In 1982, the couple sold their Great Falls store and moved south to Dillon, a three-hour drive, to live and work as franchisers. In 1978, someone asked the Wakemans for a franchise, beginning the proliferation of Great Harvest bakeries across the country. To market their bread, the Wakemans gave out samples, warm from the oven. The dough was kneaded by hand and sweetened with honey or molasses instead of refined sugar. This helped give the bread a shelf life of up to 12 days at room temperature. The Wakemans' started with spring wheat from Montana, stone ground every morning. However, it was the traditional, even anachronistic baking practices they followed that proved the most effective way of drawing customers. They also addressed the problem of burnout early on by not working weekends and keeping time cards to prevent themselves from working too many hours. After three weeks of getting up at 3:00 a.m., they allowed themselves to work later in the day, which put the sights and smells of making fresh bread in front of the delighted customers. began to take shape.Ī cardinal rule of conventional baking they abandoned was the early starting hours. There they bought an existing bakery in Great Falls, and the unorthodox methods of the Great Harvest Bread Co. After graduating from Cornell, Pete and Laura married, settling in Montana after hiking 500 miles between Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. Pete worked for a year on a dairy farm during his Laura's last year in school. Pete graduated with a degree in agricultural economics in 1974 Laura earned a degree in nutrition a year later. The Wakemans' studies at Cornell University were ideal for the career path they would later follow. They called the operation "The Happy Oven," Pete recalled in Tom McMakin's book Bread and Butter. Pete and Laura began baking bread for money in 1972 to help pay for college, using an antiquated, water-driven stone mill to grind the wheat. #GREAT HARVEST BREAD COMPANY HOW TO#There he became the school's resident baker, having learned how to make bread from an aunt. As a teenager Pete was sent for two years to finish high school in Deep Springs, California. Great Harvest founders Pete and Laura Wakeman met as children in Durham, Connecticut. #GREAT HARVEST BREAD COMPANY FREE#There are about 150 franchised Great Harvest bakeries across the United States, and much has been made of the company as a "learning organization," its network of franchisees free to innovate and communicate. Stop by our neighborhood bakery cafe in Utah and see for yourself.Great Harvest Bread Company is known for baking great whole wheat bread and for following unconventional business strategies. You will probably remember this sandwich and want to come back for another one. You may realize you’ve never had a sandwich on fresh bread before this. It may be the best sandwich you’ve ever tasted. It will be served on bread that is not just fresh baked, but also freshly made from fresh ground flour - instead of frozen, mass-produced dough. The outside of your sandwich will be as good as the inside. When you order a sandwich at your neighborhood bakery cafe, you get fresh, real food, made by a real person who is happy to make it for you. It takes longer, but we’ve found there are no shortcuts to making exceptional bread, and that’s what we are here to do. Our approach to bread making and business has always been to do things the right way, and as our menu has grown, that philosophy extends to our other products as well. That means we use simple, honest ingredients and the best baking methods rather than the fastest or cheapest way. We are a bread company first, and above all, we do bread right. At Great Harvest, we are committed to making exceptional bread.
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