Our mission. Our promise.

Good nutrition is balanced nutrition and a key component is wholesome breads made with whole grains, organic nuts and fruit, no chemicals or additives, breads with a great crust and a soft interior.

This is Simply Bread.

Simply Bread was formed with a simple mission: to restore bread to its rightful place as a component of a balanced, nutritious and healthy lifestyle. We commit ourselves to producing breads made with the highest quality ingredients available, and we vow to use NO chemicals, additives or flavoring agents. The flavor in our breads is the flavor nature intended.

Furthermore, we are committed to long fermenting cycles so that we can extract maximum flavor and complexity, allowing the natural flavors to express themselves. Bottom line: we never compromise. Not with ingredients, not with nutrition, not with process, not with time. Our bread is a statement of our integrity and our respect for you, our customers, ensuring you receive the very best.

Bread has gotten a bad rap … and deservedly so
For many years now, bread has lost its value as a food item in the U.S. Why? In large part, from a mentality of compromise and the resulting progressive dumbing down of bread to the point that its nutritional value has been debased. Other than the “sugar value,” most bread today has little to offer because the components that had nutritional value have been systematically removed and replaced with chemicals and flavoring agents.

Furthermore, the United States permits the addition of bromates and ADA to milled flour. These chemicals were added because they enabled a miller to use lower quality flour and to avoid naturally aging that flour. Consequently, a baker could bake the same day the wheat was milled. (Read: time is money. Bingo, compromise.) Bromates are known carcinogens but have become acceptable additives in the U.S. although they have been banned in California and in most countries throughout the world.

The heritage of Simply Bread
Bread has always been the support structure for food in Europe. Made correctly with a good flavorful crust and delicate crumb, it makes for satisfying eating. Its minerals, fiber and mouth feel complement a meal and round out the flavor and nutritional elements.

Most importantly, a wholesome bread enables a meal to be balanced, interesting, lower in calories and very satisfying. With lots of flavor, our loaves at Simply Bread give truth to the axiom “less is more.” It does not take a lot of our bread to satisfy; the flavor does it all. Traditional breads, traditional methods, no compromise.

Here are the some of the ways heritage and tradition are preserved through our practices:

• We’ve imported traditional French bannetons (bentwood willow baskets) which have been used for hundreds of years in the Old World process known as proofing. This is what gives each loaf its characteristic texture and shape. Today’s “artisan” bakers use plastic. Using the willow baskets to proof our country-style breads is one of our quality controls. For baguettes and rolls, we use couches (heavily floured linen proofing cloths). Yankellow explains, “We revere this traditional approach because it’s the yeast settling into the ridges in the willow baskets and into the weave of the linen cloths that imparts a historic memory of flavors.”
  
  
• The natural fermentation process is the cornerstone of the traditional artisan European baking process. Yankellow notes that this is a process that “sets us apart from other local bakeries. It’s a slow, tedious process but it’s the key to maintaining the integrity of our bread and provides the natural flavor of the ingredients.”
  
  
• ALL loaves are formed by hand individually and gently which preserves the natural texture and makes our bread toothsome, tasty and satisfying. For example, other bakers “stamp” the shape on challah loaves, ruining both the texture and taste.
  
  

In 2005, the United States team won the Coupe du Monde de Boulangerie, the international baking Olympics in Paris. Jeff Yankellow represented the American team in bread baking and is the Executive Chef at Simply Bread. Shortly thereafter, he and Harold Back committed themselves to making breads that authentically go back to a time when bread was a foundation food and could be relied upon to provide meaningful nutrition. They committed themselves to baking bread that could be trusted as a basic, nutritious food.

At Simply Bread, we do not compromise on the breads we make and we ensure the highest standards in what we do. All of our breads are kosher; the vast majority of our ingredients are organic. All breads are made with dedication to the idea that bread is the “staff of life.” Everything we do is a commitment to ensuring a return to foods that are enjoyable, healthy and nutritious to consume – food that matters, food that restores.