Cooking Culture
What does your company do?
We are a Specialist Sourdough Bakery. We make the widest (and ever-growing) variety of sourdough breads, sourdough cakes, rusks, biscuits, pies, etc. We source the best ingredients with quality and health being the key driver, and price/profit 2nd. Educating the public about REAL BREAD and the science and health benefits of slow fermentation, slow food, proper storage for optimal benefits as well as the vital importance of gut health.
In order to connect with our customers face to face - we were strategic in our choice of markets, which we do once or twice a month. The response has been phenomenal, where our customers follow us to support us at various markets and stock up on their favourite sourdough bakes. Many travel long distances and make our hard work so satisfying to see the positive response and appreciation of our product. Delivering consistent, high quality is of utmost importance to us at Cooking Culture.
We do workshops on sourdough, supply our culture free of charge and will be extending our education and workshops with guest chefs to expose more to the amazing fermented foods of various cultures which is way larger than just sourdough bread.
What is your biggest success?
The skill and knowledge gained over the 6 years of consistent hard work has yielded a wide range of healthy, good quality bakes which are all sourdough based. Our biggest success is the relationships we have with our growing customer base and the personal expressions of appreciation when they meet us face to face is heart-warming.
The way in which customers respond to our sharing knowledge of the health aspects and the production process as well as the WHY of what we do is well received. To educate and share what we do with people is gratifying. To hear stories of how our bread impacts their daily life keeps us motivated.
Getting to see the impact of all the effort and hard work in increased sales means we can continue to grow and more people will be able to join our team and be trained. There is nowhere else this kind of training and skill can be passed on. I hope to be able to move out of actual production to teaching once our production team is in place. one big goal I am working on.
What has been your biggest hurdle?
The biggest hurdle is wearing too many different hats. It makes for delays in managing admin and constant exhaustion will take its toll in time. Empowering my part-timer by training and handing over some of the production has already helped lift the load to some extent.
Lack of space - moving a bakery calls for huge amount of funds for rent, changes to infrastructure and more equipment, electrical and water supply, wages and training, etc. The biggest reason the move is delayed is the =erratic hours we work as sourdough is affected by many environmental changes and calls for working late into the night, long hours or checking on dough during the night. Living on site is the best way to manage this. Safety and security is a huge consideration as well. Lack of space to work or train more people, or grow the business and add more equipment is a big problem.
Power issues are our BIGGEST problem. We run ovens on 3-phase power and being in a residential area means we can't have more powerful, noisy generators and cant run them during the night and disturb neighbours. So when power is out for 3 days to a week we actually have to lose our whole bake for the week and all the lost time all adds up as well.
