and sustainability of numerous companies. 

Hana Quon began her journey at the University of Maryland, where she studied literature and linguistics, before discovering her true passion for the pastry arts. She honed her skills at L’Academie de Cuisine in the U.S. and further refined her craft in Paris under the guidance of MOF Jean Michel Perruchon at École Bellouet in Paris. Her training continued in Lyon with renowned macaron master Sébastien Bouillet, and she spent two enriching years in Cape Cod at Wellfleet’s PB Boulangerie & Bistro with Michelin-starred chef Philippe Rispoli. 

Following this impressive foundation, Quon co-founded and ran Café Madeleine, an artisanal French patisserie in Boston’s South End, alongside her mentor, Chef Frédéric Robert, who had spent 25 years as the pastry partner to Alain Ducasse. With unwavering dedication, she developed every aspect of this thriving venture, from design to execution and operations. 

Her remarkable achievements have earned her several accolades, including being named one of Zagat's 30 Under 30 chefs redefining Boston's culinary landscape in 2015, receiving Boston Magazine’s Best of Boston for Best Pastries in 2016, winning the prestigious 2020 Boston Rising Star Chefs Award for Best Pâtissière, and being recognized as one of Boston Magazine’s Best Up-and-Coming Chefs in 2021. 

After a successful decade with Café Madeleine, where she created a beloved destination for French pastries, Quon embraced a new chapter in Honolulu, Hawaii. There, she focuses on pop-ups, wholesale, consulting, and teaching, sharing her passion for pastry with a new audience. 

Grace Garay, the founder and head baker of Nomad Bakehouse, a Cottage Law bakery in Orlando specializing in sourdough bread, pastries and special occasion cakes focused on highlighting the seasonal bounty of Central Florida. In late 2018, after over a decade in the hospitality industry working in everything from bakeries, to restaurants, hotels and resorts both in BOH and FOH she settled in Orlando in the hopes of turning her years of experience in kitchens into her own business. Nomad began at the start of 2020 and at the cusp of the Covid-19 pandemic; as supply chains faltered, she began supplying her neighboring community with loaves of sourdough bread. What started out as a few hand-mixed loaves a week has turned into hundreds alongside thoughtfully crafted sourdough pastries using solely stone milled flours sourced regionally from Southern states. In the summer of 2011, Garay graduated with an AAS in Baking and Pastry Arts from St.Philip’s College in San Antonio before graduating from The French Pastry School in Chicago in 2014.

 

January 21 / 4:00-5:30 pm ET

A joint webinar by the Retail Bakers of America and the Bread Bakers Guild of America 

The workplace is evolving, and so are the needs and expectations of the next generation of bakers. Join us for a panel discussion with emerging bakers eager to share what they’re looking for in a workplace. This session is designed to help bakery owners and managers understand how to create a workplace that attracts, supports and retains today’s bakery talent. 

Our panelists will discuss the key benefits that young bakers value most—such as flexibility, professional growth opportunities, a collaborative culture, meaningful work-life balance, compensation & more. We hope this session will inspire bakery employers to build an environment that nurtures job satisfaction while creating a successful bakery team. Gain practical insights and ideas for making your bakery a place where the next generation of bakers can thrive and elevate your workplace culture. 

 Our panelists will discuss: 

• Career goals and professional development expectations 

• Workplace culture and environment preferences 

• What makes an employer attractive to the next generation of bakers 

• Their vision for the future of the baking industry 

 

Panelists include: 

Jen Heide, CBB Jen Heide is the Assistant Pastry Chef at the Everglades Club in Palm Beach, Florida. She is a Certified Bread Baker, Certified Executive Pastry Chef, and a Certified Baker.  After graduating from the Florida Culinary Institute, Chef Jen has worked in pastry kitchens for 15 years, developing specialties in bread, viennoiserie, fine pastry, and chocolate- although she is a baker at heart. She enjoys learning and continuing to develop her craft, as well as helping the next generation of bakers and pastry chefs to achieve their goals.

