Amy Scherber

Founder, Amy’s Bread
www.amysbread.com

As founder of Amy’s Bread, Amy Scherber has figured out how to make the fortunes of her business rise, much like the 9200 pounds of dough that her bakers shape into loaves, rolls and twists in her kitchens each day. Amy started by opening one New York City bakery with five employees in 1992, and today oversees three retail locations, 200 daily wholesale deliveries and about 140 employees.

Going way beyond your basic baguette, Amy’s Bread offers hundreds of different items.
Her current faves include: Peasant Wheat Bread with Toasted Seeds, Picholine Olive Bread and French Ham-and-Butter Sandwiches. She’s also known for her Semolina Bread with Golden Raisins and Fennel.

Here Amy tells how she started her business from scratch, shares a simple way you can turn bakery-bought bread into a slice of heaven, and serves up an impress-your-guests recipe for Easter.

Discovering Her Passion

“I knew somehow in the back of my mind, I always wanted to have my own business. It started in college (St. Olaf College in Minnesota) as a burning desire… I didn’t know what that business would be. When I worked in restaurants, baking is what I loved and bread was my passion. Once I studied bread and was a baker for two years in restaurants, it gelled for me that I really wanted to open a great bread bakery.”

Launching Despite Lack of Experience

“At that time, there wasn’t enough great bread around, even in New York City. The market was ready and I was the one to do it. I had never really worked a bakery before… I had done short internships in three bakeries… so opening a bakery was foolish because I had no experience with day-to-day production, making large batches or running the whole operation.”

Seizing Opportunity

“But I knew I just needed to get it going because I didn’t have lot of big commitments in my life at the time. I was 32 and not married. I was living in a rental apartment and had few financial commitments. I was not paying myself – for eight months I was living off savings. I ate some of the food at the bakery because often there was not even time to eat. I didn’t have children or major things to deal with other than starting my business.”

Story of Rejection – Start-Up Funding

“I started out going around to banks and the SBA and they all told me they wouldn’t fund a risky food business. So I looked to other sources and asked friends and family for loans.
When I was trying to figure out how to raise money I kept coming back against… if I ask people to invest, what are they going to get? I need to keep my profit to keep my business healthy by doing things with the money like buying a new oven.

“How can I ask someone who I didn’t know that well, ‘Can you let me have $50,000?’ So instead I took out loans where the loans needed to be paid in just under ten years, at an interest rate that’s one point above prime. We have always paid back our loans.”

The Rise of Her Bread Business – Secret Number One

“Paying attention to the signs of where the business should go. You have to look at the forks in the road and choose which road to take. We’re still a bread bakery first. We have added lots of other products and services like creating beautiful layer cakes and catering luncheons for offices, but we have remained true to our original goal of top-quality, handmade, traditional, not mechanized bread. We’re still following those same goals all these years later.”

The Rise of Her Bread Business – Secret Number Two

“I’ve been careful to keep slow, controlled growth. When a big opportunity comes up, I might pull back instead of leaping into expanding into a lot of new locations or going off on a tangent, which makes the business vulnerable.”

Greatest Challenge

“I’m such a trusting person, but I have been burned by people who have figured out a loophole to steal product or money. They’ll ring something up a different way… they’re (ringing up) the item as $1 when it’s supposed to be $5, so they get a $4 tip. Every time it happens, it’s just like being punched in the stomach. Then you have to regroup and figure out how it happened and why. Why does an employee have a sense of entitlement when we have tried to treat them well and pay them well? When these things happen, it’s been shocking because people who have been stealing have been those that I have trusted,”

Greatest Success

” love my staff… I want to have a team that’s proud and happy and invested in their work. For the most part, we have that positive attitude and many employees stay for many years. I’m proud of the fact that we have a great team, a staff that is happy to be part of the company. If I look at the core team of bread bakers, a lot of them have been here for many, many years and they really love their bread.”

Entrepreneurial Influence – What Father Knows Best

“My dad worked for Pillsbury for 35 years, and every night at dinner he talked about what happened that day. He was a top-level manager there, and ended up sharing a lot of ideas with me. He’s one of my mentors… he always give me ideas for how to solve problems.

“He’s always been a tough manager – he let people know what the expectations are and won’t settle for less. He would go to a person and say, ‘This is what I need from you.’ He would nip it in the bud when something’s wrong… either using discipline or training to get it right. Being clear with his expectations and firm about it… that’s one of his strongest standards, and something I try to teach managers here as they come on board. Often new managers don’t know how to communicate what they need.”

Words of Advice

“I think that you have to be willing to work really hard and not give up, even though you’re exhausted and at certain times you’re ready to throw in the towel.

“You have to be hard-headed and resilient and keep your vision and get your vision out to employees. In your own head, you can see (your vision) crystal clear. If you can get (employees) to understand it with you, you’re going-to be a lot better off.”

To Taste a Slice of Heaven…
Try This with a Good Loaf of Bread

“I love toasting bread… the crunchy warm fragrance of bread comes out. I toast everything, pretty much. For breakfast, I love bread with butter and honey. I have a collection of honeys from around the world. I have some chestnut honey from Italy, and some Tasmanian honey from Australia that are both amazing. My current favorite is toasted Whole Wheat Walnut Bread with honey.”

Think You’re Too Busy to Bake? Here’s Help.

“The acts of baking bread are not so time-consuming… it’s the patience between the steps. One thing I have taught people is to mix the dough in the evening. Let it rise for about an hour and refrigerate it overnight. The next day, pull it out and let it warm to room temperature. Divide it, shape it into loaves, let it rise, and bake it. Let’s say you (make the dough) on a Friday night… on Saturday you have fresh bread. It doesn’t require the entire day.”

Idea for Easter: Impress Everyone with Homemade Hot-Cross Buns

One of our traditions is to make at least one special bread to celebrate each holiday throughout the year. For Easter we always make hot cross buns. These little currant filled rolls are slightly sweet, mildly spicy, and richly tender with milk and eggs. In the pre-Christian era, these buns were served to honor the goddess of spring. Later, the cross was cut in the top to symbolize the Christian religion. Hot cross buns are traditionally sold in England on Good Friday. We sell them throughout the weeks before Easter. Don’t wait until Easter to try this recipe, however-once you’ve made them, you’ll want them all year round. Be careful not to overbake them, or their delicate flavor will be lost.