It has been just over one year since co-op members have been selling fresh baked handmade bread!
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| Chris's experimenting at home December 2010 |
Last January, Chris started baking bread to sell at the Slow Food Market and raise money for Stratford Urban Farming Experiment.
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| Your Local Sourdough Shilling January 2012 |
It has been quite the journey...
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| baguettes |
Chris got up very early every Sunday morning and set off for Revel Caffe, where Anne had kindly made a barter with him for kitchen time. Stratford Urban Farming Experiment would then sell a selection of buns and loaves to folks at the market.
Over the next few months Chris worked on new recipes, but quickly outgrew the space in Revel's Kitchen.
At this time, Shawn at Simple Fish and Chips was in need of brioche buns. He offered a trade – kitchen time on Sunday mornings for brioche buns. Chris had not yet made brioche before so experimented for a few weeks until he learned some tricks.
Selling out every week at market, Chris soon reached his capacity – even with the larger kitchen. Katelyn came along who offered to help in the early hours in exchange for learning about baking bread. But soon enough again they reached capacity.
All the while we had been meeting to start up a co-operative grocery store and by the time June came and the Slow Food Market moved outdoors, our kitchen at 129 Downie Street was set up and Stratford Urban Farming Experiment rented the kitchen from the co-op to continue to fund-raise over the summer.
Since then Chris and Katelyn have been working hard to add new recipes to Your Local Market Co-op's collection.
Here's to the co-op developing more bakers and more baked goods...
