Wholesale, Retail and
Incubator Space
Hot Bread Kitchen
Food Start Up Help recently visited Hot Bread Kitchen, and met with Molly Crossin (Communications & Development Director) and CBO (Chief Bread Officer) Ben Hershberger for a tour. Hot Bread Kitchen is located in Spanish Harlem’s historic La Marqueta at 115th Street and Park Avenue, and is open Monday – Saturday 8 am – 6 pm. Visit their website, www.hotbreadkitchen.org to learn more about their artisan products, on-the-job training programs, and community events.
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Kathryn: Hi Ben, I haven’t seen you since you
were at Per Se. And now you’re
here, in Hot Bread Kitchen! Molly,
it’s nice to meet you! Can you
tell us about Hot Bread Kitchen?
Molly: Our mission is to increase economic
security for foreign born and low income people. We work with the community through: on-the-job training programs to work
with our bakers and produce wholesale/retail breads, and also offer an
incubator commercial kitchen space available for lease by entrepreneurs.
Kathryn: Ben, what are the differences from
working in a traditional production kitchen and here, where you do production
but also are a training program at the same time?
Ben: It’s challenging, but I love it. In the outside world, I had complete
control over who was hired, and fired.
Here, we work with people to figure out how we can train them for
future, outside jobs. I figure out
who’s best suited for what tasks.
For instance, some people are excellent at shaping breads while others
are really good at the actual baking of the product.
Jessie: I see that you have some great training/kitchen
organization materials here for the trainees. How long do the trainees work, here at Hot Bread Kitchen?
Molly: There is no typical length of
time. For some it’s a year, for
others many years.
Kathryn: And besides the production facility,
you also have a classroom. You
have lots of great bread books here!
Molly: We do counseling, and English-language
classes. It’s very one-on-one with
each of our trainees. Someone is
having a review right now, in fact.
Jeff: How often do you take on new trainees?
Ben: I’m evaluating one today. She’s working in the shaping room, and
just came to me through our application process. So far, she’s picking it up well. I have to look at how someone “fits into the team,” and how
quickly they can pick up a particular skill to determine if they are a good
fit.
Right now, they are all shaping bialys.
Kathryn: I see spiral mixers, proofer/retarders
and other bread making equipment I recognize, but I don’t recognize all the
equipment! Can you tell us what’s
new in the kitchen?
Ben: This is our tortilla production line. We just got a machine for the
corn nixtamalization – which is the process to treat corn with lime to increase
its nutritional content.
Jeff: Where do you source your ingredients?
Ben: We try to work with organic and local
ingredients when I can. I am
getting some of my corn and flours from western NY State. It’s good: the bakers learn how to interact with the dough and evaluate
the hydration, because the flours vary between deliveries. They learn more that way, which is
useful when they get outside jobs.
Jessie: Molly, can you tell us about the
incubator kitchen facility?
Molly: We work with up to 50 clients at a time
here, and offer incubator client workshops to help support them. The application process and rates is
outlined on our website, www.hotbreadkitchen.org. In addition, we lease to a certain
number of commercial clients; they have to be “up and running” before they can
apply here, with a developed product and a bit of a customer base.
You can also take a virtual tour of the facility on the
website.
Jessie: Thank you so much for the tour and your time!
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