Val Kertesz has been an avid baker since childhood. A Cleveland native, they started working professionally at seventeen at On the Rise Artisan Breads, specializing in pastry and bread production. Val enjoys playing the bass guitar, gardening, and folding origami when not baking. Val is training as the commis that will support the Mondial du Pain competition in 2025.  

 Taylor Craft is a recent Kendall College's Baking and Pastry Arts program graduate. She earned her associate's degree in baking and pastry at Kendall College in Chicago. Taylor has worked as a pastry cook in professional bakeries and catering kitchens and as a food stylist for both internal and external Food Network productions. She has a special place in her heart for viennoiserie and boundary-pushing flavor combinations within pastry.   IG: @TayloredAndCrafted 

Craft • Culture • Careers• Community

February 11 / 4:00 PM - 5:30 pm ET

Chocolate lovers are among a bakery’s most loyal customers. Couverture lines have a variety of styles to meet the various needs of your diverse menu. These recommendations consider viscosity, fat, and flavor—but how does this translate to your tried-and-true formulas? Understanding the versatility of these options can streamline your inventory and make selecting the right chocolate products less daunting. 

In this class, Guittard pastry chef Josh Johnson will share his secrets for enhancing cocoa flavors and creating consistent results as he explores the nuance between distinct types of chocolate products.   

By the end of this class, students will have learned about: 

• Best applications for different chocolates 
• Emulsions and how to stabilize and fix them
• Which types of chocolates can be substituted and the fundamental differences between them  

Josh Johnson, Products Application Director

Josh Johnson is the Pastry Chef of Guittard Chocolate Company, the revered San Francisco Bay Area family-owned chocolate maker, where he brings his celebrated craft, artistry and palate in developing new recipes and ideas with Executive Pastry Chef Donald Wressell.

Josh has competed in and won the National Pastry Team Championship with team captain Donald Wressell and teammates Scott Green and Della Gossett.  The team went on to win Best Dégustation and Silver Medal overall at the 2012 World Pastry Championship in Las Vegas. Josh also competed in the 2015 Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie with teammates Scott Green and John Kraus, coached by Ewald Notter and Donald Wressell, where they brought home the Bronze medal.

Josh started working in pastry as a teenager in his uncle’s pastry shop in Illinois and honed his skills training under the tutelage of mentor Sébastien Canonne, M.O.F., and pastry chefs En-Ming Hsu, World Pastry Champion, and François Payard. He was Executive Pastry Chef at Everest in Chicago, co-owner of Cocoa Bean Fine Desserts in Geneva, Illinois, an instructor at The French Pastry School and, most recently, Head Pastry Chef at Destination Kohler in Kohler, Wisconsin.

He is inspired by chocolate’s infinite variety of flavor profiles and its versatility as an ingredient that can also be sculpted and shaped to delicious and delightful effect.

March 5 / 8:00AM - 3:00pm ET

Institute of Culinary Education  

225 Liberty Street, 3rd Floor,

NY, NY 

In this interactive and immersive class, unlock the secrets to crafting the highest-quality, plant-based pastries and desserts. We'll explore essential ingredients, innovative techniques, and foolproof recipes that elevate your creations with Susannah Schoolman of Tourlami.  

You'll gain a deep understanding of the function of each ingredient and learn how to work with them to achieve exceptional results. Through demonstrations and hands-on practice, we'll tackle classic pastry techniques, including:  

• Laminated doughs for flaky croissants and puff pastry  

• Enriched doughs for soft, tender brioche  

• Perfectly crumbly scones  

• Elegant and flavorful tarts  

Whether you're a seasoned baker or new to plant-based pastry, this class will equip you with the knowledge and skills to create stunning desserts that taste as amazing as they look.  

We will make puff pastry, which we will then turn into savory tarts, sugar brioche tarts with vanilla pastry cream and fruit, fruit scones, and chocolate passion fruit caramel tarts.   

By the end of this class, students will:  

• Understand common bakery ingredients and their functions, and vegan substitutes and why they work  

• Fundamental principles of lamination  

• Execution and assembly of staple bakery items with a vegan approach that doesn't compromise on flavor or presentation.

