Today we’d like to introduce you to Greg Wade.
Greg, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Publican Quality Bread started in the basement kitchen of Publican Quality Meats, baking overnight. We only served the One Off Hospitality restaurants and we were able to do a wide variety of products from sourdough breads to naan, bagels and pretzels. I took the helm of the bread program six months prior to the wholesale bakery opening, PQM had been baking bread about a year and a half at this point. When we were able to move to the wholesale bakery space, we took on new customers and instead of saying “here’s what we offer” we asked “what is it you want?” It was a terrible business model. After a few months of consistency issues and overworked bakers, we stepped back and asked “what do we actually want to be doing here?” We decided we didn’t need to be known for the best burger buns in Chicago, but we wanted to be known for our whole grain, sourdough breads. Something I brought to the Publican Quality Bread program was a great relationship with Marty and Will Travis, the father and son team that run Spence Farm in Fairbury. Spence Farm is a biodynamic farm that focuses on regenerative farming practices. What is really special about this way of farming is that it is not only great for the soil health and the environment, it focuses on growing the healthiest plants possible. Once a plant reaches a certain level of health, it will put all of its extra energy into bioflavonoids, these are chemicals that give food its flavor. So the healthier Marty and Will can grow their plants, the better their produce tastes. At the bakery, we take their amazing heritage grains, which we choose first and foremost for flavor, and we ferment them for three days to make our bread. This long fermentation process and fantastic supply of tasty, healthy grain is what has allowed us to grow to supplying over 60 restaurants with 10,000 pounds of bread per week currently.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I don’t think anyone has ever had an easy path to success. At first, we struggled with our model. Because we were making a ton of different products, but small amounts of them, we were not efficient. We had problems with consistency and we were losing money. By shrinking the program to just the products we knew we wanted to do extremely well and telling people what we offered rather than asking what they wanted, we were able to get the bakery to a good point financially. We also had issues with the way the space was designed and our ancillary systems like air conditioning. We didn’t have enough HVAC to combat a giant hearth oven coupled with all of the hot bread coming out of the oven, this lead to our bakery being very hot and humid. With fermentation, your two controllable are time and temperature. Since we couldn’t control our temperature, we had issues with our dough over proofing.
Please tell us about Publican Quality Bread.
One Off Hospitality started with Blackbird and Avec, it has now grown to nine locations. All of the restaurants are ingredient focused, with quality of food and service being paramount. The bakery also holds those principles. We are partnered with Spence Farm, who grows grain specifically for this bakery. Our breads are made in an artisanal way, with these special grains, the whole program is based around the flavor derived from just using those grains, with a supplemental bonus that this is also the healthiest way to make bread.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would try to be less stubborn and headstrong. Often times you can go down because you can’t see past your poor decisions and for some reason think that those decisions must be final. I think it speaks to a person’s character more if they can admit a bad idea was a bad idea, but they had the confidence and wherewithal to make the necessary changes.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.publicanqualitybread.com
- Phone: 3126051618
- Email: publicanqualitybread@gmail.com
- Instagram: @gregwadebakes
Image Credit:
Rachel Dickens
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