Susannah Schoolman is the Founder and CEO of Tourlami, a plant-based ingredients company specializing in plant-based butter for professional use. Susannah has worked her way through some of the most lauded bakeries and kitchens in the world, beginning with her career at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery in New York City, and then on the opening team for Lincoln Ristorante in Lincoln Center under Jonathan Benno and Richard Capizzi. Next she became the Head Baker at b. Patisserie under James Beard Award winning Belinda Leong at their San Francisco and Hawaii locations, before moving to Copenhagen to become the Head of Pastry and Viennoiserie at noma-partnered Hart Bageri under Richard Hart. 

In 2016, Susannah adpoted a plant-based lifestyle and instantly felt the disconnect between her personal and professional lives. Frustrated with a lack of consistent and delicious plant-based butters, Susannah created Tourlami as a way to bring the highest quality plant-based ingredients to bakers, chefs, and pastry chefs. 

 

Day One:  March 23 / 3pm - 7pm ET   

Day Two:  March 24 / 8am - 4pm ET 

Day Three:  March 25 /8am - 4pm ET 

3728 Plaza Drive, Ann Arbor, MI

Join us in Michigan this spring for Bread & Butter—three days of essential education in the business of baking. 

March 23-25 at ZingTrain, 3728 Plaza Drive, Ann Arbor, MI. 

Designed for early-stage bakery owners and operators—but open to all—this in-depth, interactive conference will cover: 

• Bakery Finances 

• Smart Operational Choices 

• Creating Good Jobs and Building a Strong Team 

• Menu Design, Optimization, and Pricing 

You’ll leave with actionable concepts, practical tools, and fresh ideas to implement in your business, setting your bakery on a clear path to thrive. 

The Full Schedule 

Day One: Sunday, March 23 - 3:00 - 7:00 pm 

• Welcome to ZingTrain, our host 

• Zingerman's Bakehouse Tour 

• Keynote Address from Ari Weinzweig, Zingerman's co-founder: Creating a Vision of Greatness 

• Light Dinner 

Day Two: Monday, March 24 - 8:00 am - 4:00 pm 

• Bakery Finance 101, with Amy Emberling and Ron Maurer of Zingerman's 

10 Rules of Finance 

Profit & Loss Statements 

Cash Flow Statements 

Balance Sheets 

Putting Finance 101 to work in your bakery

• Breakfast & Lunch served 

Day Three: Tuesday, March 25 - 8:00 am - 4:00 pm 

• The Good Jobs Strategy:  Smart operations and investments in people make for a strong, profitable business, with Sandhya Mahadevan of the Good Jobs Institute 

• Dough to Dollars: Menu Design, Optimization & Pricing, with EderiqueGoudia of In the Business of Food 

• Breakfast & Lunch Served 

For more information, visit the Bread & Butter webpage. 

Read about our cancellation policy here.

May 20 / 11am - 6pm ET Day 1  

May 21 / 9am - 4pm ET Day 2

King Arthur Baking Company,

Norwich, VT

Join us at King Arthur Baking and deepen your understanding of sourdough products and processes. In this course, we will produce a variety of breads and explore foundational factors such as build schedules, hydration, flour selection, and fermentation times. We will examine how temperature influences flavor profiles, dough characteristics and production timelines. Learning to manipulate these and other variables is critical to the baker’s success at any scale. The subject will be explored in its historical context with a focus on how principles affect production in real time.  

 By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Create functional sourdough maintenance schedules, to meet your bakery’s demands. 

• Select appropriate preferments, suitable for best outcomes. 

• Design breads  with an understanding of the dynamic relationship between percentages, prefermented flour, flour types, fermentation times, and temperatures.  

• Manipulate hydration and temperature, as seasons and daily needs dictate. 
  

***For this course, a basic knowledge of baker's percentages and some prior experience with sourdough is recommended. 

Lucas Diggle has been baking professionally since 2002. Prior to joining the Baking School in 2021, he spent ten years in King Arthur’s production bakery. He is one of a small number of bakers certified by the Bread Baker’s Guild of America and was a member of the team that traveled to Paris in 2018 to represent the United States at the Fête du Pain. He lives in Vermont with his wife and four beautiful children.